Wednesday, October 28, 2009

How to Perform a ConfigMgr 2007 Site Reset

Provided here you will find the steps necessary to perform a ConfigMgr 2007 Site Reset if the need arises.

A site reset in Configuration Manager is similar to the process for SMS 2003 and can be performed in a matter of minutes. The site reset process is initiated using the CD-ROM Installation media or the Configuration Manager Installation directory folder on the site system with the issues that need resolved.

Follow the steps below to perform a ConfigMgr 2007 site reset using the Microsoft Configuration Manager Installation directory folder.

1. Locate the Setup.Exe in the following default location: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\bin\I386\Setup.Exe”

2. At the Welcome to the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Setup Wizard screen review the information on the screen and select “Next’ to continue.

3. At the Available Setup Options screen select “Perform site maintenance or reset this site” radial button and select “Next” to continue.

4. At the Site Maintenance screen select the checkbox to “Modify SMS Provider configuration” and select “Next” to continue.

5. From the SMS Provider Settings Modification screen ensure that the site server name is populated in the text box provided for you to “Enter the appropriate installation location for the provider” and select “Next” to continue.

6. Select “Yes” to continue at the popup dialog box that states:

“Specified installation for the provider is the same as the current provider location.

Would you like to reinstall the provider?”

At this point the proves is initiated and the Setup Action Status Monitoring screen is displayed with the following actions and their status:

Shutdown Configuration Manager Services
Reset ConfigMgr related accounts
Reset permissions for ConfigMgr related directories
Upgrade site control file
Update Registry
Verify permissions for ConfigMgr related directories

7. When the process has been competed select “Next” to continue.

8. At the Completing the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Setup Wizard screen select the “View Log” button to review the log file and select “Launch the Configuration Manager Console after closing” to verify that ConfigMgr is operating as expected.

Note: If you choose not to review the log file at step 8 above you can review it at a later date. The site reset log file is appended to the existing C:\ ConfigMgrSetup.Log file.

Tip: Before performing a site reset it is a good practice to rename the existing ConfigMgrSetup log file to something like “Initial_ ConfigMgrSetup.Log” or “ConfigMgrSetup.Old” prior to performing a site reset. Then if needed you can rename the newly created site reset ConfigMgrSetup.Log file to something like “SiteReset_MMDDYY.Log”.

Advantages Of Performing An SMS 2003 Site Reset
http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/dhite/archive/2007/09/09/advantages-of-performing-an-sms-2003-site-reset.aspx

Specifying Your Own Password For The SMS Server Connection Account During A Site Reset
http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/dhite/archive/2006/12/04/specifying-your-own-password-for-the-sms-server-connection-account-during-a-site-reset.aspx

SQL Server 2008 Memory Support

In Microsoft SQL Server 2008 the Standard, Enterprise, Developer and Web editions can use whatever the Operating Systems maximum allowed memory is.

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition can use a maximum of 4 GB.

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition can use a maximum of 32 GB for 32-bit (x86) machines and 64 GB for 64-bit Itanium machines.

Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition can use a maximum of 4 GB.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition can use a maximum of 64 GB for 32-bit (x86) machines and 2 TB for 64-bit Itanium machines.

The Workgroup edition can also use the Operating Systems maximum on 32-Bit systems and 4 GB on 64-bit systems.

The Express and Express with Advanced Services can use a maximum of 1 GB.

Monday, October 26, 2009

If Patch is not getting install and in MBSA report it is showing as required

If Patch is not getting install and in MBSA report it is showing as required we can i dentify and troublshoot below steps:--

1) Microsoft Suggested to run the System redindence tool -- this tool is 130+MB file, This Kb Might required reboot
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947821
and After installing check the log file %SYSTEMROOT%\Logs\CBS\CheckSUR.log
2)Take ownership of the Packages folder("%SYSTEMROOT%\Servicing\Packages") and add your account to have full control
3)Based on the log file will get the missing files list i.e., .MUM and .Cat files.
4)Copy the .MUM and .CAT files to the %SYSTEMROOT%\Servicing\Packages folder from other working system to Problem system "%SYSTEMROOT%\Servicing\Packages" Folder
5) After Copy the .mum and Cat files we need to restart the " Windows Modules Installer" Service
Install the Patch 974291, if it is not installing re-run the redindence tool and analize the log file
6) IMPORTANT: Change the ownership of the %SYSTEMROOT%\Servicing\Packages
folder back to 'NT Service\TrustedInstaller'
Ofcource for the above steps you should perfom with your process where Change / Downtime.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

Inherent Savings from Server Virtualization
Server consolidation Savings
Electrical Power Savings
Environmental Impact Savings
Space Savings
Getting started tools
MAP & HyperGreen
Extended benefits with Rapid Provisioning
Inherent Savings from Server Virtualization
Advantages of Microsoft’s Platform Approach
Lowering cost through Microsoft’s Innovative Licensing
Server consolidation Savings
Electrical Power Savings
Environmental Impact Savings
Space Savings
Approach

Free “Hyper-V Server 2008 R2” with High Availability
Built-in Windows Server 2008 Features
Hyper-V
High Availability
Energy Efficiency
More choice on hardware
Integrated Physical and Virtual Management
Savings and Training and Support


Tools

MAP & HyperGreen
Extended benefits with Rapid Provisioning
MAP 4.0

Sunday, October 4, 2009

IPv6 & Windows Server 2008 - Overview:

"Although IPv6 addresses look nothing like IPv4 addresses, they do have their similarities. The biggest differences are that IPv4 addresses are 32 bits long, and IPv6 addresses are 128 bits long. Because of the excessive length of an IPv6 address, they are represented in an abbreviated form that will probably look completely foreign to anyone who has never used them before.
Any time a seasoned network administrator sees an address like 192.168.1.1, they instantly recognize it as an IPv4 address. This address contains four, eight bit numbers separated by periods. In order to understand how IPv6 addressing works, it is important to realize that when you see an IPv4 address, the address is being expressed in decimal form. This decimal form is a shortcut to expressing a 32 bit binary number. For example, the IP address 192.168.1.1 expressed in binary form looks like this:
11000000.10101000.00000001.00000001In the interest of saving space, I don’t want to get into how I did the conversion, but if you need help converting from a decimal number to a binary number, you can use the Windows Calculator.
IPv6 Addressing
Hopefully, my example above helps you to understand that even a simple IPv4 address is really long when you convert it to binary form. This problem is compounded when we start talking about IPv6 addresses though. Like an IPv4 address, an IPv6 address is an abbreviated form of a binary number. For example, here is what a 128 bit binary number looks like:
1111111010000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000000000000000 0000001000001100 0010100111111111 1111111001000100 0111111000111111When an IPv4 address is expressed in binary form, it is expressed in eight digit chunks called octets. Each of these octets corresponds to one of the numbers in the address (when it is displayed in digital for"

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Howto: Edit network card bindings in Windows Server 2008

"Figuring out how to edit the order of NIC bindings on a Windows 2008 Server took quite a bit of Googling. It seems that you need to know a secret key combination to be able to view the Advanced tab, where the option to edit the NIC bindings is located.
To edit the network card binding order in Windows Server 2008:
Login to the server with administrative credentials
Click Start > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center
On the left hand side select Manage network connections
Press Alt+N to display the Advanced menu
Select Advanced Settings. On the Adapters and Bindings tab, highlight your NIC and use the arrows on the right hand side to adjust it’s binding order.
You can also access the Network Connections screen directly by clicking Start > Run , typing ncpa.cpl and pressing Enter"

Using Winsat.exe in Windows Server 2008 as a performance benchmarking tool

"Microsoft has the Windows System Assessment Tool (Winsat) available for download that can assess a computer’s ability to run Windows Vista. This tool provides a wealth of information on you hardware’s horsepower, plus it’s scriptable. It’s designed to run under Windows Vista, but can be run under Windows Server 2008 as well. Here’s how to do it.
1. Dowload the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor utility

2. Use Universal Extractor’s (uniextract) MSI method to extract the files from the .msi package

3. Copy winsat.exe to the c:\windows\system32 directory on the Windows 2008 server

4. Open an elevated command prompt and change to the c:\windows\system32 directory. There’s many different hardware components you can benchmark, but the following example benchmarks sequential reads on drive C:

winsat disk -seq -read -drive c

See the Technet command reference for Winsat for details on all tests winsat can perform, such as:


AssessmentDescription
winsat dwmAssesses the ability of a system to display the Aero desktop effects.
winsat d3dAssesses the ability of a system to run Direct 3D applications, such as games.
winsat memAssesses system memory bandwidth by simulating large memory to memory buffer copies.
winsat diskAssesses the performance of disk drives.
winsat cpuAssesses the performance of the CPU(s).
winsat mediaAssesses the performance of video encoding and decoding (playback) using the Direct Show framework.
winsat mfmediaAssesses the performance of video decoding (playback) using the Media Foundation framework.
winsat featuresEnumerates relevant system information.
winsat formalRuns a set of pre-defined assessments and saves the data in an XML fil"

Windows 2008 don;t show locked user Name

"Normally when a Windows workstation or server is locked, you’ll see something similar to the following Windows Security message:
This computer is in use and has been locked.

Only DOMAIN\USER (user name) or an administrator can unlock this computer.

To not show the name of the user who has locked a computer, the following can be defined in a workstation level GPO

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Interactive logon: Display user information when the session is locked.

There are three choices if you enable this policy:

User display name, domain and user names (default setting)
User display name only
Do not display user information

Besides being able to apply this to Active Directory GPOs, this setting appears in the local security policy on my Windows XP SP3 VM. The setting is not available on my XP SP2 laptop, but I see from KB837022 there is a hotfix that corrects this problem in XP SP2.


Alternatively, the following DWORD can be created in the registry of XP SP2, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 machine to accomplish the same thing:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system\DontDisplayLockedUserId

User display name, domain and user names = 1
User display name only = 2
Do not display user information =3

You need to restart the machine for the change to take effect.

You may also be interested in the related Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Interactive logon: Do not display last user name setting. This security setting determines whether the name of the last user to log on"

Check windows uptime stats w/ Uptime.exe

"There is a very useful Windows command that Microsoft didn’t include in any version of windows but should have. This is the uptime command. There is a knowledge base article here. It was released back in the Windows NT days, but still works on all current versions of windows. I have found this to be an easy way to find out the uptime of the windows servers I maintain without have to log on to the box.

To install just download uptime.exe and place it in the windows directory. Then run it from the command line.

uptime /? will give a listing of all the options and uptime /help will give detailed instructions.
UPTIME, Version 1.01
(C) Copyright 1999, Microsoft CorporationUptime [server] [/s ] [/a] [/d:mm/dd/yyyy /p:n] [/heartbeat] [/? /help]
server Name or IP address of remote server to process.
/s Display key system events and statistics.
/a Display application failure events (assumes /s).
/d: Only calculate for events after mm/dd/yyyy.
/p: Only calculate for events in the previous n days.
/heartbeat Turn on/off the system's heartbeat
/? Basic usage.
/help Additional usage information.Uptime works by checking the windows event logs for startup and shutdown times. Running uptime with the /s switch will provide more detailed statistics as shown below. If the event log has been cleared or is corrupted uptime will not show correct stats.
I have found it helpful to set up .bat files with the servers I want to check. This then gives me a quick list of the uptime of various servers. It is quite a useful command. I’m not sure why Microsoft didn’t just stick it in the directory with all their other comma"