SMB Nation What Does Your Inner Geek Need

After the last SMB Nation I sat in on the town hall meeting. The overwhelming request was for more technical content.

Well here is your chance to help shape the upcoming SMB Nation Fall Conference. Harry has left 5 slots open for us to to tell him what we want to see. He has put up a SURVEY to gather our (ours and mine) input and then he will go out and find people to present just what you want top hear.

Please take 3 minutes and fill out the short survey it will help shape the conference to be just what you want!

Please pay particular attention to the last question, this is were you can have the most influence!

A Fine Day for Installing Exchange 2007 Rollup 4

A few days ago Microsoft released Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 Roll-up 4 and after kicking it’s tires on in my test lab, I decided today was a good day to roll it out. Thought you might like to come along on the journey.

First because it is a very good practice, reboot the server before you start any updating, it is always a great idea to start from a clean known state.

Next since there is apparently no way to tell if the Schema Update has actually been run from SP3 (remember all the trouble this caused) I thought it would be prudent to just run it again. It is a pretty simple process and won’t hurt anything if run again . Just grab a copy of Exchange 2007 SP3 and from an Administrative Command Box expand it out and run the command ”Setup.com /PrepareSchema” this is what it will look like.

Once that finishes you can go ahead and run the roll-up without rebooting again. Grab a copy of 

Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (KB2509911)

  I had some trouble getting it to run correctly from an explorer window, so I went out to an administrative command prompt (I probably could have used an administrative explorer window also but did not try) 

Start RU4 Update

 Now the familiar GUI will start up with the proper permissions, so it does not bomb out in the middle of the process and roll back. 

The first few screens are the regular click next exercise

This next phase may take quite a while be patient

Still with me?

Several minutes that’s for sure

Now things are looking up, we are stopping the services so we can get busy

It is making sure we have a solid foundation to build on

Copying looks like it is quick, don’t be fooled

Ya I know the bar is all the way across, but it will start up a few more times

Now it will rebuild the files with the updates

It starts up the services, if everything went right

Removing backup files is usually a very good sign

How I do like a positive outcome, I have done this on a number of systems yesterday and today
and they took anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours, give yourself plenty of time

Yes you do have to do a final reboot, the server is not in a stable state until you do!

Hope your day and your roll-up goes smoothly!

SMB MVP Community Roadshow Triad Stop

I am excited to announce that the International SMB MVP Community Roadshow will be making a stop at my IT Pro Group “The Triad SBS Group” on August 2^nd. This is a different kind of IT event although it is sponsored by HP & Microsoft the content is totally under control of the MVP’s and SBSmigration.com who is producing the entire tour as an offshoot of their annual conference.

The content is focused on the new SMB Stack from Microsoft, but is not a bunch of marketing PowerPoint’s, it is real world content built by a team of MVP’s, presented by a rotating team of MVP’s and demo’d on current shipping HP hardware. These are all real world current solutions you can deploy today, all focused on the SMB segment. The actual presenters have the ability to adjust the presentation to the local audience at their discretion. It looks to be a great event spanning almost a year to cover some 90 cities internationally; the first wave is about 6 months and should cover some 60 cities. I look forward to attending a few of the events as the content will be a little different at each one.

You can get more info about the tour HERE and you can follow the tour by liking their Facebook Page. You can also follow the chatter on Twitter.

You can check to see if there has been a tour stop setup yet in your local area by checking HERE and if you are anywhere near the Triad Area and want to attend our event you can register HERE.

Oh Ya, there is a little gnome traveling around with the tour and you can friend him HERE to see pics and updates from local events as he travels the world.

Note: for Group Leaders, you can request a tour stop in your area HERE

Wondering what a SBS DSRM System State Restore looks like

So I am starting to think my server does not like me leaving town. The day after returning home from SMB Nation she crashed. CHKDSK got it to boot but lost a few thousand files in the process. Decided to do a System State Restore as too many services were just not happy.

A number of folks have asked me about the process so I thought I would put up the log so if you are in this situation you will know what how to proceed and what to expect.

The tool you will use is called WBADMIN and you have to run it from an elevated command window, here is the help listing

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>wbadmin /?
wbadmin 1.0 – Backup command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corp.

—- Commands Supported —-

START BACKUP              — Runs a one-time backup.
STOP JOB                  — Stops the currently running backup or recovery
                              operation.
GET VERSIONS              — List details of backups recoverable from a
                              specified location.
GET ITEMS                 — Lists items contained in a backup.
GET STATUS                — Reports the status of the currently running
                              operation.

C:\Windows\system32>

First you need to run WBADMIN GET VERSIONS and get the ID of  the backup you want to restore from, in my case it was -version:06/13/2011-03:00
So I run this command and what follows is the output from the command window
C:\>WBADMIN START SYSTEMSTATERECOVERY -version:06/13/2011-03:00
wbadmin 1.0 – Backup command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corp.

Do you want to start the system state recovery operation?
[Y] Yes [N] No y
NOTE: The recovery operation will cause all replicated content on the local
machine to re-sync after recovery. This may cause potential latency or outage
issues.
Starting System State Restore [6/13/2011 9:14 PM]
Processing files to restore (This may take a few minutes)…
Stopping services…
Processed (727) files
Processed (1958) files
Processed (3484) files
Processed (5559) files
Processed (7890) files
Processed (10333) files
Processed (12426) files
Processed (14434) files
Processed (16851) files
Processed (19414) files
Processed (22063) files
Processed (26736) files
Processed (32744) files
Processed (37014) files
Processed (39017) files
Processed (41417) files
Processed (44119) files
Processed (45983) files
Processed (48210) files
Processed (50181) files
Processed (52114) files
Processed (54231) files
Processed (56182) files
Processed (58119) files
Processed (59726) files
Processed (61029) files
Processed (62905) files
Processed (64670) files
Processed (66353) files
Processed (68177) files
Processed (69936) files
Processed (71742) files
Processed (73343) files
Processed (74862) files
Processed (76402) files
Processed (77973) files
Processed (79482) files
Processed (80901) files
Processed (82316) files
Processed (83850) files
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Processed (86737) files
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Processed (89261) files
Processed (90736) files
Processed (90945) files
Processed (90945) files
Processed (90945) files
Processed (90945) files
Processed (90945) files
Processing of files complete
Starting restore of files from backup
Preparing for Restore…
Restore of files reported by ‘IIS Config Writer’ completed
Restore of files reported by ‘Dhcp Jet Writer’ completed
Restore of files reported by ‘FRS Writer’ completed
Restore of files reported by ‘NPS VSS Writer’ completed
Restore of files reported by ‘COM+ REGDB Writer’ completed
Restore of files reported by ‘FSRM Writer’ completed
Overall progress – 0% (Currently restoring files reported by ‘System Writer’)
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Restore of files reported by ‘System Writer’ completed
Restore of files reported by ‘NTDS’ completed
Overall progress – 98% (Currently restoring files reported by ‘Certificate Auth
rity’)
Restore of files reported by ‘Certificate Authority’ completed
Restore of files reported by ‘WMI Writer’ completed
Restore of files reported by ‘IIS Metabase Writer’ completed
Overall progress – 99% (Currently restoring files reported by ‘SPSearch VSS Wri
er’)
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er’)
Restore of files reported by ‘SPSearch VSS Writer’ completed
Restore of files reported by ‘TS Gateway Writer’ completed
Overall progress – 99% (Currently restoring additional system state files)
Restoring Registry (This may take a few minutes)…
Finalizing restore…

Summary of recovery:
——————–

Restore of system state completed successfully [6/13/2011 10:02 PM]

Log of files successfully restored
‘C:\Windows\Logs\WindowsServerBackup\SystemStateRestore 13-06-2011 21-14-00.log
Please restart the machine to complete the operation.
NOTE: When you restart your server, System State Recovery will attempt to
recover many system files which may take several minutes to complete depending
on the number of files that are getting replaced. The machine might reboot mult
ple times in the process. Please be patient and do not interrupt the reboot process

 So then I reboot the server and it does 3 reboots on its own fixing stuff.
Then gets all the way to the logon window, I logon and get one more Modal Command window that looks like this

C:\>

wbadmin 1.0 – Backup command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corp.

System State Recovery operation started at 6/13/2011 9:14 PM completed successfu
lly
Press ENTER to continue…

After pressing <Enter> I am back in business.
Pretty much everything seems to be running fine except Quickbooks which complains about a couple of missing dlls which I was able to grab off my desktop system.

So now you don’t have to panic if this happens to you, you know how to proceed and what the process looks like.

Looking for the Hands On Labs for SBS 2011 Family

Here are the links to the various Hands On Labs or HOL’s as Microsoft calls them for the various flavors of SBS 2011 

http://online.holsystems.com/portals/sbs/standard/ 

http://online.holsystems.com/portals/sbs/essentials/ 

http://online.holsystems.com/portals/sbs/essdemo/ 

http://online.holsystems.com/portals/sbs/stndemo/ 

http://online.holsystems.com/portals/sbs/whs/

Thankx to Michael Leworthy for passing them along

Trouble Connecting to WMS via RWW in SBS

Sometimes it is the simplest things that come back to bite us in the arse. As you know recently I have been very involved with Windows MultiPoint Server especially in how it integrates into a Small Business Server Networks. Well I was trying to configure a demo for a client who I think WMS is a good fit for and every time he would try to connect to my demo running on my SBS network he would get this strange error message I had not seen before.

Well it had me scratching my head, and I even reached out ot some of my friends at Microsoft, who sent me back a number of thing to try. Incouding connecting directly via RDP so we could get a better error message. And we did get a different error message.
After fighting with this for a bit it dawned on me to try adding the Remote Web Workplace site to the Trusted Sites Zone in IE and that did the trick. So if you find yourself in this situation the fix is pretty simple.

In IE click Tools and then Internet options

Click the Security tab
Highlight Trusted sites
Click the Sites button

And then add your RWW Site to the list by entering it in the box and clicking the add button

I hope this can save you some time and get you on your way to enjoying WMS and all it has to offer!

BTW, this is not exclusive to SBS Clients, you may find you need to do this from your standalone client as well.

The moral of this story is Occam’s razor still holds true, the simplest solution is usually the correct one :>)

New IT Pro Group Forming in South Michigan

My friend Amy Babinchak is forming a new IT Pro Group in the South Michigan area. She asked me if I would speak at their inaugural meeting, how could I refuse the most awared IT Pro in SMB :>)

 Since my new found love for Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 and how well it interacts with my Old Love SBS, I though what a perfect topic. So I will be bringing up a WMS Server with me and as many clients as I can acquire in the short time I have. I will be putting on a live demo and discussing my first production implementation of WMS into an SBS 2008 network last month as well as a new one I am working on for another client for the end of this month. If you are wondering, WMS also plays well with my new friends MAX & Vipre.

So Kathy and I are taking a road trip, I didn’t realize it but Amy is only a half hour from Kathy’s best friend from our days in Silicon Valley, so we will be staying an extra day so they can hang out and reminisce.

Amy does not have a website for the new group yet, but if you are in the area and want to attend see Matt’s blog  or E-Mail Amy directly at amy@harborcomputerservices.net  or better yet sign up for the event on the LinkedIn Event Page

I hope you can stop by and help make their first meeting a success!

Puzzled about activating Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 System?

First let’s make sure we are talking about the same thing, there are different way to purchase MultiPoint (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/multipoint/) I am talking here about the version you purchase though Open License.

When you install it you can go right past the CD Key screen without filling it in. In my case the license had not arrived yet so this is what I did. Of course it will not activate without the key so you will see a warning if you logon as an admin saying automatic activation failed you have x days to activate. It counts down from 60 days which is the demo period. When you receive your license e-mail and look through MVLS you will not see your MWS key. There seems to have been a glitch on the back end and it is listed under it’s parent program name. My friends at MS tell me they are working on correcting this, but for now look for “Windows Web/HPC Srv 2008R2-MAK A” that is the name you will find the WMS key listed under. Do not call MVLS Support they are under the mistaken idea WMS does not need a key. This is also being corrected, but save yourself some grief and just look for “Windows Web/HPC Srv 2008R2-MAK A” in the MVLS license key tab of the portal and use the key on that line.

Now just go to the properties screen of the computer (same as any current/recent windows machine) and click change product key and enter the key and click activate. Give it some time for whatever reason it took almost 2 minutes to verify when I did mine yesterday, but it finally came back with the Authentic Software screen we love to see.

As for the clients, WMS has a cool new wizard, you run it from the console by clicking add user

WMS Console

 Next select the bottom option Other Volume License

Select Other

 Finally enter your Volume License Number and the number of Cals you purchased

Enter License Info Here

It will phone home to MS and verify the info and you are done.

Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 is some really cool technology check out the SBS Blog post to see how to integrate it into SBS http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2011/02/23/windows-multipoint-server-2011-and-interaction-with-small-business-server-2011-essentials.aspx

HA interviewed by MicrosoftFeed

A few days ago I was contacted by Ali Raza Shaikh of MicrosoftFeed and he asked if he could interview me for the site. It was actually a pretty painless process :>)

If you would like to know a bit about my history as an MVP you can read the INTERVIEW HERE

You may recognise some of the pictures and the people mentioned in the post.

Have a Great Day,
HA

SBS2011 shows it’s face today

Well if you have an MSDN or TechNet Plus Subscription you can now get your hands on SBS 2011 Standard. The wait is finally over!

SBS 2011 Standard now on MSDN and TechNet Plus