Archive for February, 2010
Official SBS Blog – Returning Small Business Server 2008 to a Supported Network Topology
Posted by: | CommentsGreat post to check out if you are having network issues with your SBS 2008 network!
We have seen an increase of instances where customers are experiencing various networking problems because they have altered the networking topology by installing multiple NICS or assigning multiple IPs to their single NIC. Some of the more common issues we have seen with this scenario include, but are not limited to:
· Slow or complete loss of file share/network login access
· Problems with Outlook connectivity (mailbox login, Autodiscover, OAB, Free/Busy, OOF assistant, Outlook Anywhere)
· Issues accessing web sites (OWA, RWW, Sharepoint, Connect)
· Issues with service startup, particularly Exchange.
· The server hangs at “Applying Computer Settings” upon boot.
· Inability to complete the SBS networking wizards (IAMW and CTIW)
PSSBS SQL Lunch & Learn this Saturday, 2/27/2010
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Bring your lunch and your SBS related SQL questions this Saturday and join the Puget Sound Small Business Server User Group for our half-day SQL event at Microsoft's Lincoln Square offices! Information is at the PSSBS Website.
Windows PowerShell Community Review
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Received this request earlier today, so getting the word out!
The Windows PowerShell Community Review process is looking for volunteers for our third documentation review cycle – especially beginners and intermediate PowerShell users and people with little or no programming background. Volunteers can contact June at juneb@microsoft.com or Marco (Marco.Shaw@gmail.com ).
Windows PowerShell Community Review
Have you ever read Help that wasn't really helpful? Here's your chance to fix it.
The Windows PowerShell documentation team and PowerShellCommunity.org jointly sponsor the Windows PowerShell Community Doc Review. As a member, you'll get to read and comment on the Help docs before they're published, and work with the writers, editors, and the product team to make sure every word is really helpful.
We're looking for users at all experience levels and with all different backgrounds, but we love to have beginners, people with no programming experience, people who know other scripting languages or shells, and people who are not native English speakers. If you're a system admin and you don't really know Windows PowerShell, this is a great way to learn it with help from insiders.
Ready to rock the help? Contact June Blender (juneb@microsoft.com) or Marco Shaw (marco.shaw@gmail.com).
Thanks,
June
Windows Powershell Spoken Here
Connecting to SQL Server via Windows PowerShell with SQL Server authentication
Posted by: | CommentsHere's an article I wrote on how to use Windows PowerShell to connect to SQL Server via mixed mode authentication
Interested in SBS 2008 Training?
Posted by: | CommentsLast month TrainSignal released a new video course course I created, and I thought I’d talk about it a little bit here, since I wrote it with the SMB consultant audience in mind.
I think that if I was looking for a course to take myself, I’d want to know that it did two things: cover all the essentials and additionally give me some beyond-the-basics expertise to add value to my consulting. Beyond that, I’d also want it to efficiently cover a given topic in a demo-driven way so that instead of having to plow through the whole course, I’d be able to sit down for 45 minutes or so with a specific topic and walk away feeling more prepared to implement.
That’s pretty much what I’ve put together, and when you add up all the content, it comes to over 17 hours of video, including segments covering SharePoint customization, certificates, WSUS, SBS 2003-2008 migrations, Exchange disaster recovery and much more.
TrainSignal typically sells scenario-driven courses, so there’s usually a fictitious company with fictitious characters whose needs the course is built around, and as part of the course, we field management requests from our “client” and translate them into technological solutions. In this course we are working for Mal Falconi, who runs KingFish Private Investigations, and she wants to set up a solution that maximizes her decentralized office strategy. Many videos begin with a description of a “business need” and we move on to craft and implement a solution that meets that need. I had a lot of fun building the course.
You can check out a larger overview here.
If you’ve already looked at the course, I’d be glad for any feedback you might have.
Query Hyper-V Virtual machines using Windows PowerShell
Posted by: | CommentsI wrote a PowerShell command to query the current state of the VMs running on Hyper-V
Get-WMIObject -class "MSVM_ComputerSystem"-namespace "root\virtualization"-computername "."
This will actually display a bunch of information about the VMs running on Hyper-V but what we're really concerned about is the name of the VM and it's currently running state. These two properties are associated with the ElementName and EnabledState attributes of the MSVM_ComputerSystem class. All we need to do with the command above is to pipe the results to a Select-Object cmdlet, specifying only these two properties, as follows
Get-WMIObject -class "MSVM_ComputerSystem"-namespace "root\virtualization"-computername "." Select-Object ElementName, EnabledState
While the EnabledState property will give you a bunch of numbers, I'm only concerned with those values equal to 2, which means that the VM is running. But, then, you might not remember what the value 2 means. So might as well write an entire script that checks for the value of the EnabledState property. I've used the GWMI alias to call the Get-WMIObject cmdlet
$VMs = gwmi -class "MSVM_ComputerSystem"-namespace "root\virtualization"-computername "."
foreach ($VM IN $VMs)
{
switch ($VM.EnabledState)
{
2{$state="Running" }
3{$state="Stopped" }
32768{$state="Paused" }
32769{$state="Suspended" }
32770 {$state="Starting" }
32771{$state="Taking Snapshot" }
32773{$state="Saving" }
32774{$state="Stopping" }
}
write-host $VM.ElementName `,` $state
}
On a side note, make sure you are running as Administrator when working with this script as you will only see the VMs that your currently logged in profile has permission to access. Running as Administrator will show you all of the VMs configured on your Hyper-V server
Third Thursday Webinar: Disaster Recovery options in Sharepoint
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s Third Thursday already! This Thursday at Noon eastern, Third Tier’s Chad Gross will present Disaster Recovery Options in Sharepiont. Sharepoint is an awesome application but if you’re like a lot of IT Pros then the idea of storing files, contacts, calendar, forms all in a SQL database is a bit scary because we aren’t SQL experts. Fortunately for us, Microsoft has implemented several new options for data recovery in sharepoint and the sql part turns out not to be that difficult. Chad will demonstrate how to recover data in Sharepoint using a variety of methods.
Third Tier has invited you to attend an online meeting using Live Meeting.
Follow these steps:
1. Copy this address and paste it into your web browser:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/harborcomputerservices/join
2. Copy and paste the required information:
Meeting ID: JCHM5Z
Entry Code: g$P5j6,Kq
Location: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/harborcomputerservices
User can’t log into OWA
Posted by: | CommentsSometimes a strange situation crops up in which a user can access his Exchange 2003 email from an Outlook client without trouble, but can’t successfully log into Outlook Web Access. You will get the standard, “You could not be logged on to Outlook Web Access” error message.
Chances are this user recently had a password change, or maybe the users account was deleted and then recreated again. But you’ve checked everything: the password, the OWA feature turned on for that user, the ability to log on with other user accounts, the temporary internet files cache, IISRESET. But nothing works–no matter which workstation you use to access OWA, you can’t log on as that user.
If you really press on and actually reboot the server, you find that the problem is resolved, but you are left uneasy. What actually happened, and why did it take a server reboot to fix it? Very unsatisfactory.
The problem is actually related to how IIS caches credentials when it uses Forms Based Authentication. If you change a user password or delete and recreate a user account, sometimes IIS has a different SID/password cached for that user and any attempts to authenticate will fail until that cache is emptied. An IISRESET will not resolve the problem, but a reboot will.
But there’s another way to resolve this without a reboot.
1. Open up the Exchange System Manager and drill down into the Server section and down into Protocols.
2. Open the HTTP folder and get properties on Exchange Virtual Server.
3. Go into the Settings tab and uncheck the Enable Forms Based Authentication checkbox. Apply it.
4. Go to the command-line and do an IISRESET.
5. Now go and recheck the Enable Forms Based Authentication checkbox.
That’s it. You should be able to log into OWA with that user now.
ACT! 2010, OpenDNS, & peer-to-peer networks don’t mix.
Posted by: | CommentsOpenDNS is an incredble service, and I highly recommend using it. Word of caution though. If you are sharing an ACT! 2010 database across a peer-to-peer network, the computer names will attempt to resolve to the OpenDNS servers (on the Net) and your other ACT! clients on the network will be unable to attach to the database. A workaround is to use IP addresses, but it's simpler to remove the OpenDNS server settings and use the default DNS for your upstream ISP.
Otherwise, you'll be looking at the likes of this:
Error: "The database <Database name> could not be accessed. In order to access this database, check your network connection and verify that your database server is available. It may be necessary to disable any firewall software...
We’re Speaking at SMB Nation East
Posted by: | CommentsThe content is lining up for SMB Nation East and we’re proud to be part of it. Third Tier staff members Amy Babinchak and Eriq Neale will be presenting in separate sessions. Amy is partnered with SBS-MVP Kevin Royalty, together they will talk about how they have implemented a range of new backup solutions for their clients. There’s no one size fits all anymore, so we’ll be trotting out lots of different solutions to show when, where and why we implemented them. Eriq will be a busy guy during his presentation. The world of IT is changing and boy to we have choices. Choices are a good thing, or are they?
GS103: Backup here, backup there, backup everywhere
Speaker: Amy Babinchak, Kevin Royalty 
Agenda
By now everyone knows that backup has changed. We’ve gone from tape backing up data only to the wonderful world of hardware independent image backup and restore. Suddenly the options are endless. We can backup workstations incrementally, a whole server every 15 minutes, we can store them locally, on removable media, send it off-site or all three! But will your client pay for all of this wonderful new backup technology? How do you present it to them? Amy and Kevin will discuss the various technologies and show you what they are doing for their clients and how to sell it.
GS101: Alternative Solutions in the SMB Space
Speaker: Eriq Neale Agenda
“What if SBS isn’t the best solution for my client?” If you’ve been asking yourself this question recently, you may find some answers in this session. Eriq Neale demonstrates two on-premise solutions and other cloud-based services that might be a more viable option for some of your customers, with real-world implementation examples. Is the notion of “one size fits all” still viable in the SMB space? Come learn and decide for yourself!
If you haven’t registered for the conference yet, then now we would be a good time to do so. Your conference fee includes accommodations at the Hyatt! Can’t beat the value. Use the link below to register.
http://www.smbnation.com/Events/SMBNationSpring2010/PricingandRegistration/tabid/288/Default.aspx
