Ivan Versluis August 15th, 2008
Hyper-V, a key feature of Windows Server 2008, has now released to manufacturing (RTM) and is available for deployment into production environments. With help of ServerManagerCMD.exe I will install the Hyer-V role.
What is ServerManagerCMD.exe?
Server Manager in Windows Server 2008 provides a single source for managing a server’s identity and system information, displaying server status, identifying problems with server role configuration, and managing all roles installed on the server.
ServerManagerCMD is powerful tool and within one command line you can install the Hyper-V role. Make sure you installed the Windows 2008 RTM version and updated your system with KB950050.
With ServerManagerCMD.exe you will be able to install all those roles:
Active Directory Certificate Services
Active Directory Domain Services
Active Directory Federation Services
Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
Active Directory Rights Management Services
Application Server
Availability and Scalability
DHCP Server
DNS Server
Fax Server
File Services
Hyper-V
Network Policy and Access Services
Print Services
Streaming Media Services
Terminal Services
Troubleshooting
UDDI Services
Web Server
Windows Deployment Services
Finally we get a single command line tool for this administrative task. I hate having different text files and run the cmd batch scripts.
Related links:
Tags: 2008, cmd, Hyper-V, Script, Windows
Ivan Versluis August 3rd, 2008
Since I am dual booting between Ubuntu and Windows Vista on my desktop workstation I am missing my linux volumes on Vista. I have three large 500GB SATA2 disks and one of them is partitioned and formatted with Ext2 linux file system. I have two options to read my linux volumes from windows:
a) Explore2fs which is a simple tool and I don’t need to install any low level system drivers. Explore2fs only operates in Read-Only mode.
b) Ext2IFS which is a pure kernel mode file system driver Ext2fs.sys, which actually extends the Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista (x86/x64) operating system to include the Ext2 file system.
I want to have full read-write mode on my linux volumes and I installed option b.
Drive L:\ is now mounted in READ/Write mode from my Windows Vista SP1 x64 operating system.
Tags: ext2, file, howto, linux, mount, system, Windows
Ivan Versluis August 1st, 2008
If you are migrating notebooks at work, from friends or family you will always hit same problem after the new one is ready for use. Most documents and user settings can be migrated in some kind (ntbackup,robocopy and the Windows transfer wizards) , but when migrating the wireless network setting you may need additional script to perform that. Recently I have been asked to reinstall couple of tools and migrate import user documents including the wireless network. I received both notebooks without the wireless access point and after all important things were moved to the new notebook I started running the netsh command to export the wireless settings/networks into a text file.
See my howto I performed to get this done on my own Windows VISTA notebook.
- Run CMD.exe to get into the command prompt and run “netsh wlan show profiles”
- I am interested in exporting the “NetworknetForFree” WLAN SSID into a text file which I can import on another notebook.
- I am still in the command prompt and than I execute “netsh wlan export profile name=”NetworknetForFree” folder=C:\” to export NetworknetForFree to C:\ drive.
- NetworknetForFree wireless network profile has now been exported to a file named “C:\Wireless Network Connection-NetworknetForFree.xml” and I can copy this file to a usb drive. If you want to export all your wireless profiles just run “netsh wlan export profile folder=C:\“
- The netsh tool generates a XML based file with all the settings for the wireless profile.
- Start a CMD.exe command prompt on the new notebook and import the XML file located on the usb drive. You can copy the XML file first from the usb dirve to C:\ and than import the file. Type and execute “netsh wlan add profile filename=”c:\Wireless Network Connection-NetworknetForFree.xml” user=all“
The wireless SSID “NetworknetForFree” network has been migrated without knowing the exact settings like SSID, authentication type and the password. I was also trying to perform these steps with a Windows XP SP2 client but too bad that this feature is only for Windows Vista and not XP.
Tags: network, profiles, settings, vista, Windows, wireless
Ivan Versluis June 25th, 2008
This morning my Cacti appliance warned me by email that the windows root volume was getting above the 90% threshold. I configured this a while ago for getting notified in front.
When installing and configuring this Windows server I didn’t plan the configuration in the right way and my free space for C:\ volume is limited. If you install a fresh server again think about having one volume using the complete physical RAID disk space and not having one 18GB disk as I used now. My main problem is that server has 4GB of RAM and paging file is sitting on C:\.
I was not able to move the paging file nor could I move the production virtual machine another volume. I went to C:\Windows and found a lot of blue directories which were used by the Automatic Updates. It used more than 500MB.
To safely remove Hotfix Backup files and the Add/Remove Programs Registry entries go to here and download the tool. Run the tool and remove all hotfixe backup files.
After you run the tool; go to c:\Windows and delete all blue marked directories. They all should start with $ sign.
Now we have on directory we need have closer look. Mine on this particular server grow to 600+ mb. Go to C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download and verify your size.
Stop the “Automatic Updates” service or run “net stop wuauserv” from cmd.
Delete all subfolders within C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download. Restart the “Automatic Updates” service. You can safely remote these. The procedure can be executed on a Windows XP or a Windows Server 2003 system.
Tags: clean, delete, hotfixes, remove, Security, Windows
Ivan Versluis June 23rd, 2008
When I try to open the “Active Directly Sites and Services” MMC console I got the following error message.
Naming information cannot be located because: The clocks on the client and server machines are skewed. Contact your system administrator to verify that your domain is properly configured and is currently online.
My Hyper-V host is running in a workgroup and not being member of a AD DS domain. Therefore it is not syncing the time with a managed NTP time service. One of my remote domain controllers is running on this host and I am having issues to authenticate myself on the AD DS running as virtual machine. The best option in this case is to disable the time synchronization within the virtual machine options. Another option is to fix the host time, but if you are selling the Hyper-V as a service to customers than you won’t be member of their domain 
Right click the virtual machine; choose settings within the Hyper-V management console. Go to Integration Services and uncheck “Time synchronization”.
After the reboot the domain controller synced the time with the correct values.
Ivan Versluis June 8th, 2008
SQL Server 2008 delivers on Microsoft’s Data Platform vision by helping your organization manage any data, any place, any time. It enables you to store data from structured, semi-structured, and unstructured documents, such as images and music, directly within the database. SQL Server 2008 delivers a rich set of integrated services that enable you to do more with your data such as query, search, synchronize, report, and analyze. Your data can be stored and accessed in your largest servers within the data center all the way down to desktops and mobile devices, enabling you to have control over your data no matter where it is stored. SQL Server 2008 enables you to consume your data within custom applications developed using Microsoft .NET and Visual Studio and within your service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process through Microsoft BizTalk Server while information workers can access data directly in the tools they use every day, such as the 2007 Microsoft Office system. SQL Server 2008 delivers a trusted, productive, and intelligent data platform for all your data needs.
Before you evaluate and install Microsoft SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2003 server please make sure the following requirements are available:
If you are ok with those than go and install the SQL server 2008. My installation took me 15 minutes and the performance was awesome within a Virtual Server 2005 R2 virtual machine. Check out my screencast with installation screenshots.
Tags: 2008, installation, machine, Screencast, server, sql, virtual
Ivan Versluis May 19th, 2008
One week ago Del.Icio.Us released their new beta extension for Internet Explorer (6.0,7.0 and 8.0). I am using the IE extension button for a while at work & home to tag and group my Internet favorites. To me this is one of best tools you should have when using Internet. In the past I struggled many times with different kind of favorites folders and sync those with Firefox and vise-versa. The features and look and feel were already available for Firefox and now finally with IE.
Near instantaneous searching with very large accounts (over 10K bookmarks)
Full del.icio.us sidebar and toolbar implementation with bookmark sync and typedown search
Toolbar indicators for new network activity and links for you
Works on IE6, IE7, and IE8 beta on both XP and Vista
To download the plugin please go to http://blog.delicious.com/blog/2008/05/internet-explorer-and-delicious.html
Tags: button, del.icio.us, extension, IE
Ivan Versluis May 18th, 2008
Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 cannot start. The product license may be expired because you are using a pre-release or evaluation copy of the program, or the product key information may have been modified in your windows registry. Please run Setup to uninstall and then reinstall communicator.
For some reason I installed the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 which has limited license usage. I am not able to figure out now why and with others I am trying to get a workaround. For now I am using a script to remove the client from all my virtual machines.
MsiExec.exe /X{3960D0B6-A437-4D16-B0CB-41F5941DA08F} /q
I will update the post as soon I have the workaround.
Ivan Versluis May 18th, 2008
I am sure many of us hit this problem before, but after 6 years working with Windows XP I forget to change default settings over and over. Most of our clients are sitting in some kind of domain structure and receiving all their settings from Group Policy, but you probably will also have workgroup clients. Today I am testing the remote installation of Symantec Antivirus 10.2 server and hit this Administrator account problem.
First I thought the password is wrong; ok try again no…; than I add the computer\administrator and tried again; no again setup message.
Logon failure: unknown name or bad password. for \\%COMPUTERNAME%\admin$
I went back to my Windows XP virtual machine and checked the setting in Windows Explorer / Tools menu / Folder Options / View tab / and uncheck “Use simple file sharing (recommended)”.
Tags: account, administrator, issue, Windows, xp
Ivan Versluis May 14th, 2008
I tried to install Windows Server 2008 x64 on one of my Dell PowerEdge 2900 servers, because the storage driver was failing for x64 bit OS installations of Windows I was forced to install Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x86. The server is up and running and I installed Virtual Server 2005R2 SP1 Enterprise. Through the SCVMM console I initiated the Add Host of this new Windows server. The job failed with message the server did have the WS-Management service installed.
I did not install the WS-Management service before and I found somewhere to install the Hardware Management option in Add/Remove Windows Components to get this working.
Than I retried to add the server as host in SCVMM but the installation stopped with the message below.
Error (421) Agent installation failed on ref-vmh-02 because of a WS-Management configuration error.
I reboot the server couple of times; reviewed the eventlog and nothing worked to get the Virtual Machine Manager 2007 agent installed. There is hotfix which you can use and install the WinRM component manually without control panel. Go here and download and install the fix http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84599. This fixed my problem and errors 10101 WinRM in the application eventlog.
Tags: 2007, add, new host, scvmm, WS-Management
