It seems the Java download site has been down for 24 hours. Many internet posts by folk receiving “This page can’t be displayed” after clicking the download button. The “See all Java downloads” page results in the same message.
A site test reveals it is down as well: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/javadl.sun.com
I did find the Oracle site worked without any problems: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jre7-downloads-1880261.html
There are many articles regarding how to locate and regain space consumed by many SBS services and log files, including one of my own; “Missing SBS 2008/2011 Drive Space“. One of the most common issues is the WSUS admin logs located in C:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\W3SVC_____ which can consume huge amounts of drive space. With SBS 2011 and SBS 2008 (2008 if updates are applied) this particular folder should be looked after by a scheduled task which clears out log files older than 100 days. In a few cases you may want to edit this and reduce it to a shorter period of time, as very nicely explained by Ronny Pot.
I was asked to look at an SBS server today which had ‘lost’ most of its system partition available space. It was not really lost as it was found in a C:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles\W3SVC_____ folder. However, this should have been looked after by the aforementioned scheduled task. Upon review of the task history it seems the task’s script has been failing for several months resulting in “Action start failed” and “Action failed to start” messages with an Error Value of 2147942402.
Note: the task is located under Administrative Tools | Task Scheduler | Task Scheduler Library | Microsoft | Windows | Windows Small Business Server 20xx Standard | WSUSLog Cleaner
In this case the time frame had been reduced to 30 days, but noticed when saving the changes, if not paying attention, the “arguments” for the script can get modified by Windows. The changes can be made under the Actions tab as per the image below:
However, in some but not all cases, when clicking OK to save you may get a popup as below:
Note the text. If you select yes it changes the Program/Script field to C:\Program, and the Argument field to Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin\WSUSLogCleaner.vbs 30. The entire path needs to be in the Program/Scripts field and only 30 in the argument. It seems someone in a hurry clicked yes, as one would assume when approving changes, and did not double check after the fact. It seems the popup only occurs if there are no existing quotes around “C:\Program,Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin\WSUSLogCleaner.vbs” in the Program/Scripts field.
In the past I wrote a couple of articles explaining how to connect to a business network using a Windows VPN prior to logon, so that domain authentication takes place and group policies and logon scripts are applied. See: Win 7 and earlier and Win 8
As pointed out in the articles, this only works for domain joined computers. It has been brought to my attention that some folks would like to automate the VPN connection process on non domain joined machines. .
Basically you need a one line batch file and add it to the startup folder, but in detail:
rem Batch file to establish a VPN connection
rasdial acme username password
exit
XP: Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\ Programs\Startup
Win7: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp
For those following my blog in Atlantic Canada, you may be interested in an upcoming local event:
Spend an evening with Mitch Garvis, Virtual Technology Evangelist with Microsoft Canada, getting to know the Microsoft server virtualization story. Learn not only about Hyper-V, but also the management and Private Cloud scenarios that System Center 2012 SP1 brings to the table, Learn how to build your cloud, and also how Microsoft sets itself apart from (and ahead of) the competition in the Virtualization world!
This informal event will consist almost entirely of discussions and demos, with only a smattering of PowerPoint and fluff. The demos will be entirely unscripted, so you will get to ask what you want to see… and Mitch will do it!
The event is to be held Tuesday, June 11, 2013 from 5:30 PM to 9:00 PM, at the Nova Scotia Community College Institute of IT Campus, 5685 Leeds St., Halifax, NS
To register: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/6998359281
Server 2012 has a new Remote Desktop Services (RDS) feature set which is a great addition to any network. A common reason for wanting to implement 2012 RDS is for the Remote FX feature, RDP on steroids, which provides substantially better performance when remotely running graphic intensive applications, but there are other Remote FX bonus elements as well, in addition to other 2012 RDS features. Remote FX was included with Server 2008 R2, but the pre 2012 hardware requirements were more restrictive, and configuration was a little more involved.
Remote Desktop Services is installed a little differently than it’s predecessor Terminal Services. Most current instruction sets advise you to use the “Remote Desktop Services installation” wizard, seen in the third image below. However this automatically installs related services that conflict with those already installed on SBS, such as the Remote Desktop Gateway Service. Therefore you need to install using the “Role Based or feature-based installation” method and manually select the features to be installed.
To add a Server 2012, running the RDS role, the steps are as follows.
There are some minor configurations to be done as well.
Your RDS server should now be fully functional.
I was amused the other day to discover the two gophers that many of us remember from our childhood cartoons were named Mac ‘n Tosh. The cartoon was first created by animator Robert Clampett in 1947 for the short film “The Goofy Gophers“, thirty-seven years before the release of the first Macintosh computer.
I tried installing Intuit’s Quickbooks 2013 today on a Windows 2012 server and received a message advising; “your system has only xxxMB of memory. Quickbooks requires at least 1GB of memory.”
There was most definitely lots of RAM, so fortunately a quick Google turned up the following Intuit site which indicated Quickbooks does not always detect the proper amount of RAM available on 64 bit systems, and proposed the solution below:
http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/SLN41834
However I will elaborate slightly…
Rather than install from a CD copy the installation files to a location on the computer, then locate the following the file; …..\QBooks\Framework.xml For safety sake make a copy of this file, then review the properties of the file, and remove the read only attribute, if present.
Next open Framework.xml with Notepad and locate the memory requirements under <MinRequirements> within the following text.
Change the specification from 1000MB to 0MB, save the file, and re-try your installation.
We often work with Anthony, Pierre and Mitch, the evangelists from the IT Pro team at Microsoft Canada. They asked us to share this important message with you.
The team at Microsoft Canada is focused on ensuring that they help set you up for success by providing the information and tools you need in order to be get the most out of Microsoft based solutions, at home and at work.
Twice a year, Microsoft sends out the Global Relationship Study (GRS for short); it’s a survey that Microsoft uses to collect your feedback and help inform their planning. If you receive emails from Microsoft, subscribe to their newsletters‚ or you’ve attended our any of their events you may receive the survey.
The important details:
Many of you already read the Microsoft Canada IT Pro team’s blogs‚ connect with them on LinkedIn and have attended their events in the last year or so. So you may already know that you’re their top priority. So they want to hear from you.
Pierre, Anthony and Mitch use the GRS results to shape what they do, how they do it and if it’s resonating with you. Tell them what you need to be the “go-to” guy (or gal). Tell them what you need to grow your career. They want you to be completely satisfied with Microsoft Canada.
This year, Pierre, Anthony and Mitch have delivered 30 IT Camps and counting across the country. Giving you the opportunity to get hands on and learn how to get the most value for your organization. They have a few more events planned this year, so keep an eye on their plancast feed for events near you. Based on your feedback, topics they’re planning to cover will include:
· Windows 8
· Windows Server 2012
· System Center 2012
· Private Cloud
· BYOD – Management and Security
That’s not all. They’ve heard you loud and clear so in addition to hands on events, they’re also delivering more technical content online via the IT Pro Connection Blog. Windows 8 continues to be a big area of focus for them. They covered a lot of great content at launch and they’ve complimented that with new content like:
· Windows 8 and System Center 2012 Integration
In addition to this, there are some valuable online resources you can use like Microsoft Virtual Academy, Microsoft’s no-cost online training portal. Or software evaluations (free trials) on TechNet that allow you to build your own labs to try out what you’ve learned.
Regardless of how you engage with the team at Microsoft Canada‚ you’d probably agree that they hear you. They’d also encourage you to continue to provide that great feedback. They thrive on it‚ they relish it‚ they wallow in it and most importantly of all‚ they action it. So please keep connecting with them and keep it coming! Pierre, Anthony and Mitch are listening.
· Tim Horton’s Gift Card Contest – We’re giving away 350 Tim Horton’s gift cards, all you have to do to qualify is download a free qualifying software evaluation (trial). Download all three for more chances to win, but hurry, the contest closes soon.*
· Windows 8 Resource Guide – Download a printable, one-page guide to the top resources that will help you explore, plan for, deploy, manage, and support Windows 8 as part of your IT infrastructure.
· Windows Server 2012 Evaluation – Get hands on with Windows Server 2012 and explore the scale and performance possibilities for your server virtualization.
· Microsoft Support – Get help with products‚ specific errors‚ virus detection and removal and more.
· Microsoft Licensing -Visit the Volume Licensing Portal today to ask questions about volume licensing‚ get a quote‚ activate a product or find the right program for your organization.
*No purchase necessary. Contest open to residents of Canada, excluding Quebec. Contest closes April 11, 2013 at 11:59:59 p.m. ET. Three-Hundred-and-Fifty (350) prizes are available to be won: (i) $10 CDN Tim Horton’s gift card. Skill-testing question required. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries. For full rules, including entry, eligibility requirements and complete prize description, review the full terms and Conditions.
On occasion there may be a need to be notified if a remote server is off-line due to an Internet outage, router issue, power outage, or server down. There are many excellent services that will monitor and alert you, but most are intended for multi-site and/or multi-server configurations and require a monthly fee. You might just want to monitor a single site and be notified if it fails.
I had this situation and therefore decided to write a simple script to accomplish the task. I am not a programmer so I am sure this could be improved upon, but it works. Feel free to add suggestions or alternatives in the comments section, I am sure we would all be interested.
Basically there is a batch file that makes use of a free little utility called http-ping by www.CoreTechnologies.com which runs every ‘X’ minutes using a scheduled task and verifies if the site is accessible. If not, a simple VBS script sends an e-mail alert.
Http-ping does need to be able to access an http or https server, which could be a web server, Exchange (OWA), a router management page, or one of many other possibilities.
To configure simply create a folder such as C:\SiteMonitor and place in it; the batch and VBS script below, and http-ping . You will have to download http-ping from http://www.coretechnologies.com/products/http-ping/
@echo off :: Enter the directory location (e.g. C:\SiteMonitor\) Set Directory=C:\SiteMonitor :: Enter the address of the site to ping (e.e. 123.123.123.123/Exchange:443 or server.domain.com/Exchange:443) :: (The first example should be used if you need to know if the public IP has changed) Set Site=123.123.123.123/Exchange:443 :: If Exist %Directory%\PingResult.txt Del %Directory%\PingResult.txt %Directory%\http-ping.exe %Site% >> %Directory%\PingResult.txt findstr /M "Reply" %Directory%\PingResult.txt If %errorlevel%==1 GoTo EMAIL GoTo END :EMAIL cscript %Directory%\SendAlert.vbs :END
' VBS script to send an alert via e-mail
Dim SMTPserver, Sender, Recipient, Subject
' Set client specific variables
SMTPserver = "smtp.ISPname.abc"
Sender = "alert@SomeDomain.abc"
Recipient = "me@MyDomain.abc"
Subject = "Alert off-line"
Message = "An automated script has determined the server at is currently off-line."
' Send E-mail
set objMessage = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
objMessage.Subject = Subject
objMessage.Sender = Sender
objMessage.To = Recipient
objMessage.TextBody = Message
objMessage.Configuration.Fields("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = SMTPserver
objMessage.Configuration.Fields("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2
objMessage.Configuration.Fields.Update
objMessage.Send
set objMessage = Nothing
When complete save the batch file as something similar to SiteMonitor.bat. In the batch file you need to set two variables; the “Directory” where you saved the files, and the “Site” htpp-ping is to test. The site can be a FQDN or an IP, and needs to point to a server or router. In some cases you need to add the port number. Some examples include:
http://www.mysite.abc
remote.domain.abc:443
router1.DDNSservice.abc:8080 (router)
remote.domain.abc/OWA (Exchange port 80)
123.123.123.123/Exchange:443
In my case the site I wanted to monitor had a dynamic IP. I needed to be alerted if the public IP changed due to a service used by the site that would not work with a DDNS service. Therefore I used the last example above.
The VBS script needs to be saved as SendAlert.vbs or change the name used within the batch file to match. In the VBS script you need to set the following 5 variables as per the examples in the script; SMTPserver, Sender, Recipient, Subject, Message.
Finally, you need to schedule a task to run the batch file every half hour (or your time frame). The following is an example as to how to do so with Vista/Server 2008 and newer. Similar can be done under Control Panel, Scheduled Task in XP/Server 2003 and earlier.
Open the Task scheduler under Control Panel / Administrative tools, click on Task Schedule Library, and on the right select Create a Basic Task. Assign the task a name and you can enter a description if you like. Make sure you also select “Run whether the user is logged on or not”.
Configure the “Trigger” options as per the following image:
In the “Actions” pane choose to start a program, and point to your batch file:
You can then complete the wizard accepting defaults. Your monitoring service should now be complete. If you want to test, change the “Site” variable in the batch file to a non existent IP or FQDN, and you should get an alert the next time it runs. Note if troubleshooting the results of the last http-ping are recorder in the directory you created as a text file named PingResult.txt
I recently needed to virtualize an SBS 2003, that is to say convert it from a physical machine to a virtual machine on a Hyper-V host. I have done SBS conversions to VMware hosts in the past with with little or no problem, but converting to Hyper-V, my preference , was a little more involved. I first Googled the task and found many suggestions which based on the various articles and instinct, using Microsoft’s disk2vhd was the simplest solution. I was wrong. The first run on a test machine using a single disk worked well but did require several ‘tweaks’, and then when I added the data drives, which may have been unrelated, I ran into many problems, especially when I tried installing the Integration Services components. Though disk2vhd has worked well for me with other operating systems in the past, for some reason the HAL in this case caused problems.
I am not suggesting the following is the best method, or even a good method, but perhaps it will be of some help to those attempting the same task. I have posted the steps that worked flawlessly for me on a test server, trail run, and final move. All of the following was done remotely.
Note: The process will require re-activation of the SBS license. If SBS is an OEM version; it is a licensing violation to install on different hardware or virtualize, the activation will probably fail, and if it does Microsoft will not assist.
Next, open the settings console for the newly created VM. It will have added a network adapter, remove it and add a legacy network adapter but again if the existing SBS is still powered up on the same network segment choose “not connected”, if you have multiple physical or virtual processors (cores) adjust the number of processors, if you have multiple disks add the others, and review the remaining settings.
LAN-Tech Network Management 