Random notes of a system administrator

Recognized as a MVP!

2010-07-04T06:19:00.001+01:00

I’m happy to inform I’ve been selected and award the MVP award by Microsoft! My main subjects has been server virtualization and server clustering. Most of my activities and blogs are related to the HYPER-V though I have a strong attraction to clustering due to the close relationship between 2 technologies most of the time.

I’m focusing more on integrating third party solutions with HYPER-V and providing comprehensive solutions to customers. (Eg: Complete DR solutions using HYPER-V with Double Take)

Hats off for everyone who has been supportive for me and encourage on my activities.

Battery life decrease after the Apple IOS 4 upgrade to the Apple iTouch

2010-06-29T18:13:00.001+01:00

I was keep in counting the days until the Apple release the free IOS 4 update for the iPod devices. If I’m correct June 22nd they released the update OS and I managed to upgrade my iTouch OS on 3 a.m.!

Everything is normal for me initially until I notice how quickly the batter drain after 1-2 hours usage of the device. Under the previous OS I didn’t experienced of this apart from occasional playing of SNIPER 3D game. Of course anyone can understand the graphic intensive games like that can drain the juice very quickly from that device. After some forum search I found out I’m not the only moron screaming and blaming Apple for this issues.
Finally I decided to do a hard reset of the device. Most of the forums has clearly mention to backup the data and settings and proceed with that. But as a thumb rule I didn’t do that :) But found out I didn’t loose the data but now the device is functioning smoothly with longer battery life.

In order to do a hard reset hold down the home button and the reset button nearly 10 seconds until the apple log appears. As a thumb rule backup the data!! you’ll not be luck as I’m :P

Remote Desktop virtualization host capacity planning

2010-06-29T18:06:00.001+01:00

After the main buzz of the server virtualization the next key thing in the industry is Desktop virtualization or else known as VDI. Some of the enterprise companies looking at this solution as a way to increase their hardware life cycle and for some it is a method to tightly control the access point for their central data access. Never the less this is a important technology for the Service partners as well.

To have a better idea of how to size this solution for customers using HYPER-V and Windows 2008 R2 connection broker Microsoft has released the new capacity planning document.

named as “Remote Desktop Virtualization host Capacity Planning in Windows Server 2008 R2”. You can get a copy of this article from here.

Hyper-V R2 Component Architecture Poster

2010-06-10T09:19:00.001+01:00

If you’re interested in knowing more detail on HYPER-V information under the hood then you’ll find the following poster is for you. Apart from techies even pre sales can find this as useful explaining their customers how exactly HYPER-V function in various scenarios.

This poster has clearly define with 8 sections namely as,

Architecture

Virtual Networking

Virtual Machine Snapshots

Live Migration

Storage Interfaces

Storage Types

Storage Location and Paths

Import and Export

You can download if from here.

Apple iPad hits the market

2010-04-05T14:27:00.001+01:00

hi everyone Apple has released the apple iPad officially. According the web reviews people has been awaiting in the queue to get their hands into this neat device.

Apple iPad is next generation device which is more focus on using the sensor technology. Since is built with wifi and 3G technology the information access capability is limitless.

Since I didn’t get my hands into the device it will be difficult to review my honest feeling but as a tech gadget freak I would say I love to get my hands into this device. Well while I’m typing this some guys ahs already gone one step ahead and disabled the device to see what is inside as any techie would do (cough..cough…)

Anyway I think it’s better to have a look into what is inside this cool gadget. You can find step by step guide how to disassemble this device over here.

Installing SQL 2008 on a domain controller

2010-03-30T12:05:00.001+01:00

This is something i have seen in the tech forums and as well as tried by myself. So it would be ideal to share this knowledge with others to get benefited.

one fundamental rule in computer world is security vs productivity balance. Running SQL on a domain controller will expose the AD for too many issues. Following information has been abstracted from various online resources.

For security reasons, Microsoft recommends that you do not install SQL Server 2008 on a domain controller. SQL Server Setup will not block installation on a computer that is a domain controller, but the following limitations apply:
-On Windows Server 2003, SQL Server services can run under a domain account or a local system account.
-You cannot run SQL Server services on a domain controller under a local service account or a network service account. (This is the key issues I had to face)
-After SQL Server is installed on a computer, you cannot change the computer from a domain member to a domain controller. You must uninstall SQL Server before you change the host computer to a domain controller.
-After SQL Server is installed on a computer, you cannot change the computer from a domain controller to a domain member. You must uninstall SQL Server before you change the host computer to a domain member.
-SQL Server failover cluster instances are not supported where cluster nodes are domain controllers.
-SQL Server is not supported on a read-only domain controller.

I do hope these information will helpful when you’ve been requested to carry out a SQL setup on a DC :)

Proud owner of a Apple iPod (3rd Generation)

2010-03-28T05:21:00.001+01:00

Got my hands into the long awaited apple iTouch yesterday. This is 32 GB version. Even though they have 3rd generation iTouch on 8 GB it’s entire design is on 2nd generation. As a technical point of first thing I did is upgrade the firmware :) Well tough to say what kind of improvement has it made since I barely test it even for few hours. So far I’m loving all the features in it specially the wifi access availability and the mail access. Apart from that I really like the idea of voice memos. Even though this is introduced as MP3 player I think it has the essential tools for day to day work.

One disappointment is missing of the camera. I really wish Apple would have consider that into this device since it is a essential part. Let’s put it this way, so far they have given all the utilities you can imagine of and give the apps to edit pictures even but missing the camera! But again before moving to this I did some web research and found of lots of positive feedback on it.

I didn’t went for Microsoft Zune due to the limited apps available in the internet when I did the research. But guess MS will find a way to overcome that very soon. Saying that here goes a another member to the Apple iPod community :)

SQL 2008 high availability through Windows 2008 clustering

2010-03-18T12:10:00.001Z

With the introduction of Windows 2008 Cluster service Microsoft has made the clustering as easy as it can for a system administrators. I’ve been blogging about Windows 2008 clustering on my blog and various other third party software you can use to accommodate the clustering. Once the Microsoft released MS Storage server for the TechNet subscribers I have been using that software frequently. Apart from that I found out StarWind software also providing good solutions as well.

Last month I got the opportunity to demonstrate the Windows 2008 clustering and it’s new capability to the IT Pro community with live demonstration. Too bad I forgot to get some picture on that event :( You can download the presentation I have created for that session from here.

This month I have received an invitation from the SQL community group to conduct a session about SQL cluster creation. Special thanks goes for the SQL community MVP’s for giving me the opportunity.

In that session I present about the MSCS (Microsoft Cluster Service) and the new features in the windows 2008 R2 cluster. Apart from that we went ahead of doing a live demo on SQL cluster creation. It too nearly 1.5 hours for the entire demo since I ran everything from singe machine!

Never the less it very exciting session since I got to interact with the SQL community members. Apart from that participant had various questions about the cluster creation since most of them are database developers and some of them have already work on SQL cluster 2005.

One thing I briefly went talk about is the cluster migration from SQL 2005 cluster to SQL 2008. Forum members can download the presentation from www.sqlserveruniverse.com.

Apart from that we went and discuss about various technical setup and configurations you need give attention during the cluster creation and how to do basic level troubleshooting steps.

SQL MVP Dinesh Asanka presenting the SQL session,

forum members who won prizes,

End of Microsoft EBS (Essential Business Server)

2010-03-11T01:51:00.001Z

Sadly but truly Microsoft has removed the plug from the EBS server. MS has taken decision since there has been no much sales improvement in the server market for this product. Apart from that most of the SME market are focusing on cloud computing and server virtualization options. EBS is targeted for customer who is having 300 seats (computers), but as the MS has identified a customer who is having 300 computers will be already established company in Infrastructure point of view.

Even though EBS provide significant cost benefit moving to EBS from existing server environment to EBS is daunting task. Requiring minimum 3 servers (And they need to be high end as well) to run the product suit including an additional server for premium version is not a easy financial consideration.So the product will be discontinued from selling from June onwards. But the for the existing customers the product will be supported by MS in the normal product life cycle.

What I like most is SBS has not been done any changes and most of the customers still benefit that. Personally I prefer SBS product since it is a significant cost saver for SBS market. This product is targeted for companies who is having less than 75 seats.

SBS Rocks!

Backup and Recovery methods for HYPER-V

2010-03-04T17:15:00.001Z

Most of our customers are having practical issues on how to backup and recover HYPER-V machines. One key thing is HYPER-V backup procedure or at least I would say approach is different from normal server backup methods.

If you’re expecting to backup the VPC using Windows native backup software then it is still possible but the issues will be you won’t be able to recover single VPC in a recovery scenario instead entire volume. As you can see this is time consuming but free options always comes with a catch. At least this is a good option to backup your VPC without shutting them down.

Please refer to this TechNet article which describes solutions in very detail and easy to understand method.

If you prefer to backup individual VPC level and their data inside separately then you’ll have to consider backup software which is aware about HYPER-V. Microsoft DPM is one such software which is very comprehensive in that area. Some of the resources about HYPER-V backup using DPM can be found over here and here.

Apart from that Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 is a good software which is capable of backing up HYPER-V VPC’s and recovering individual file level. (hint…hint guys)

One practical advise is backup and restore of VPC is time consuming task. so make sure your backup solution has a speedy method of recovery, DPM overlook this sometime back and advise customers to move into disk based backup. Still you have to make sure backup media connectivity with the host server support speedy recovery.

So one way to minimize of these kind of unhappy moments is to have high availability solutions like HYPER-V host clustering. This will allow you to balance the HYPER-V workload. More information about this can be found plenty out there when you do a search. One comprehensive article can be found over here.

We’re looking forward to provide more information about HYPER-V backup from DPM 2010 product in future articles, so stay tuned :)

Virtualizing Active Directory service

2010-02-17T03:42:00.001Z

Most of the time we recommend for customers and partners not to virtualizes the AD server. the explanation we give for this is due to the time sync issue there might be problem. So what is this time sync issue and why we should give more consideration about this too much? In this article I’m going to talk about it little bit and explain a solution for that. As a thumb rule I’ve to update you’ll this is according to my 2 cents knowledge :)

Normally Active Directory heavily depend on the accurate time for various services (Eg: Authentication, replication, records updates..etc) When the AD is in a physical machine it will use the interrupt times set by the CPU clock cycles. Since it have the direct access to this time can be accurate.

When you try to virtualized the main problem you face is the virtualized environment behavior. Virtual PC’s are created to save the CPU clock cycles and when one OS is idling then CPU cycles send to that VM will be reduced. Since AD heavily depend on this CPU cycle missing them randomly means the time won’t be accurate. This problematic behavior is same either you’re using VMware, HYPER-V or any other third party virtualization technology. Once the clients and server having mismatch of time sync more than 5 minutes authentication and network resource access will be difficult. (Windows AD environment uses Kerberos authentication and by default time difference allowed is 5 minutes)

So one method is allowing the PDC emulator service holder AD server to sync time with an external time source instead of depending of the CPU clock cycles. To do that you have to edit the registry on the PDC emulator holding server. (As usual I assume you guys will take the necessary precautions like backing up server, registry…etc)

1. Modify Registry settings on the PDC Emulator for the forest root domain:
In this key:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\Type
• Change the Type REG_SZ value from NT5DS to NTP.
This determines from which peers W32Time will accept synchronization. When the REG_SZ value is changed from NT5DS to NTP, the PDC Emulator synchronizes from the list of
reliable time servers specified in the NtpServer registry key.
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\NtpServer
• Change the NtpServer value from time.windows.com,0x1 to an external stratum 1 time source—for example, tock.usno.navy.mil,0x1. More time servers information can be found over here.

This entry specifies a space-delimited list of stratum 1 timeservers from which the local computer can obtain reliable time stamps. The list can use either fully-qualified domain
names or IP addresses. (If DNS names are used, you must append ,0x1 to the end of each DNS name.) In this key:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Config
• Change AnnounceFlags REG_DWORD from 10 to 5. This entry controls whether the local computer is marked as a reliable time server (which is only possible if the previous registry entry is set to NTP as described above). Change the REG_DWORD value from 10 to 5 here.
2. Stop and restart the time service:
net stop w32time
net start w32time
3. Manually force an update:
w32tm /resync /rediscover
(Microsoft KB article # 816042 provides detailed instructions for this process.) Apart from that you can refer to this link as well.

As a thumb rule test this before applying for the production network. This is recommend if your organization preparing to move to 100% virtualization environment. If not at all cost try to have one DC in a physical server :)

Windows server 2008 R2 failover clustering

2010-02-10T01:50:00.001Z

People who attend to the hands on workshop in the above topic in Tech.Ed 2010 I do hope you found my demonstration is valuable and got something out of it. During that time I’ve demonstrated how simplified process in creating basic cluster scenario in Windows 2008. Entire lab has been carried out in one single laptop and I know patient is a virtue at that time :)

During that time I used SatrWind product for the software based iSCSI solution which has been working as charming as it can be. I have been using this product for demos most of the time and really amazed by it’s simplified GUI console. But don’t think this is a simple software, underneath you’ll find some advance features built inside it. I’ve been blogging about this product for several times since I see a growth software based SAN solutions in the market.

So if anyone interested in demonstrating the clustering features in Windows 2008 you can download that slide deck from here. I have to admit, I’ve used various resources and slides from the other people as well. So I thank them all for that as well.

So as I always mention do contact me if you’ll need more support to build a affordable SAN solutions.

AD DS: Database Mounting Tool (Snapshot Viewer or Snapshot Browser)

2010-01-28T06:56:00.001Z

With Windows 2008 Microsoft introduce a new tool called Active Directory database mounting tool (Dsamain.exe) This was referred as Snapshot viewer and Active Directory data mining tool during the early release of the Windows 2008. The cool thing about this tool is you can take snapshots of your AD database and view it offline.

As for Microsoft explanation this is really helpful in Forest recovery and AD auditing purpose. In the case of AD objects deletion you can load a snapshot and compare your current AD alone with it.

Before the Windows Server 2008 operating system, when objects or organizational units (OUs) were accidentally deleted, the only way to determine exactly which objects were deleted was to restore data from backups. This pain behind this is:

Active Directory had to be restarted in Directory Services Restore Mode to perform an authoritative restore.
An administrator could not compare data in backups that were taken at different points in time (unless the backups were restored to various domain controllers, a process which is not feasible).

but one thing to notice is this is not a method to recover deleted objects but merely a method to show to you what has happened by doing a comparison. Apart from that you’ll need to be a member of the Enterprise admins or domain admins group, or else given particular rights for a user account.

Now getting back to the actions, to get snapshot, mount them and view them you need to know about 3 tools,

1. NTDSUTIL – Create, delete, mount, list the snapshot.

2. Dsamain.exe – This will allow us to expose snapshot to LDAP servers.

3. LDP or Active Directory Users and Computers MMC to view the mounted snapshot.

So the steps going to be as follows,

1.    Manually or automatically create a snapshot of your AD DS or AD LDS database.
2.    Mount the snapshot.
3.    Expose the snapshot as an LDAP server.
4.    Connect to the snapshot.
5.    View data in the snapshot.

Manually creating the snapshot of the AD DS

1. Logon to a Windows Server 2008 domain controller.
2. Click Start, and then click Command Prompt.
3. In the Command Prompt window, type ntdsutil, and then hit Enter.
4. At the ntdsutil prompt, type snapshot, and then hit Enter.
5. At the snapshot prompt, type activate instance NTDS, and then hit Enter.
6. At the snapshot prompt, type create, and then hit Enter.
7. Note down the GUID return by the command.

Mount the snapshot

1. If you didn’t close the previous window just go for it again and type list all and press enter.
2. Once you get the list of the snapshots you can select a snapshot to mount. In this scenario type mount 2 and press enter.
3. If the mounting was successful, you will see Snapshot {GUID} mounted as PATH, where {GUID} is the GUID that corresponds to the snapshot, and PATH is the path where the snapshot was mounted.
4. Note down the path

Expose the snapshot as an LDAP server

Ok so far we manage to create a snapshot and mount it. Now we need to expose the snapshot so we can view it from LDP utility or by using ADUC mmc. In this scenario we’re going to use the second utility (Active Directory Users and Computers)

1. Open a new command prompt

2. In the Command Prompt window, type dsamain /dbpath C:\$SNAP_201001281107_VOLUMEC$\WINDOWS\NTDS\ntds.dit /ldapport 51389 (instead of using the default 389 port we’re using a alternative port the snapshot to minimize any conflicts with the live AD DS)
note: “C:\$SNAP_201001281107_VOLUMEC$” is the path we got few steps before and represent the snapshot mounted path in our system.

3. "Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services startup complete" will appear in the Command Prompt window after running the above command. This means the snapshot is exposed as an LDAP server, and you can proceed to access data on it. NOTE: Do not close the Command Prompt window or the snapshot will no longer be exposed as an LDAP server.

Connect to the snapshot

We can use any utility which can read the LDAP data. In this demonstration as I mention earlier I’ll go ahead and use the Active directory Users and Computers snappin.

1. Open the ADUC.
2. Right click the ADCU and select “Change domain controller” option.
3. Type the domain name with the custom port number eg “CONTOSO-DC:51389”
4. Now you’re looking at the data in the snapshot. Go ahead and open a another ADCU window and that will open the current AD DS.
5. Go ahead and do a change on the live AD DS and then check the 2 MMC’s again. You’ll see the snapshot data is not getting changed.

So as I mention this is really cool feature and saves lot of time. If you don’t like creating snapshots manually you can create a schedule task and automate this to create snapshot automatically. One concern is these snapshot are not encrypted so if this gets to wrong hand it is bad for you guys. So try to keep them in a safe location and try to encrypt them for added security.

Giving attention to good old redirusr and redircmp commands

2010-01-27T15:55:00.001Z

I’ve been meddling with some GPO issues and then came across these 2 commands. These commands has been the with Windows 2000 and 2003. So what bring my attention to these commands is how can you use them to comply with Security auditing. More information about how to use this commands can be found over here.

Well first we’ll take an example about an Enterprise company. Most of the time AD admin will get a mail or a request from HR or from a relevant department requesting to create a new user account. Once you get that request you’ll create those user accounts and by default they will be going to the Users section in ADUC. Due to your busy schedule you’ll forget to transfer the relevant user account to the correct OU. Event though this will be a matter of few hours or few days delay moving the account to relevant OU in computer security wise big risk!

One way I can think of eliminating or minimizing is whenever you create new user account or new computer added to the domain they will be moved to a different OU which have unique GPO’s assign to them. So in that particular GPO you can edit the security setting which will comply with the company IT security policy and give minimal user rights until user account moved to correct OU :)

In a nutshell this will be seen as a simple thing but overall compared to IT security a big step. So go ahead roll your sleeves and give it a try in your company network and be safe!

Supporting Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2

2010-01-20T08:03:00.001Z

Well another good news for customers and partners. Microsoft has demonstrated and proved they are indeed listening to customer and partner feedback. Exchange 2007 product team has taken a decision to support Windows 2008R2 platform. Most of the customers are running Exchange 2007 and they will not have quick plan to move to Exchange 2010 but they will still prefer to have their operating system to have latest version for improved manageability.

More information about this decision has been blogged over here.

Bring your Own Computer (BYOC) to work

2010-01-19T03:12:00.001Z

Well this has been once debatable question or rather I would say adoptable method carried out by some companies. Microsoft,Intel & Citrix are some companies who adopt this and they have already carried it out in several region offices. Recent economic situation has given most employees green light for this. In a way I see this as a good thing and I started adopting this almost before big companies decide about it. Actually in year 2007 :)

We as technical persons cannot be locked down for 8 –5 usual office work hours, sometimes we work from home and until late night. Apart from that companies prefer to get maximum benefits out of the employees apart from that HR keeps on trying making the life comfortable for the work force. (Weather they success or not is a different question) My point is everyone want to be happy and still not compromise the rules right? Well in that case BYOC is a good method for several reasons,

1. Employees will have their personal laptop and can work from anywhere, which I call freedom and flexibility

2. Employer cannot afford all the latest hardware to be given to employees all the time to carry out their work and replacing the hardware annually. But they can lend some money to employees to have their own machine with certain legal condition, and this will be fraction of the cost of their annual IT budget.

3. Employees have the flexibility to work and same time have break and use it more meaningfully to interact with friends and colleagues via MSN, other IM’s and social networks. (Eg: Face Book) I know some companies will see FB as a bad thing but again fundamental rules work out over here, trust between employee and the employer. I also agree not wasting time on FB doing farming or playing games in office working hours. Keep that for OOOH (Out Of Office hours)

So on even you’ll can figure out various benefits which is good for both parties. With every new concepts comes some raised concerns and same goes over here.

1. Security – Well this is something for the IT department to come up with. Do you really think BYOC is the only major issue? think about the other methods your network can compromise. What we should really care about is how to make sure company main servers and confidential data can be secured properly. I have seen many times it comes to the boiling point of servers not been secured with the recommendation security patches and security policies. Now it’s time to go and have a second look at the security aspects more deeply.

2. Cost – As I mention this will be lot less if you plan if carefully. Since you’re not going to spend so much money but lend some money for the employee to buy his/her own machine with relevant terms and condition. But please remember this option is not applicable for all the companies and this has to be evaluated even department level as well.

3. Security Policy – Well companies can have that hefty security policy guideline books with them still :) Well my point is you can still apply some general rules and terms and evaluate your security polices and try to balance everything. If you’re so much concern about the desktop environments then this is the time you can even evaluate the VDI (Virtual Desktop Interface) Microsoft and Citrix is offering pretty cool solutions for this. I think the way we moving forward with year 2010 VDI will be a good option for companies to consider.

So in a nutshell those are my opinions about BYOC and I agree with this trend and the question is do you? Share your thoughts about it and see if we can change the working environment for more friendly flexible and sexy!!!! I mean with cool laptop models people :)

Windows 7 deployment using image capturing

2010-01-17T16:29:00.001Z

With introduction of the Windows Vista Microsoft introduce the image capturing method. Earlier we used to reply on Symantec ghost, Acronis…etc. Now Microsoft has given complete free tool set to do image capturing and deployment. One advantage I see in this method is the images going to be captured using the Microsoft given tools are,

One image for many hardware configurations
Multiple images in one file
Offline servicing of the image file
Installation on partitions of any size
Bootable image support for Windows PE
Modification of image files using APIs

Of course if you do further search you’ll find many more options and advantages. In this article I’ll guide you how to capture Windows 7 installed PC using Imagex command and then deploy it to different PC. Of course this can be customize and make it Zero touch deployment with advance tools like SCCM, but that will be another article :)

Ok to start first you’ll need following items,

Active Directory environment (DC with DHCP, DNS roles enabled)
Windows 7 PC installed with Windows 7 AIK (Automated Installation Kit)
Windows 7 Pc with all the necessary software preinstalled to be captured as reference image.
Another PC ready ready without any OS. Network card need to support PXE.

In my article the above mention lab has been carried out on HYPER-V environment. All of them are virtual PC’s. The power of virtualization really shines over here :)

Now I assume you’ve already setup the Domain Controller with functioning DNS and DHCP and also one Windows 7 PC installed with downloaded Windows AIK. (since that part is easy)

Now back to work. First I took a virtual PC with windows 7 and MS office 2007 preinstalled. In your case you can install all the application you normally use in your production environment.

Once all the applications has been installed go ahead and remove the static IP settings and configure to get an IP from the DHCP server. Since we plan to do a image capturing we don’t want the same IP to be duplicated to all the PC, right?

After that go ahead and launch the sysprep command. This command will make sure all the unique data and settings will be removed from that reference PC.

once the PC has been generalized go ahead and start it from the Windows PE CD. How to create a Windows PE cd can be found over here. Since I’m doing everything in Virtual environment these pics will show how to assign the iso image and also how configure a legacy network adapter for that image. In HYPER-V only legacy network adapter will support getting IP from DHCP when booting.

now once booted from the PE cd we’ll go ahead and map a network drive to export the capturing image. After that run the imagex command to capture the image.

Once the image capture is completed (how long will it take to capture the image will depend on the amount of data you have in the reference PC) Take the same Windows PE CD and boot the machine which is not having any operating system. One you boot to the command prompt again map the network drive by using net use command and then import the captured image using the imagex command.

Well once that completed you can restart the PC and start the PC with OOBE (Out of the Box Experience) In that scenario you can provide a computer name, user name..etc. So as you can see the entire process is that that difficult and compared with the benefits you can get out of image based deployments. Microsoft MDT 2010 is a good tool to use to automate this process if you have a requirement to deploy Windows XP, windows 7 or Windows 2008 for few hundred computers. Apart from that have a look into the following TechNet articles as well,

DISM , MDT2010 , SCCM

Enjoy with these tools and doing your own experiments.

My new class for Windows 7

2010-01-17T02:30:00.001Z

I started my new batch on Windows 7 Client configuration. This is the first batch in NetAssist training institute of the particular module. Microsoft has greatly enhance their books and training material this time more focusing on practical side. Students has been given enough reading information be referring to the TechNet links. This is a good adoption due to the TechNet will be regularly updating with latest technical updates.

My first two weeks has been spend on deploying Windows 7 via image creation and distribution via various methods available in Microsoft. One key advantage is students will be experiencing HYPER-V interface since all the virtual pc’s has been configured in HYPER-V!!

Since virtualization has been my favorite area I had good time explain the features and features behind HYPER-V as well :)

Which version of HYPER-V should I use?

2010-01-16T17:21:00.006Z

Normally when you have top many options in the same products it makes too much confusing. Sometime this is given for you to make your life easier but still there are chances it can burden you when you don’t have proper instructions and guidance. Same story goes in HYPER-V as well. Microsoft offer HYPER-V in several editions and knowing which version to purchase or get free depend on what are you going to do with it. Apart from that I wanted to highlight the new command available in HYPER-V configuration in server core edition. “sconfig.cmd” is a graphical command available in the server core to configure server. This is updated with new sets of commands which make HYPER-V managing administrator’s life easier.
Now without further due let me introduce one of the charts available in the Microsoft web site which explains which edition to choose.

Apart from server consolidation some of the other areas where you can use HYPER-V are,

* Test and Development
* Server Consolidation
* Branch Office Consolidation
* Hosted Desktop Virtualization (VDI)

Microsoft free HYPER Visor is good option for testing and R&D. If you are planning to consolidate more than 4 servers in one physical server then moving to Data center version will do huge cost saving to you. More information of these licensing and how to maximize your investment on this HYPER-V can be get on Tech.Ed 2010. Look forward to see ya in there.

Tech.Ed 2010 in Sri Lanka

2010-01-15T02:40:00.001Z

Hi everyone, we’re so proud to present Tech.Ed in Sri Lanka. Microsoft Sri Lanka has taken great initiate step organizing this event. We believe year 2010 going to be the ICT year and there will be so much improvement in our ICT sector in Sri Lanka. Same time we expect a boom in the Enterprise sector the usage of IT to increase their productivity and reduce the cost.

Tech.Ed will be starting on Feb 09th. Currently registration is open to everyone. This is one of the updated news I received via FB.

“Tech.Ed Sri Lanka 2010 standard price: SLR 12000/=
Register for Tech.Ed Sri Lanka now and save 10% on the standard price. Don’t delay… This Offer Expires 25th of January 2010.
http://www.teched.lk/register.aspx”

So go ahead and grab your seat guys. As I mention this will be a great opportunity to experience a whole new level of Microsoft Technology and get in touch with industry experts and raise your questions.

SCVMM 2008 R2 documentation update is out!

2010-01-14T14:12:00.001Z

If you’re using Microsoft HYPER-V as you main stream virtualization platform then you know SCVMM is the centralized management console to mange several HYPER-V hosts. Apart from that is have the capability to manage cross different virtualization technology hosts as well (Eg: ESX)

Since SCVMM is a dynamic product which keeps on evolving all the time new updates and hot-to guides appear frequently. Microsoft team recently released some of the documentation updates. You can reach them here. Apart from that one of the best place to hang around and get the latest info would be HYPER-V @ TechNet.

As per my personal view year 2010 –2012 would be the peak time Sri Lankan market would adopt Virtualization. Most of the time Enterprise companies has been in the observation and internal review about virtualization and how to adopt for that. Since virtualization is a vast area ISV’s will have a great opportunity to provide the ideal solutions.

HAPPY VIRTULIZATION YEAR TO ALL!

CCleaner supports Windows 7

2010-01-12T00:58:00.001Z

How many times you have notice or suffered from PC / Laptop getting slow and sluggish compared to your initial usage with that system. We tend to keep filling it up with various software and downloads. Even though we try to do disk cleanup and disk defragment that doesn’t going to clean the windows registry (The nerve system of Windows)

As a solution I have been using registry cleaning software from windows 98 stage. When it comes to Windows XP have found out CCLeaner is the best for that plus it is free. Apart from registry cleaning it has the capability to tweak the registry, remove stale software records from control panel…etc. Removing browser cache and temporary files is one key improvement in this software. Not only internet explorer , CCleaner support can identify most popular web browsers as well. So much options under the category of free :) Unfortunately when I moved to Windows 7 it didn’t had official plans or release dates to support for Windows7. Despite of running the application under Windows XP compatibility category I didn’t wanted to run this application. One main reason is it won’t recognize the Windows 7 registry and can make severe damage.

Recent visit to their web site gave me the eye opening about the compatibility with windows 7! Some of the key improvements in the latest release are,

CCleaner v2.27
- Added support to Wipe MFT Free Space.
- Added cleaning for Windows Explorer breadcrumb bar.
- Added cleaning for Opera beta versions.
- Added option to turn off CCleaner jumplist tasks on Windows 7.
- Added menu option to Registry Cleaner to add key to exclude list.
- Improved support for SeaMonkey 2.0.
- Improved Windows 7 Taskbar progress accuracy.
- Improved minimize to system tray functionality across all platforms.
- Improved Opera cleaning by including opcache and temporary_downloads folder.
- Improved performance of Compact database routines.
- Improved Wipe Free Space code to avoid locks.
- Improved security when deleting files.
- Minor GUI and interface improvements.
- Minor bug fixes.

Give it a try and see how it perform for you. You can download the latest version from here.

Microsoft Rental Rights Licensing scheme

2010-01-11T08:08:00.001Z

Beginning of the 01st January 2010 Microsoft has started the rental scheme of their Operating system and Office products. If you’re a partner who is renting or lending machine to customers for projects or for training this will be a good news for you. You don’t have to put a hefty price on your rental price tag for the OS you’re preinstall and delivering. As per Microsoft resellers advantages are as follows,

Rental Rights licensing offers Microsoft resellers a range of benefits, including:

Customer satisfaction. You now have a way to sell licenses that fit your customers’ business models, help ensure their compliance, and solidify your role as a trusted advisor.
Convenience. No special tools, processes, reporting, or paperwork are necessary; the transaction works like any other license transaction.
Revenue. Selling the new licenses means new revenue.
Flexibility. Just like with other Volume Licensing SKUs, you have the flexibility to determine the pricing for your customers and to run promotions.

In way this is a welcome method to reduce the piracy of software and give the freedom to comply with licensing as well. More information can be found over here.

Apart from that their are certain restrictions for this scheme as well, Those are as follows,

Rental Rights licenses are user rights licenses only (they do not include software), so no media fulfillment is involved. The following important limitations apply to the Rental Rights licenses:

Perpetual license. A Rental Rights license is permanently assigned to a specific device and may not be reassigned to another device. When the device reaches its operational end-of-life, so does the license.
Remote access. Rental Rights do not allow for remote access to software.
Separate devices. Use of additional copies of the qualifying software on a separate portable device or a network device is not allowed.
Additive license only. Rental Rights licenses are not stand-alone product licenses and do not replace customers’ underlying Windows desktop operating system or Office system licenses; Rental Rights are additional licenses that modify the underlying license terms, allowing for rental, lease, and outsourcing of desktop PCs with licensed, qualifying Windows desktop operating systems and licensed, qualifying Office systems.
Virtual machines. Rental Rights do not account for software used within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system. In other words, the primary customer may not create and rent virtual machines.

Few IT Solutions for SMB/SME market

2010-01-01T02:51:00.001Z

Despite the number of people in a company from business perspective, SMB and Enterprise have similar requirements & request from the Information Technology. They all expect the service continuity, anywhere access and low cost! During this time period every company dream is to get maximum out of the IT investment and still reduce the cost without loosing the functionality. Business continuity is a key factor for survival of any business. Service disruption for few minutes to few days impact can be devastating depend on the business nature. So how can SMB market segment overcome these limitations with fraction of the cost where Enterprise companies invest on?

To make things simple in this article I’ll focus on Microsoft products and the features offered by them. But as usual hints will be provided for the similar feature products as well :)

1. Which Operating Systems to invest on by SMB customers – My 2 cents advise goes for SBS 2008 or EBS 2008. There are significant advantages on these operating systems once properly configured and used. Less attention is been given due to the nature of the product names. Small business Server itself is not a product to be taken lightly, the solution is far more complex than the out of the box. If you’re company fallen under SME segment then consider the scale out product like Essential Business Server which can be spanned into 3 physical servers or virtual servers. Again these are Enterprise class ready product which has been limited only be the CALS and not by reducing any FEATURES. (Period)

2. Cost cutting on Hardware and software purchases – Consider HYPER-V for server virtualization. It will be ideal if you can consider few of your legacy applications to run in their own OS environment to make them less conflict with the latest operating system. Believe me Virtualization will be the ideal solution for this.

What ever your next purchase make sure it is 64bit and Virtualization capable. Always make sure you have enough hardware expansion room. (Eg: Buy 2 processor socket system with one physical processor, buy RAM with enough RAM slots.) Make sure your existing hardware can be utilized as Storage systems. There are easy ways to convert your existing servers into cost effective SAN storage and make maximum out of it. Microsoft offering of SAN software will be coming on OEM so you can consider a product like StarWind iSCSI storage. (more information about how-to articles in future)

3. Backup and Protect you data – This is part of your service continuity and availability plan. If you’re going to have HYPER-V as your virtualization option consider how to backup the virtualized environments as well. From Microsoft point of view DPM 2007 (Data Protection Manager) will be the ideal solution to protect your physical and virtual environments. DPM 2010 can be expected around Q2 in year 2010 with lots of new improvements along with desktop backup and offline laptop backup as well.
when it comes to DR solution and high availability options SMB market has been backed away by the pricy hardware devices and software. Thanks for various replication technologies and offline backup options this is becoming reality to SMB market as well. Microsoft is working closely with ISV partners to make sure software solutions exist for data replication with DR sites. As I mention StarWind is a very popular company coming up with these solutions. Best of all these solutions are costing a fraction of price of DAS or Hardware SAN with HBA adapters.

4. Consider managed services or hosted solutions when you don’t have the necessary skills in house. hosting your E-mail accounts under your company domain name is no longer a dream. You can have your own Exchange server e-mail accounts, access your mails from mobile (OWA, OMA) with a fraction of the cost of having in-house. The key question is to indentify the margin of in-house vs hosting solutions. For few SMB markets in-house might not be the ideal and much more preferred way of controlling how things happen. But that comes with additional price tag of hardware and maintenance model.

So as you can see SMB / SME market having so many options when it comes to cost reduction and still balance their business requirements. It’s all about taking the right moves knowing their business requirements and limitations. Let me know if anyone interested on these solutions and would be glad to provide more information.

Technorati Tags: SBS 2008,HYPER-V

Reality of server virtualization and cost reduction

2009-12-30T01:22:00.001Z

Is your company ever facing the challenge of effectively managing the servers and infrastructure growth? Is server virtualization been shown to you as the only resolution to overcome the problem along with the Green IT concept? Sadly in Sri Lanka Green IT concept is not widely being adopted even though reducing $$$ really makes sense for us :)

So most of us has been hearing about server virtualization offered by various vendors. (Microsoft, VMware, Citrix….etc) but in order for a company to move to a virtualization road what are the facts need to be considered. Virtualization concept has been expanded from server virtualization to desktop virtualization, application virtualization so a decision maker need to take careful consideration which option is the best for their company to adopt. Let’s look at some of the key facts,

1. Reducing cost – At a glance this seems to be the biggest favor factor. Server consolidation of 3:1, 2:1 and even 10:1 or more. But the missing picture is this true to my company? Can I really archive that kind of consolidation ratio? This is a question need to be ask from your IT department. How can I know which servers are the best candidates to consolidate? Depend on the answers we’re getting out of that, companies need to decide virtualization strategy.

2. Power / Cooling saving – These are some of the direct benefit of the virtualization. Reduce the server for print in your data center will lead for you to spend less money on the power and data center cooling.

3. Standardization / Compliance – These are some of the indirect benefits companies can achieve. System administrators will be able to better manage server operating systems and applications in the virtualizations systems by using system management products. Bringing the entire data centers into standardized environment will bring better Service Management and also will help companies to compliance with industry regulations.

Looking at a glance we have so many advantages moving to server consolidation and better utilization of existing hardware through server virtualization. So what is the catch the hidden untold story of the server virtualization?

1. Possible candidates -Indentify the server which can be virtualized. Not all the servers in your company can be virtualized immediately. First rule is to identify the servers which can be virtualized. MAPS (Microsoft Assessment and Planning Service Toolkit) is a good tool for this job. MAPS is a tool beyond server virtualization identification. Check for your self on the MS web site :)

2. Availability- When you have separate physical servers to run your company application loosing one server is not a major problem for you. Once you do the server consolidation of 3:1 what if the only physical server holding that 3 server roles goes down? How that will impact the company overall functionality? Not a happy picture right? Server availability is a critical factor to be overseen when it comes to server virtualization. Plan well ahead how you going to protect those servers from failures. This is a part not being added to the $$$ but need to be given careful attention. Additional hardware or backup hardware or software attention must be given,
Server virtualization not always going to utilize your existing servers. As I have seen in our market most of the companies are still having 5-6 old servers in production. You’ll need to invest on new hardware. Better of all have a god planning on how to recover from one physical server which host several servers.

3. Server sprawling - Creating virtual servers unnecessary or with less control to mange the overall environment will lead to this. Fortunately this is not a question or as situation our market will lead now :)
Once you have move into the virtualization road you have to have better control of what server how and where you create them. Server virtualization will loosen the bond of operating system with physical servers. If you’re not careful enough you’ll end up creating unnecessary number of virtual servers and resource wastages instead of resource saving. Fortunately VMware center, SCVMM is there for the help but end of the day ultimate control is with humans who are vulnerable for making mistakes :)

4. Cost – Virtualization will itself is not going to bring immediate ROI if you didn’t plan well but another over burden to our IT budget. Additional storage cost, network equipment, servers….etc you name it cost will go if you didn’t identify the above mention goals properly. Know what you need to virtualized and how to protect them as well.

So where we end up on server virtualization? How can SMB, SME or Enterprise enjoy this technology? Number one rule is take time for careful planning. Use the given free tools to better understand your environment and plan the resources well ahead. Virtualization is not only limited to server side so you can be carried out by many factors. Know the company business objective and how to drive them with virtualization. None of the above mention facts are to keep you away from virtualization. My honest opinion is virtualization (may it be server, application…..etc) is really good but little bit of extra planning will make your life easier.

Happy virtualization!

Windows 2008 Failover Clustering setup (101 guide)

2009-12-21T13:28:00.001Z

Before jumping into the High availability it would be a really good if all of readers can sit on the same seat about the clustering technology as well. Recently enough I went through the history of the clustering to get and idea about it, interestingly enough there are lot more than meets the eye on clustering :) Some history info about clustering can be found over here

What is clustering - In its most elementary definition, a server cluster is at least two independent computers that are logically and sometimes physically joined and presented to a network as a single host. That is to say, although each computer (called a node) in a cluster has its own resources, such as CPUs, RAM, hard drives, network cards, etc., the cluster as such is advertised to the network as a single host name with a single Internet Protocol (IP) address. As far as network users are concerned, the cluster is a single server, not a rack of two, four, eight or however many nodes comprise the cluster resource group.

Why cluster - Availability: Avoids problems resulting from systems failures.
Scalability: Additional systems can be added as needs increase.
Lower Cost: Supercomputer power at commodity prices.

What are the cluster types -

Distributed Processing Clusters
- Used to increase the speed of large computational tasks
- Tasks are broken down and worked on by many small systems rather than one large
- system (parallel processing).
- Often deployed for tasks previously handled only by supercomputers.
- Used for scientific or financial analysis.

Failover Clusters
- Used to increase the availability and serviceability of network services.
- A given application runs on only one of the nodes, but each node can run one or more applications.
- Each node or application has a unique identity visible to the “outside world.”
- When an application or node fails, its services are migrated to another node.
- The identity of the failed node is also migrated.
- Works with most applications as long as they are scriptable.
- Used for database servers, mail servers or file servers.

High Availability Load Balancing Clusters
- Used to increase the availability, serviceability and scalability of network services.
- A given application runs on all of the nodes and a given node can host multiple applications.
- The “outside world” interacts with the cluster and individual nodes are “hidden.”
- Large cluster pools are supported.
- When a node or service fails, it is removed from the cluster. No failover is necessary.
- Applications do not need to be specialized, but HA clustering works best with stateless applications that can be run concurrently.
- Systems do not need to be homogeneous.
- Used for web servers, mail servers or FTP servers.

Now coming back into the Microsoft clustering clustering goes back to good old NT 4.0 era with the code name “wolf pack” All this time it came all the way step by step growing and shine on Windows 2000 period giving the confidence for customers on the stability of the Microsoft clustering technology. If there are filed engineers who have configured the Windows 2003 clustering will know the painful steps they have to take to configure the clustering Steps are very lengthy. When it comes to Windows 2003 R2 Microsoft offered various tools and wizards to make the clustering process less painful process to for engineers. If you’re planning to configure windows 2003 clustering one place you definitely look into is this site.

Now we’re in the windows 2008 era and clust4ering has been improved dramatically in the configuration side and as well as in the stability wise. New names for the clustering goes as “Windows failover clustering”

As I have been updating the audience in public sessions clustering is no longer going to be a technology focus by Enterprise market. Clustering can be utilized by SMB and SME market as well with a fraction of the cost. As usual I will be focusing on the HYPER-V and how combine with clustering can help the users to get the maximum benefits out for virtualization and high availability. HYPER-V been Microsoft flagship technology for the virtualization. It’s a 100% bare metal hyper visor technology. There are lot of misguided conception on HYPE-V is not a true hypervisor, the main argument point highlighted is you need to have windows 2008 to run the HYPER-V. This is wrong!!! You can setup on the HYPER-V hyper visor software in bare metal server and setup the virtual pc’s. HYPER-V only free version can be download from here. Comparisons on HYPER-V can be found over here.

So now we have somewhat idea about the clustering technology so how can it applied to the HYPER-V environment and have a high available virtual environment? We’ll have a look at a recommended setup for this scenario,

According to the picture we’ll need 2 physical servers. We’ll call them Host1 and Host2. Each host must 64bit and have Vitalization supported processor. Apart from that Microsoft recommended to have certified hardware by MS. so base on my knowledge I would say ideal environment should be as follows,

1. Branded servers with Intel Xeon Quad core processor. (better 2 have 2 sockets M/B for future expansion.)
2. 8 GB memory and minimum 3 nics. always better to have additional nics.
3. 2*76 GB SAS or SATA HDD for the Host operating system.
4. SAN Storage. (Just hold there folks, there are easy way to solve this expensive matter….:)

Now the above system has the full capability to handle decent amount workload. Now the configuration part :) I’ll try to summarize the steps along with additional tips when necessary,

1. Install windows 2008 Enterprise or Datacenter edition to each Host computer. Make sure both of them get the latest updates and both host will have same updates for all the software.

2. Go ahead and install the HYPER-v role.

3. Configure the NIC’s accordingly. taking one host as the example NIC configuration will be as follows,
    a) One NIC will be connected to your production environment. So you can add the IP, DG, SB and DNS
    b) Second NIC will be the heartbeat connection between the 2 host servers. So add IP address and the SB only. Make sure it will be totally     different IP class.
    c) Third NIC will be configured to communicate with the SAN storage. I'm assuming we’ll be using iSCSI over IP.

4. Now for the SAN storage you can go ahead and buy the expensive SAN storage for HP, DELL or EMC (no offence with me guys :) ) but their are customers who can’t afford that price tag. For them the good new is you can convert your existing servers into a SAN storage. We’re talking about converting you're existing x86 systems into Software based SAN storage which use iSCSI protocol. There are third party companies which provide software for this. Personally I prefer StarWind iSCSI software.
So all you have to do is add enough HDD space to your server and then using the third party iSCSI software convert your system to SAN storage. This will be the central storage for the two HYPER-V enabled host computers.

4. Go ahead and create the necessary storage at the SAN server. How to create the cluster quorum disk and other disk storage will be available from the relevant storage vendor documentation. When it comes to quorum disk try to make it 512MB if possible but most SAN storage won’t allow you to create a LUN below 1024 MB so in that case act accordingly. (Anyway here goes few steps how to create relevant disks under StarWind)

5. Go to one host computer and then add the Clustering feature.

6. Go to the iSCSI initiator in the Host1 and then connect to the SAN storage. As seen on the picture click add portal and enter the IP address of SAN storage. One connected it’ll show the relevant disk mappings. (That easy in Windows 2008 R2 now)

7. Once that complete go to Disk management and unitize the disk and format them and assign drive letters accordingly. (Eg: Drive letter Q for Quorum disk…etc)

8. Go to Host2 open iSCSI imitator and add the SAN storage. Go to Disk management and add the same drive letters to the disks as configured on Host1.

9. Go to cluster configuration and start setting up the cluster. One cool thing about Windows 2008 cluster setup is cluster validation wizard. It will do a serious of configuration checkup to make sure if you have configured the cluster setup steps correctly. This wizard is a must and you need to keep this report safely in case if you need to get Microsoft support or a technical personas support. One the cluster validation completed we can go ahead add the cluster role. In this case we’ll be selecting File Server as our cluster role.

10. Once the cluster validation is completed, go ahead and create a cluster service. In this demonstration I’ll use clustered file server feature.

Go ahead and give a cluster administration name for the cluster, and after that select a disk for the shared storage. for this we’ll use a disk created in the SAN storage,

11. Once that step is completed you’ll be back in the cluster management console. Now you’ll be able to see the cluster server name you’re created. So we have created cluster but still we didn’t share any storage. Now we’ll go ahead and create shared folder an assign few files so users can see them,

Now once we login from a client PC we can type the UNC path and access the shared data in the clustered file server :)

Phew…!! that was a long article I' have every written :) Ok I guess by now you’ll have the idea Windows 2008 clustering is not very complicated if you have the right tools and the resources. Now that is the out layer internally to secure the environment we’ll need to consider about either CHAP authentications, IPSec…etc. Since this is 101 article i kept everything is simple manner.

Let me know your comments (good or bad)about the article so I’ll be able to provide better information which will be helpful for you all.

Upgrading your Domain controllers to Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 R2

2009-12-15T03:12:00.001Z

So you have been running on Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 AD environment for quite some time and prefer a change. Windows 2008 has been out there for almost 16 months now, including the release of Windows 2008 R2. In this article we’ll discuss some of the key facts you need to consider before you jump into upgrade process and some of the pit falls you need to avoid.

What are the upgrade options available for me?

In-Place upgrade – In this method you can upgrade your existing server to Windows 2008 or Windows 2008 R2. But the key thing is you can't in-place upgrade your windows 2000. You need to upgrade that to Windows 2003. (Do you really need to install windows 2008 on that old hardware :) There are few caveats you need to take into consideration before going this path,

The Windows Server 2003 patch level should be at least Service Pack 1
You can't upgrade across architectures (x86, x64 & Itanium)
Standard Edition can be upgraded to both Standard and Enterprise Edition
Enterprise Edition van be upgraded to Enterprise Edition only
Datacenter Edition van be upgraded to Datacenter Edition only

Apart from that consider your Domain and Forest functional level as well. In windows 2008 R2 you’ll have some cool roles and features but to get that you need to upgrade the functional levels to R2. Consider the following facts.

Transitioning - Migrating this method means you’ll be adding Windows Server 2008 Domain Controllers to your existing Active Directory environment. After that migrate the FSMO roles to the new server and safely demote the existing windows 2003 domain controllers. You’ll have to purchase new hardware for this. In case if you’re planning to use your existing hardware then temporary you’ll have to bring a new server with windows 2008 to get the roles transferred. Few things to remember at that time is,

Global Catalog availability
Enable your new 2008 DCs as DNS servers (if using Microsoft DNS)
PDC Emulator sync with external time source
Ensure the demotion of your existing DCs is fully replicated to all your other DCs before promoting the replacement (if re-using the same name and IP address).
Changes to your backup and recovery procedures
Anti-virus software compatibility with 2008
Monitoring software compability with 2008
Any other services/applications running on your existing DCs (e.g. CA, WINS, DHCP, File and Print).
Applications and systems that may be impacted during the outage of your DCs during the demotion/promotion (i.e. those that may be hard-coded to the name or IP address).

Transitioning is possible for Active Directory environments which domain functional level is at least Windows 2000 Native. In a way this is my favorite method considering the risky method of in-place upgrade.

Restructuring – In this method you’re going to create a total different domain and transfer the existing domain details (Eg: user accounts, passwords, profiles…etc) to the new domain. One good example is when a company having two or three domains and they wanted to merge to a one domain name. Microsoft ADMT is one of the useful tool in this scenario(Active Directory Migration Tool) Apart from that there are third party tools available to this kind of transition.

when it comes to upgrade your domain environment careful planning is vital in the beginning to avoid unnecessary problems which can be lead to un-reversible. So take good time to read the documentation and do the lab environment tests. Here is a one good article which can give you some useful information.

PM me if you need any assistance on migrating your company domain environment to windows 2008

Better together with Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7

2009-12-10T18:28:00.001Z

Few weeks back I had the privilege to conduct a session on Windows 2008 R2 and it’s new features. This session has been combined with Windows 7 and it’s new features. Windows 7 session has been conducted by Sabeshan. He is one of the Microsoft Certified Trainer in NetAssist.

We have conducted this session to audience who comes from filed engineer to IT manger level. So instead being too techie of the product features we highlighted the technology and how they can implement and get quick ROI from their network. When it comes to new technology some companies are slow adaptors and especially with few Enterprise companies. With Business perspective side there are few reasons for that. We wanted to break that barrier and demonstrate how effectively they can use the technology and get their expectations with less complex setup. Though we didn’t went on deep technical level on that day our future sessions will be deep dive into each product feature with live demonstrations.

We kept on demonstrating Windows 7 bit locker features, VHD boot up, Windows 2008 Active Directory Administrative Center, Recycle bin, PowerShell, Group Policy new feature usage….etc. Direct access could have been preferred one but with limited time frame I had to keep that away for a later time.

Well there will be no fun without some introduction on Microsoft licensing :) So we introduce one of Sri Lanka’s distributor as well to do some introduction. So keep in touch guys for more updates on future sessions. Some of the contents has been uploaded to the NetAssist training institute web site which can be reached from following links,

http://netassist.com.lk/windows7.html

Windows 2008 Storage server setup

2009-12-07T18:54:00.001Z

I have been keeping the Windows 2008 Storage server downloaded iso in my machine for few weeks time and didn't get much time to test it out. Well if you're guessing how I get it I have download it from TechNet subscription, Yes it is available over there :)

Finally I wanted to test the Windows 2008 R2 new cluster features. When it comes to shared storage 2 products are in my mind, one is Windows 2008 Storage server and the other one is StarWind iSCSI software. Since I have already got the MS product I wanted to give it a try.

I carried out the Storage server setup in my HYPER-V rig. Well nothing much talk about the setup since it is similar to the Windows 2008 setup :) Once the setup completed I ran into a problem of guessing a password to log into the system. Can you believe it Microsoft Storage team wanted to have some fun with us!!!

Thanks to some search around I managed to find the password. It is "wSS2008!" So surprise I didn't find that information in the Storage server team's blog
anyway I do hope this article will help someone who is pulling their hair to find out the Storage server default password.

Random updates on HYPER-V faq

2009-12-05T18:59:00.001Z

While we are helping the customers to upgrade or consider for moving to HYPER-V there are questions fire up in various ways. One thing I notice is most of them have already heard about the virtualization but laying back due to the lack of information been passed to them about the Virtualization products or maybe they have questions not been answered yet. With this blog article I’m expecting to share some of the questions I have been face and also come common ones I have seen in the forums. I’ll give priority to HYPER-V on this article :) Now as a general understanding I didn’t add the questions like what are the advantages on moving to virtualization since it’ll be well covered by particular vendors :) apart from that do a search at Bing or Google.

1. Is my existing servers capable of running HYPER-V? For this questions we need to check the processor compatibility. To check each respective processor manufactures processor compatibility they have their own tools,
AMD , Intel, Other software

2. What is the most effective way to run HYPER-V? Running HYPER-V on top of server core is the recommended method. In this way you make sure maximum hardware resources are available for the Virtual PC’s. Step by step info available here

3. How can I backup HYPER-V VPC’s using the native windows backup? You can integrate the Windows backup program to backup the virtual PC’s.To do so you need to register the Hyper-V VSS Writer with Windows Server Backup. Click here

4. How can I move my production servers to virtual environment without reconfiguring or loosing data? You can use Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine (SCVMM) to convert existing physical systems to virtual environment. This conversion can be carried out in two methods, Live conversion and offline conversion. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages plus when to use which option. More about P2V using SCVMM can be found over here.

Those are the questions I can think top of my mind apart from deep level technical questions which I didn’t insert over here. Feel free to drop a note and request more information.

Windows 2008 R2 upgrade paths

2009-12-05T02:08:00.001Z

In my public session on “Windows 2008 R2” I have been raised with questions about the upgrade path options and how to do the upgrade. Some of the questions related to the upgrade from Windows 2003 domains rest are from Windows 2008 to 2008 R2.

Microsoft has been always trying to focus and listen to customer / partner comments and requests for their product improvement. With R2 they have included a feature called as “Windows server migration tools” This will allow you to carry our the process of transferring services (AD, DNS, DHCP..etc) from your previous Windows operating system to the new Server environment.

So how to do those task using the given tools will be a total separate topic and a separate blog article :)

What operating systems are supported and unsupported in the migration path has been updated on the TechNet.

Windows 2008 Server Core Configurator 2.0

2009-12-03T00:54:00.001Z

If you’re managing Windows 2008 CORE operating system you know the pain of typing long commands in the console :) (Well we can use RSAY of course but not for everything) I’ve been using Core configuration tool to make life easier since most of the common commands can be managed UI within the core itself. Recently Core configurator version 2.0 has been released. Core configurator 2.0 only works with R2! so if you want to manage the previous versions of Windows 2008 core edition better keep the old version in handy as well.

Core configurator version 2.0 under open source so you have the complete rights to modify it as well :)

Some of the tasks you can do with core configurator are,,

Product Licensing

Networking Features

DCPromo Tool

ISCSI Settings

Server Roles and Features

User and Group Permissions

Share Creation and Deletion

Dynamic Firewall settings

Display | Screensaver Settings

Add & Remove Drivers

Proxy settings

Windows Updates (Including WSUS)

Multipath I/O

Hyper-V including virtual machine thumbnails

JoinDomain and Computer rename

Add/remove programs

Services

WinRM

Complete logging of all commands executed

You can download it from here.

Sharing knowledge with bright minds

2009-11-29T16:00:00.001Z

I’ve been very happy when I have been invited to do a session about Microsoft products for students at a University. This is one memorable occasion which I got the chance to work closely with few Sri Lankan MVP’s as well. This University is located in Kandy, too bad we forgot get some pictures of the surroundings.

So what is interesting is the eager students had to learn about the new technologies and especially about the Microsoft side. They have been well armed with Open source technology but had certain knowledge about the Microsoft products and how those products can be used effectively. In this event we had the chance to demonstrate several products and how to use them effectively on their lifestyle.

I also got to know University students has been selected to receive several Microsoft products free!! (Can’t name the products now until the announcement comes from the Microsoft itself :) ) But that indication has been given to the students at that time. Look forward for more events like this and to share the knowledge.

Booting HYPER-V Guest from an an iSCSI LUN

2009-11-22T15:08:00.001Z

This is a another cool feature in virtualization I wanted to try out and see some significant advantages in production environment. In this scenario instead of assigning a virtual hard disk file a to a guest operating system we’re allowing it to access the raw disk in a SAN directly or it can be a raw disk internally in the system. (Sometimes this is referred as LUN passthrough) To do this first in the iSCSI storage you need to create a LUN and assign some disk space. Then in the HYPER-V host computer under the disk management you will be able to see the disk. But the important thing is not to let host PC to initialize the disk and keeping it offline. If the host machine take over the control of the disk then we won’t be able to allow guest PC to directly take control and write into that disk thus guest PC will be fail to start. Once LUN setup properly it’ll be looks like the way it shows in the picture,

After that you can go to HYPER-V management console and start creating a new disk. When it comes to assigning a VHD skip the process and create the Virtual machine configuration file. After that got to the settings on configuration file go to disk controller and select add disk. Instead of creating or adding existing VHD files select the Physical hard disk and select the correct disk number. In my demonstration scenario it will be Disk 2. Below picture demonstrate how we can mount the pass though disk.

So after that you’ll be able to start the VPC and carry on the preferred Operating System installation. One main advantage is disk will give you improved disk I/O performance since VPC directly accessing the raw disk in the SAN environment. If you’re planning to host disk I/O intensive application in virtualized environment (Eg: SQL database, Exchange, SAP…etc) this would be a good option to consider.

Well another advantage that strikes to my mind is this will prevent the waste of usable disk capacity. Take a scenario like this, when you create a 100 GB disk portion in a raw disk and format it with NTFS you will get around 95GB or less due to the file system. Inside that when you try to create a fix hard disk it will also consume some disk space. But allowing the guest OS to take the direct control over the raw disk that disk space wastage will be minimize. So why I’m concern about this to put over here is I actually experience this barrier in hard way and lean the lesson :)

Some disadvantages are you won’t be able to take snapshotting, won’t be able to create dynamic expanding disks of the guest operating system. The main reason being is host VSS won’t be able to capture the raw disk. You’ll have to consider using DPM or third party backup solution backup and recover the VPC. Of course that would be a another topic to discuss which will come very soon :)

How to extend trial period of Windows 2008, Windows Vista and Windows 7 products

2009-11-22T02:02:00.001Z

Most of the time I use Windows 2008 products for video recordings and customer site demonstrations. During this period I use TechNet subscription materials for this purpose. Once issue I have been facing is when I want to do another demo after few weeks time the VPC cannot be used do the trial period of the product has been expired! Registering the demonstration purpose operating systems frequently is not an easy option either (Even though I create a set of VPC like that once)

With Windows 2008 you’re getting trial period of 30 days. But if you’re smart enough now there is way to extend that period for 180 or more. This is really valuable because that means we can keep the vpc’s running properly under trail period for nearly 6 months! (For me that is more than enough!) Good news is this trial extend work around is working for Vista and Windows 7 as well. ok so let’s get start how to extend the trial period.

What we have to do is run a script in the windows\system32 folder called slmgr.vbs.

Bring up a Command Prompt.
Type slmgr.vbs –rearm, and press ENTER.
Restart the computer.

You computer has now extended the evaluation period 60 days! You can run the same command in the same system for 3 times up giving you an activation-free trial period of a total of 240 days!

To find out how many days remain in the trial period you can use the following command.

Type slmgr.vbs -dli, and the current status of the evaluation period is displayed.

Be curious and check out additional commands available in the slmgr.vbs

Group Policy Central Store (Windows 2008)

2009-10-27T00:13:00.002Z

With the introduction of Windows 2008 Microsoft redefined the concept of Group Policy Central store. Group Policy central store is a simply a central storage place to keep the administrative templates. In windows 2003 and XP age we have received many Administrative templates from Microsoft and other vendors, but the key question is where to store them. If we keep them in one server then the other server won’t be able to retrieve them.
With windows 2008 Microsoft introduce the concept on central storage. Now you can keep all the administrative templates in a central place and replicate between windows 2008 domain controllers. Windows 2008 and Vista natively support this but Windows 2003 and Windows XP don’t support it out of the box.
How works is is simply by checking if the templates available in a central place or not. If the machine couldn’t find templates in a central place it will load the template from machine local template section. So as you can see the functionality is very simple but still brings great flexibility 
So how to configure this? In the windows 2008 domain controller go to %SystemRoot%\SYSVOL\domain\Policies Create a folder called “Policydefinitions”. Leave it as it is and then move to c:\windows\PolicyDefinitions and copy the contents in that folder and paste them to %SystemRoot%\SYSVOL\domain\Policies

Once contents copied to the relevant folder go to GPMC and try to open a GPO. Upon opening expand Administrative Template. When you click that in the right hand pane you’ll be able to see “Administrative Templates: Policy Definitions (ADMX files) retrieved from central stores.

As a practice whenever you modify the GPO’s keep an eye of the locations where the GPO’s administrative getting loaded from. As you can see, keeping group policy templates in a central location can be a significant administrative issue for companies. However, Windows Server 2008 ability to create a central store for Administrative Templates have simplified the process and monitoring of the templates.

Something intresting in Windows 7 and windows 2008 R2

2009-10-12T02:53:00.003+01:00

Tried to setup HYPER-V role in my desktop PC after installing Windows 2008 R2 (It's a new rig :) )
Tried to install windows 2008 R2 Ent and Windows 7 as guest OS in my HYPER-V environment. After installing went on usual method of installing the IC's (integration services), but no need to do that anymore. According to the given message ic's has been installed already.

Wondering if this installed automatically during the setup I went to the control panel and found no evidence for that. So looks like Microsoft has integrated the ic's into the OS itself!

Looks like MS expecting big change in future on visualization an they have been ready for it with the launch of Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7.

Windows 7 and upgrade options

2009-08-10T02:05:00.000+01:00

Hope TechNet subscription people already enjoying the Windows 7 RTM (Build 7600) As a matter of fact I also rush into the new RTM version and choose Windows 7 Ultimate version :) One good thing I found is Windows Easy Transfer (aka Files and Settings Transfer Wizard in Windows XP) working smoothly as is. I had 20 GB data in my user profile and after the fresh installation of Windows 7 Easy Transfer managed to restore the data properly and even give nice indication what application I am missing and what application I’ve already configured. Pretty nifty I would say.

BTW due to lack of VGA card driver and trying to run several Graphic intensive applications first time I experience the Windows 7 BSOD woooot!!!! Now it's over with the latest NVIDIA VGA card driver installation.

Apart from that I found out this OS is stable and managed to handle whatever the apps I throw for it.

Now lots of threads talk about the complicated methods of upgrading path offered by Microsoft. While you go through that you’ll initially get the same feel but considering the new enhancements in the OS it would be acceptable for us to have the clean installation rather than upgrading. Luckily for the cooperate customers upgrade will be easy with the given tools by Microsoft Desktop team. More will come on that in another article. So sit tight and enjoy the new OS.

Moving to MS Exchange from Lotus Domino

2009-08-03T23:13:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone just wanted to share these information with you all since most of our customers are interested on the benefits on moving to Exchange from Domino mail environment to Exchange. Even though this will be a cost factor initially long term the ROI really going to help them to streamline the business productivity. We found most of our customers are having hard time maintaining Domino environment as well as support wise. Never the less my point is to provide some insight of the changing wave from Domino to Exchange happening is not only Asian countries but it's happening globally. Below you'll find a good article about the deciosn taken by major companies to move to new platform,

"In our last fiscal year (July 2008-June 2009), more than 4.7 million people began the switch to Exchange and SharePoint from Notes", Exchange marketing director Julia White posts on the Unified Communications blog.
Cost savings is the number one driver for migrations, according to the post. Another key driver for migrations is the launch of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. If you're considering the move to cloud-based services, Microsoft services offer plenty of choice for customers of all sizes. Julia notes that large Notes shops - including Coca-Cola Enterprises, GlaxoSmithKline, and Ingersoll Rand - are making the move from Notes to Exchange Online. Read more in Millions Switch To Exchange And SharePoint From Notes on the Unified Communications blog. (taken from http://msexchangeteam.com/)

http://blogs.technet.com/uc/archive/2009/07/23/notes.aspx

Microsoft has introduced the latest toolkit called freebusy connector to migrate Domino environment to Exchange. Recent toolkit even has the capability to migrate the Domino workflows to SharePoint as well. More information about the toolkit can be found here.

If anyone is interested on this you can PM me offline. I can provide more information since our company already carry out testing on this and found out the connector is working properly. What we are up to now is testing this on Exchange 2010environment :)

Windows 2008 Components Posters

2009-07-30T02:33:00.001+01:00

Ever wonder it would be easy if you can know all the Windows 2008 features in one sheet so at a glance you can look at it and get the big picture. Well that wait is over for me since I found out Microsoft has a solution for this, giant poster!

Previously published in the TechNet Magazine, these are two PDFs of Windows 2008: Operating System components and Active Directory components. The posters explain how they work and detail capabilities. They are great resources to have up on your office wall.

The Feature Components poster highlights the following components of the Windows Server 2008 operating system:

Terminal Services
Network Access Protection
IIS 7.0
Server Manager
Server Backup
Server Core
BitLocker
Windows Server Virtualization

The Active Directory Poster highlights the following components of Active Directory in Win2008

AD Lightweight Directory Services
AD Federation Services
AD Rights Management Services
Group Policy
AD Management
AD Read-Only Domain Controllers

Many thanks go to MS team who has been taking considerable time to prepare these posters. You can get them by visiting over here.

Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts

2009-07-19T02:53:00.002+01:00

Widows 7 is in the horizon. Most of us enjoy the beta version and still using widnows RC :) So why don't you go the extra mile and try out the short cut keys as well. Below are some of the short cut kes I found out while browisng the web sites,

Win + UP Arrow Maximize the current window
Win + Down Arrow Restore down or minimize current windows
Win + Left Arrow Dock the current window to the left half of the screen
Win + Right Arrrow Dock the current window to the right half of the screen
Win + [number] Activate and run the program pinned on Windows 7 Taskbar, running program wonâ€™t be affected
Win + Home Minimize all but the current window
Win + Space Makes all windows transparent so you can see through to the desktop
Win + Pause/Break Open System Properties
Win + Tab Flip Aero 3D [press Tab to cycle between Windows]
Win + B Move focus to notification tray (the right-most portion of the taskbar)
Win + D Show/Hide desktop
Win + E Windows Explorer is launched
Win + F Search
Win + G Bring all gadgets on top and foreground
Win + L Lock Computer
Win + M Minimize all windows
Win + P Open the projection menu (generally used for laptops connected to projectors)
Win + R Run Command is launched.
Win + S OneNote Screen Clipping Tool
Win + T Show preview thumbnail of running applications in Windows Taskbar one by one without mouse over
Win + X Mobility Center
Win + # Quicklaunch
Win + = Magnifier
Win + [+/-] Enables the magnifier and zooms in/out
Win + Shift + Up Arrow Maximize vertical size
Win + Shift + Down Arrow Restore vertical size
Win + Shift + Left Arrow Jump to left monitor
Win + Shift + Right Arrow Jump to right monitor
Win + Shift + M Undo all window minimization
Win + Shift + T Cycles backwards
Win + Ctrl + F Opens the Active Directory Find Computers dialog
Ctrl + Right Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the next word
Ctrl + Left Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word
Ctrl + Up Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the previous paragraph
Ctrl + Down Arrow Move the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph
Ctrl + Click A pinned taskbar icon to cycle through the programâ€™s open windows (e.g. IE)
Ctrl + Win + Tab Persistent flip 3D
Ctrl + Shift with an arrow key Select a block of text
Ctrl with any arrow key + Spacebar Select multiple individual items in a window or on the desktop
Ctrl + Shift + Esc Open Task Manager directly
Ctrl + Shift + N Create new folder

How to asses an existing infrastructure with Microsoft tools

2009-07-16T03:12:00.000+01:00

Most of us visit customer sites to identify their existing infrastructure to help them better. In this process indentifying their network and finding troubles and doing recommendation will be vary according to each persons experience level and knowledge on product.

We use various tools for that and some will rely on third party tools as well. So depend on the information they gather the solutions you provide for the customer will be vary.

As Microsoft point of view they always want to empower the partners and as well as the customers and let them use the Microsoft software efficiently. So this thread is all about one of the Microsoft key success tool known as MAP (Microsoft Assessment and Planning) sometimes this will be referred as MAPS as well.

The whole idea behind MAP is to give the partners and customers is to do basement of their existing network / infrastructure and identify the hardware software and decide if they are ready for the new software /technologies. This will give you a clear picture and help you to make correct decisions. Based on my experience this will be a key tool any filed engineer should have in his belt of tools to better serve the customer.

Think about a scenario when you go and recommend Microsoft products do you really know their environment before you do that suggestions? Do you really know their business process? Now days it’s all about how you try to map your solution with their business process. So this tool will empower you with that information and give the clear visibility of their existing infrastructure. Armed with that information and your experience the solution you offer for the customer will be effective one.

More information will be provided by Microsoft if you visit over here.

Active Directory monitoring and health checkup

2009-07-12T15:53:00.001+01:00

As system administrators most of us spend time on end user problem troubleshooting and forget to oversee the Active Directory services. We only concern about the AD server when we’re getting problems and then we see all sort of problems related to DNS, replications…etc. This guide is focus on providing proactive monitoring of the Active Directory so as system administrators you will have better understanding of your infrastructure.

Is it best recommended to do the following test once a month and keep the log files for trend analysis as well. To make thing easier I’ve provided the necessary urls of individual commands pointing to the TechNet so you can get more compressive details,

Dcdiag.exe /v >> c:\temp\pre_dcdiag.txt
This is a must and will always tell you if there is trouble with your DCs and/or services associated with it

Netdiag.exe /v >> c:\temp\pre_Netdiag.txt

This will let us know if there are issues with the networking components on the DC. This along with the post test also is a quick easy way to ensure the patches installed is really installed (just check the top of the log)

Repadmin /showreps >> c:\temp\pre_rep_partners.txt

This shows all the replication and if it was successful or not. Just be aware that Global Catalogs will have more info here than a normal domain controller.

repadmin /replsum /errorsonly >> c:\temp\pre_repadmin_err.txt

This is the one that always takes forever but will let you know who you are having issues replicating with.

Apart from that Microsoft offers another tool called MPSRPT_DirSvc.exe. You can run this tool in the dc’s and it’ll run most of the above mention commands and provide you the output into log files. Very handy I would say. You can download it from here.

Hopefully this helps you when you troubleshoot your domain controllers but by no way is this all encompassing list of things to do. These are the standard steps normally I take but I would love to hear what you all do as well.

Another server OS into the SBS market by Microsoft

2009-04-20T08:00:00.001+01:00

Microsoft release another server OS aim for SBS market name as “Windows server 2008 Foundation” Microsoft main aim is to promote this as the first server for a small network. Users who are unable to invest on SBS server and doesn’t have requirement for in-house exchange server will be benefit of this product. Currently Microsoft don’t have any plans for selling this as a box products instead coming through Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) only.

Feature comparison can be found over here.

‘Fix it” New approach to fix computer problems by Microsoft

2009-02-25T08:57:00.001Z

Recently I notice a new icon appears in the Microsoft Support documentation. So what is interesting behind this fix it icon. Well let’s say that you know the problem what customer is facing and you’re pretty sure you can fix it in no time. Let’s say in order to fix that particular problem you have to do few mouse click and do some registry editing. Now doing this for one or 2 machine would be ok but for 30-40 computers or even more!!! well not a pleasant experience right ?

So what Microsoft has don’t is created a nifty script behind this icon and all you have to do is click it. I think this is very useful for most of the non technical as technical people. If Microsoft adopt this for their Support documentation frequently end users will definitely gonna enjoy that. You can find a sample link to one of those Microsoft support document here.

How to sysprep Windows 2008

2009-02-17T17:44:00.001Z

I spend most of my time with virtual PC’s creating recreating for testing. one thing I hate is to create new virtual PC’s for testing. Instead of that I prefer to use a clean installed OS cloned. Now this has been working fine for me in Windows XP, Windows 2000/2003. I just do a cloning under VMware and then run the Newsid utility and then join to the domain. There you go easy as that. But now with windows 2008 Sysinternals haven’t given any tools ( I mean properly working newsid) So we have to rely on Syspep method.

In windows 2000/2003 time you will have to find these utilities in the media. Now with the new kid it’s already in the pocket. You just got to %WINDIR%\System32\Sysprep and then run the sysprep.exe
If you want to create a new SID, remember to CHECK the “Generalize” checkbox - or else you have to go all over again…

That’s it. Happy cloning guys/gals.

Windows 7 – Problem Step Recorder (PSR)

2009-02-16T06:42:00.001Z

I have been using Windows 7 in a VMware PC and I’ve to agree this OS is really cool. I have only given 1 GB memory for that and the functionality wise this stable. I didn’t encounter any system crashes so far. Now looking around in the TechNet about further enhancement about this product I found a nifty tool integrated in Windows 7 called as PSR (Problem Step Recorder)

Basic idea behind this tool is allow user to do screen capturing of the problem they encounter and then send that to a technical person. Now this is a life saving feature for any technical person in order to provide support for a en user. Think about a helpdesk environment where end user and technical person spend endless time discussing about the error message. There are few key things helpdesk may fail to solve the problem properly to the end user,

1. End user cannot describe the problem properly since he is not very technical person.

2. Technical support person cannot recreate the problem in his side according to the information he is getting from the end user.

3. Problem can be a totally new one for both parties.

So using this screen capture tool end user will be able the capture the error he encountered and then send to technical person via e-mail or any other preferred method.

More information can be found over here.

Windows 2008 / windows Vista SP2 (beta) overlook

2009-02-01T06:32:00.001Z

Beta is out there to download for everyone. TechNet and MSDN subscribers can download the SP2 CPP now from their portal. Now good news is windows 2008 service Pack 2 can be applied to Vista computers as well. The secret behind is that both operating systems use the same codes. This brings a huge advantages to administrators when they want to deploy the service pack to the computers in their organizations. So what are the new advantages on this service pack? Well in the server side few things are as follows,

Improved power savings over the RTM release of Windows Server 2008
Integration of Hyper-V into Windows Server 2008. SP2 includes the Hyper-V RTM Code.
All previously released hot fixes and security updates are rolled into SP2 as well.

As per the client pc side,

A new Wireless Feature Pack and fixes for issues where Wi-Fi Connections were lost after resuming a PC from Sleep.

A really cool service pack clean-up tool that restores hard disk space by deleting the previous versions of the files serviced by Windows Vista SP2.

Of course this service pack includes all previously released updates, hot fixes, and patches since the release of Vista Service Pack 1.

Let you record data onto Blu-ray discs

Give you the latest desktop search engine, Windows Search 4

end users are advised to await until the final version out. More information can be found here.

MSN messenger latest version

2009-01-30T13:37:00.001Z

With the introduction of the windows VISTA/ Windows 2008 SP2 beta , Windows 7 Microsoft also has released the next version of MSN messenger. You can grab it from here,

One cool thing I notice is you can have animated pictures or video clips you have captured from your web cam as MSN picture. This is really cool.

How to enable hibernation option in windows VISTA

2009-01-29T13:10:00.001Z

If you have notice some PC /Laptop hibernation option is not visible under the power management. I was curious to find out same problem occurring in my laptop as well. Further search revealed it’s a matter of enable or disable it via running few commands from the command prompt :) But again windows annoying UAC come into the picture so we need make sure we run the commands under proper privilege. The steps are as follows,

1. Click Start, All Programs, and then right click on "Command Prompt".
2. From the context menu click on "Run as administrator".
3. If User Account Control prompts you to allow the action, click on Continue.
4. In the command prompt window, type "powercfg –h off" (or "on" without the quotes) followed by Enter button.
4. Close the Command Prompt windows and go the power management settings in the control panel Now you can see hibernation option is available for you.

Windows Server 2008 - Fine Grained Password Policy Walkthrough

2009-01-25T18:39:00.001Z

Windows 2008 has lot of new technologies to offer and along with SP2 it has been increased. Branch office caching, Active Directory recycle bin..etc. Among those one of the cool feature is Fine grained password policy. Using this method you can given different set of password polices to selected users or group despite of the default password policy.

This may sound good if you have wish to have different password policy to managers and different password polices to general users and avoid the hassle you face when they forget their complex password. (you know what I mean..right :) Of course you might have been using the password filter or deploy multiple domains to archive this but end of the day those are really frustrating and time consuming methods.

so now you had the taste of the feature let's get our sleeves up for the work :) To make things easier I am going to built this article based on a scenario based method.

Contoso.com is the default domain of the fictitious company and Neo parker has been the CEO. He don't like the idea of having a complex password to remember and prefers to have a simple password as his account password. So without breaking the security on the entire domain level you're going to reduce the password complexity and the minimum of 5 characters to his passwords.

Requirements: your AD domain functional level has to be raised to windows 2008.

First have a look into your existing domain-wide default password policies,

Start --> Run --> gpmc.msc
Expand Forest: yourforest.com.
Expand Domains\yourdomain.com.
Right Click Default Domain Policy and Click Edit.
Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Account Policies > Password Policy.

So now we need to create the Password Setting object (PSO). in order to do that we need to open the ADSI edit. I have to warn ADSI edit is not a place to mess around with unless you know exactly what you're doing!

Go to Start--> Administrative tools --> ADSI edit --> select the default settings to connect to the domain. After that in order to create the PSO browse to Expand to Default Naming content\DC=Contoso,DC=com\CN=System\CN=Password Settings Container\

Right click and select new Object,

After that you have to select msDS-PasswordSettings and click next

After that we are coming to complex part of giving the parameters, this is the place you have to pay attention and provide the correct parameters. For detail step by step you can visit here

First setting being ask is to provide a name for the policy, you can give an fancy name but stick to a one that is meaningful,

Next setting is msDS\PasswordsSettingsPrecedence. Assuming the user is a member of 2 or more groups and having different password polices the number you set here will determine which policy to take procedure. So set the value to 1 to make sure this policy will apply all the time to Neo

Next one is msDS-PasswordReversibleEncryptionEnabled which is self explanatory

Next few option are really self explanatory so I'll insert the parameter and the value until we come up with another interesting value :)

msDS-PasswordHistoryLength (Also self explanatory... you can keep up to 1024)
Value = 10

(domain default: 24)

· msDS-PasswordComplexityEnabled (Upper, lower, number, blah blah blah)
Value = True

· msDS-MinimumPasswordLength (If only everyone were using pass-phrases instead of passwords)

Value = 5

After that we are being request to provide values for MinimumPasswordAge, MaximumPasswordAge, LockoutObservationWindow, and LockoutDuration.

So let us walk through the first one of this kind, msDS-MinimumPasswordAge

In the above picture I have provided the value of 1 day. First section is days, then hours, minutes and seconds. Next is

msDS-MaximumPasswordAge

I hope rest process will be easy for you as we discuss here. so instead of the screenshots let me provide the values as follows,

msDS-LockoutThreshold

Value = 0

msDS-LockoutObservationWindow

Value =00:00:06:00

msDS-LockoutDuration

Value = 00:00:06:00

Once you complete the last step you will click the Finish button to complete the steps. If you encounter any errors please have a look into the values you have provided.

so now we have provided Neo minimum characters 5 to his password and still enabled the Password complexity parameter and provide less time value for the Lockdown duration :)

but still we are not completed because we have to tell the system this PSO need to be apply to Neo. If we double click the
msDS-PSOAppliesTo parameter we have the option to provide the particular user's or Group's DN.

so now what how to find the DN value? well my friends we have to walk to the Active Directory Users and computers, and enabled the Advances Features,

After that we need to go to the properties of the Neo's account and select the Attribute Editor which shows the DN of Neo's user account.

Copy that value and we go back to the ADSI editor CN=System -->CN=Password Settings and under the current PSO paste the values you have copied from Neo's account,

Wola that complete the lengthy task.

For more information you can refer here,

SBS 2008 in the test run under my Lappie

2009-01-16T19:09:00.001Z

After doing some several testing in my desktop I thought of giving a try to run the Small Business Server 2008 in my laptop. Found our favorite virtulization method won't have a chance in my laptop since it only had 4 GB memory. SBS throw out a error saying memory is not enough when I allocated 2 GB for the VMWare vpc. (duh) So How came I came across the problem?

Well of course allocating one logical partion to the OS and transferring 80 GB of data to another location (pretty tuff job waiting for the data transfer complete) Once completed I end up doing the dual booting with my Vista OS.

Installation ran smoothly and I didn't see much difference at all and took around 20 minutes for the first phase. SBS didnt;t detect my wireless Lan card and I was not surprised about it at all. Managed to install the Lan driver separately and hope to run around with SBS in my bag. Too bad SBS really sloooow in my Laptop even it has been a Centrino 2 technology.

Found out Lappies are not the best method unless if you have 7200RPM drives and 8 GB memory in your laptop. So SBS you'll be in my desktop for sometime. Look forward to do a live migration in few weeks time and hope to share my experience in that soon.

Windows SBS 2008

2009-01-14T18:00:00.001Z

It's been a while I have been away from SBS world and into the windows 2008 OS. But after the announcement of the Small Business Server 2008 by Microsoft I did went for a digging. The information I found about the improvement for the product was amazing. First of all SBS server has received a new brother called as EBS (Essential Business Server) which has the capability to outcome the the 75 cals limitation and go up to 300 cals. Microsoft now have a clear segmentation of the Small Business market and the Mid size business market.

Virtual machine addins for Server Core

2008-12-13T04:25:00.001Z

So you're eager to get your hands dirty on Microsoft latest OS, maybe you already have. As techies we always intend to be on virtual PC's to test the latest stuff and learn new settings and tweaks. Windows server 2008 has more to offer in this area. Windows core is pretty interesting method of using the windows server OS.

One problem I came across with server Core is how to install the virtual machine addins to it. I'm using Microsoft virtual PC 2007 and after the initial OS setup I ran the virtual PC addins from the actions menu. Well it suppose to star the installation automatically right... well too bad it didn't happen. I hope you folks are well aware why we need the virtual addins to the virtual PC. Basically they are emulated drivers which enhance the response in the virtual machine and communication between the guest and the host PC.

So in order to install the addins you need to mount the cd / iso image to virtual PC. Under action menu when you click install the virtual PC addins it automatically mounts the iso image to the cd-rom in the virtual PC. To verify that you can click the CD icon in the menu and see if you have the option Release "VMaddtions.iso" So rest we carry out in the command prompt.

In my case the cd rom drive letter is D. If you have more than one virtual HDD installed then the drive letter can be different. Never the less you can browse the virtual CD and then get into the windows folder and then run the Setup.exe Once that start you'll able the see the GUI installation of the virtual machine addition setup.

In the above picture I have been prompted to remove the addins since I have already installed them earlier. But I hope you guys get the point.

Network shares not accessible in Windows 2008

2008-12-02T10:50:00.001Z

I have recently installed Windows server 2008. After that upgraded it as a Domain controller. (more information will come in future about this) Since after that our internal users have
experienced network /connection problems to the server.
At least once a day I must reboot the server so that users can access the shared folders in the server. Since I host a database in this machine this problem has become a real headache and a panic to me.

Users with offline files get notice that they are no longer connected to the server. They can't sync etc.
When this happens you can still ping the server. Remote desktop to the server works 100% and the server seems to be working without any error.Tested the cabling and all the links passed the tests.

So finally found out the problem relates to Symantec EndPoint protection anti virus software. I've been using ver 11 MR2. Further digging into this matter came up with the below mention article released by Symantec

http://service1.symantec.com/support/ent-security.nsf/docid/2008061812370848?Open&seg=ent

Apart from that Microsoft has acknowledged this problem can occur if you're having outdated NIC driver.

After removing the AV software users back to business. I guess I'll have to test out the latest version of the Symantec (MR3) and then see if that solved the problem. Will update you all once I get my hands into SEP MR3 version.

Installing Ubuntu 8.10 To A USB Flash Drive

2008-11-30T14:42:00.001Z

ONE of the features of Ubuntu 8.10 I have overlooked in my recent review was the utility included for creating a bootable version of Linux OS on a USB Flash memory stick.
Personally I love the idea of having a whole operating system on a memory stick - it appeals to the geek in me and I love the look on a non-geek's face when you boot up their machine and your operating system comes up instead of theirs!
But one of the issues I have frequently come across with such pocket-sized OSes is, how to make them persistent ie. getting any changes you make in the live environment to remain for your next boot.
With the latest version of Ubuntu, however, everything you need is included in the GNOME menu - just look in System>Administration>Create a USB startup disk (this was also available in Ubuntu 8.04).
The procedure to get Ubuntu installed, working and persistent is really very simple indeed.

1. Download the Ubuntu 8.10 ISO and burn it to a CD
2. Restart your computer, booting from the Live CD
3. Insert a 1GB or larger USB flash drive
4. Navigate to System>Administration>Create a USB startup disk
5. Next, select the USB disk to use, select the option 'Stored in reserved extra space' and adjust the sider to set the capacity you wish to use (I set mine at 2GB on an 8GB stick), then click the 'Make Startup Disk' button. It is not a fast process, so go and make a coffee
6. Once the installation is complete, simply remove the CD, restart your computer and set your boot menu or BIOS to boot from the USB device.

This last step will vary according to how you BIOS is set up, but on my machine it was a case of holding down the F2 button during the boot process, then editing the Boot Devices section to make sure USB came first, followed by CD then HDD.
And that, basically, is it. Thanks to Ubuntu's inclusion of the application Casper, any subsequent changes you make or data you create will be saved in the slice of the flash drive you created during step 5.
So as you can see this feature will become very handy if you want to help someone to recover files in his/her computer when things go wrong.

Windows XP and Vista also can be customized like this but not for the USB level but as bootable cd/DVD. BartPE is a good place to look into how to part.

End of Microsoft OneCare and new kid in the block

2008-11-29T18:34:00.001Z

Microsoft has recently announced their plan to stop selling the Live OneCare security suite by June 30 2009 and the intention to replace it with a free security kit called Morro.
Morro will be a PC security solution but will be also have a smaller footprint tailored for “smaller PC form factors” such as netbooks, and will be “ideal for low-bandwidth scenarios or less powerful PCs”. It will offer protection against viruses, spyware, trojans and rootkits. Morro will use the same engine as Live OneCare does.
Morro is announced for the second half of 2009 just in time for Windows 7 and Vista SP2. Morro won’t be integrated into Windows, but it will be offered as a separate download, perhaps in order to avoid another antitrust suit. It will offer basic malware protection for Windows XP SP3, Vista and future Windows 7. Morro will be free.
Microsoft has also announced that it will discontinue the Live OneCare subscription by June 30 2009. Beside security protection, Live OneCare currently offers printer sharing, data backup and PC tune-up, features that will not be made available in Morro. Live OneCare costs $50 for 3 PCs for one year and counts for 2% of the market, while Live OneCare for Server is a dead product which might explain the move.

Server migration made easy with Symantec

2008-08-13T01:57:00.001+01:00

This is a another successful job I complete recently which I wanted to share with you all. The scenario is to move an production application service from a desktop PC to a new server with minimal impact to the production environment.
The desktop has been running Latest Anti virus Management service in it with windows 2003 server OS and serving nearly 1000 clients PC's. Everything running smoothly until we hit the idea of this was running in a standard desktop PC.

So we brought a new IDM server with a Xeon processor and a Raid 0 build. Our main task has been moving the AV server database and the roles from the production PC to the server but not doing any installation at the client PC's. Client PC's' has been distributed around the country and hence doing any modification to all of them would take months time which we dare even to dream. So we came up the idea of testing this with one of the software offered by Symantec called as Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery.

First we install the software the production server and ran the Liveupdate to make sure it get the latest software updates to the particular software. After that we had to register the product. Registration is necessary if you're doing a migration for dissimilar hardware which is true in our case. Ran the disk cleanup and in house cleaning for prior to the image creation. After that using the BESR we created and image of the C partion in a network drive.

Now the part of moving the image to the new server. Before that according to the Symantec information we created a custom bootable recovery CD. This CD has a database of most hardware device drivers you can find in the market. Boot the new server with the BESR recovery CD and once boot we are been welcome to a VISTA PE environment and asking the question to star the network services. Since we have our image created in a network share we wanted to start the network service in the new server. Assign a static IP to the new server and then we map the network which contains the image. Once that completed in the main page we had the option to select to recover my computer and then give the path to the image file. Once the image has been identified we have to go through several screen requesting how we want to restore the image, one important option is to select we're doing a restore to a different hardware. Apart from that you get the chance of changing the partion size, verify the image after restoration, restore the MBR...etc. Once those options has been adjusted it matter about the time it take to restore the image from the network to the target machine. Restoration time will be entirely depend on the network or the hardware equipment. If you have copied the image to a external removable media and trying to restore it from there this process will be much more quicker. For the above process it took 25 minutes to restore 30GB image over the network. Assuming if you had gigabit network or less traffic in that network the time will be reduced dramatically.

Once the restoration is completed target server restarted and went through the process of detecting the new HAL components. The only time it stops is for requesting the raid controller driver which we provided from the network location path itself which we have copied earlier. Once the process is completed we had to add the server to the domain. Entire process took around 1.5 hours and the new serer is up and running to server the clients!!

As you can imagine this is real time save to move old servers to new servers without a sweat. We've been using this tool to convert our live servers to virtual environment then virtualizes all the servers as well. If you have specific questions you can PM me or alternatively you can meet me via
MSN susanthasilva@hotmail.com

I've provide few links below which describe about the above mention software,

http://www.symantec.com/business/products/family.jsp?familyid=backupexec

http://techcenter.symantec.com/ecampus/enterprise?siteName=sena&courseNo=DP6000

New era in Anti virus software

2008-04-27T07:13:00.001+01:00

This is silent war topic going on the AV vendors. As a person who's work related to this industry I thought of sharing my 2 cents opinion on this.

Few years back working with AV with the signature file updates has been pretty adequate. But the landscape changed dramatically with the rise of the various vulnerabilities coming from web as well than any one expected. So here we are now talking about spyware, malware, browser hijacking, man in the middle attacks, bots, phishing...etc (more to come in da future) So now all the AV vendors has identified protecting Pc's from virus signature files is no longer a reliable solution. So now we've been offered with a new solution called EndPoint Protection. So this time the explanton is we not only need to protect the individal pc's but as well as the endpoints like network ends. In a certain way this makes a pretty sense. Most of the employees are now working mobile and heavily depend on mobile devices like laptops, palmtops..so when they roam around the country, world they can bring pretty nasty vulnerabilities to your network. So this is the place where your first defense should work. In firewall we talk about this as layered security. So we protect the network from the endpoint level so Pc's will be check against the company security polices even before they are allowed to connect to the co-operate network. So the last defense would be the antivirus with various other components integrated.

So my understanding is network administrators and security mangers would give more attention to this and identify why endpoint security is more reliable. So the main quote is "AV is not enough for your company" Many AV vendors has already adopted this technology and come up with various solutions. Symantec, Mcafee, Kaspersky has already entered to this race. So give it a consideration how should you protect your network and doing so save your neck....!!!

VMware ESX Server 3i

2008-03-21T16:49:00.002Z

It's been a while away from the blog. Been busy with new products related to Symantec. Well as you may all know Symantec is company famous for anti virus software right?? well not at all, it is selling antivirals for home users and enterprise market but the company is armored with more than 35 products itself and continue t grow everyday by technology accusation's. Anyway I went too far with Symantec products because now I'm working on those products.

So VMware back into my life with their latest edition for the enterprise market. VMWare ESX server. Now we all ma have used VMware workstation for and VMware server in our home pc's for testing applications and operating systems. But VMware ESX is the big daddy of all of them and actually involve in server virtualization, resource management and cost savings...etc. This product is not depend n windows or Linux as a host OS but starting with it's own OS! By doing so it make sure it'll take minimum hardware resources from your actual serer and let the raw power to be distributed to the virtual PCs. Most of the enterprise data centers move to VMware ESX for numerous reasons and few are as follows,

1 Decreases power, cooling, floor space and infrastructure.
2 Simplifies disaster recovery and business continuity requirements.
3 Increases server utilization from the typical averages of 5-15% to 60-80%.
4 Faster deployment of information technology resources reduces time to market.
5 Lower operational costs associated with reduced resource management and administration.
6 Improves application performance by dynamically adapting storage and server resources to meet peek usage cycles. and much much more.
So I thought of sharing some VMware guru's articles into this blog to make it more useful for everyone.

http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-esx-server-3i.htm

http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-infrastructure-esx.htm

http://www.petri.co.il/vmware-consolidated-backup-utilities.htm

Happy Virtualization to all.

Happy New Year 2008!!!

2008-01-01T01:45:00.001Z

It's a another fresh start and lots of things to cover. So how it's going to be for us in IT side? Well let's ride and see...

P2V (Physical to Virtual) Conversion

2007-10-25T11:55:00.000+01:00

This is the concept that been buzzing around the IT world. Convert your physical machine to Virtual.(Not exactly the correct meaning as it is, but we’re talking about converting the OS and the apps in the physical to virtual OS that can be run on any platform. VMware company goes extra mile to introduce this method and really keep on their word on it. They are so keen about this concept and released out a free tool to people to test this method. This software can be downloaded here (http://www.vmware.com/download/converter/)

Actually they have come with 2 version and more details can be found from the VMware web site itself.

So I took the liberty of testing this out in our office Exchange server!!!!! (People don’t try this out in your office unless you got a another job) I have given a task of cleaning out the mess in our exchange server and remove the unnecessary mail boxes. Knowing this clean is not the best method than a fresh installation I thought of trying this out. So my first task is downloading the software and then install it to the Exchange server itself. After that I make sure we have a spare server or a hard disk with enough free disk capacity for the migration. Armed with all the necessary tools and the brains start the process. Cannot recall the whole time it took for the conversation but I assume it was around 6 hours. (I start the process in a weekend and found it was completed when I arrived to office on Monday)

So what I found is a 30GB vmdk file! Start the Virtual server in a dual core machine and start the vhdk file assigning 1GB ram. The process went smoothly and after the bootup I had to install the VMware tools get the connectivity with the actual network. After assigning the IP connectivity I brough down the physical PC down. I ran the company Exchange server in a virtual environment for 2 weeks time. The only problem I found is network card stop sending packets and loosing the connectivity once in a while. I assume I have not done a proper house work for the virtual file. (Assuming I have to boot the virtual OS in safe mode and remove the existing network cards and then let the VMware tools to install its emulated network drivers.) But apart from that whole project is a success.

I really like to hear from others who have done a process like this. My next plan is to host a SharePoint portal server and our anti virus server (Symantec Endpoint Security) in virtual appliances and host in one physical server.

Virtualization is a cool concept and sooner or later it will crawl into you office too. So be prepared!!!

So I'm MCSA now

2007-07-08T16:20:00.000+01:00

Well I'm so glad I made it. I've been out of the certification track after doing my Small Business Server exam in year 2006.
It relly took me 2 months time and my previous job experince really helped me in that. I still think SBS exam is really worth for the money. The product itself really cool and really look forward to post some information about it soon. One cool product I start to fall in love is Microsoft ISA server 2004/2006. I know Cisco rocks in everyones minds, but this is a cool product to give a serious thouhgts. Glad to Local IT security giving attention to that. Look forward to share some information with other peer members about this product.

So that's my small roaring about the MCSA and look forward to get few more certificates under my belt and look foward to Windows 2008.

Ubuntu back in action

2007-04-22T19:25:00.000+01:00

Ubuntu Linux has released their latest desktop version-Ubuntu 7.0.4 aka "Feisty Fawn"

In my previous articles I've mentioned I use the version 6.06 and 6.10 and been really impressed with their easiness of usage. New version has even more promsing features and also options to data and user migrations from windows operating systems. The truth is Microsoft Vista has been requesting lots of resources leaving it's customer base with less options. Most of them are looking for alternatives and to keep their existing PC's. Specially in Asian countries windows Vista migration might get slower phase due to the Computer hardware component prices. Microsoft still hasn't come up with good pricing schmene for the developing countries and this is another kep point they loose average Joe's. Anyway I've not yet installed the latest version cause it's still on it's way through ADSL line (lol)
Will update the blog one I get my hands dirty on the product. But in da meantime I found out the following features and offered bt the product,

Windows migration tool - The new migration tool recognises Internet Explorer favorites, Firefox bookmarks, desktop wallpaper, AOL IM contacts, Yahoo IM contacts and imports them in Ubuntu. This offers easier and faster migration for new users of Ubuntu and individuals wanting to run a dual partition. In addition to single accounts, you can migrate several users' settings in Ubuntu. (I think this may get rapid improvement to support more data to be transferred)

Easy installation of multimedia codecs -Playing an MP3 or other media file just got a lot easier. If the required pieces are not yet installed, 7.04 will get the correct codecs for you, no more searching and no need for long and complicated instructions.

Easier connection to wireless networks - This is really timesaver. Just like windows XP wireless configuration options. Configuration going to be breeze.

apart from that Ubuntu 7.0.4 using the latest kernel (2.6.20) and Gnome's most awating 2.18 desktop enviroment.

Cannot clear ARP cache

2007-01-21T00:03:00.000Z

I've been facing this matter numerous times. Couldn't find the cause of it until today. This time problems occurs in windows 2003 server computer after installing RRAS (Routing and Remote Access Service) . As soon as I start the service server couldn't access the internet and won't allow new clients to join the network. Stopping the service allowed me to connect to the service but won't allow to join new clients to the domain.
After quick Googling I found out this problem is common for all windows versions. Foud out various answers and most popular one is clearing the ARP cache through command line (netsh interface ip delete arpcache) Microsoft has been kind enough to offer the solution starting from ABC (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314067)
Just a another day in computer nightmare! Hope to see a ray of light tomorrow. Will post as soon as I come up with an answer.
Cheers

How to survive in OS battle in year 2007

2007-01-04T14:55:00.000Z

First of all wish everyone a Happy Ney Year! We're on the era of expecting windows VISTA to come out and surprise windows fans. I've once reviewed the windows Vista and couldn't find much interesting things to stick around it. I'm really disappointed to hear minimum/ recommended hardware requirement for the OS. You can run any Linux OS in very good condition in that kind of specs.(This is my personal blog so bare with my ideas...lol)
But things may change as usual. If we look into the Windows OS history most of us keep on moaning and blaming when they initially released their OS. I remember most of us blamed windows XP and told we'll stick to to windows 2000 Professional no matter what. But it changed ultimately. Even though we moan about the windows Vista hardware requirement in the market we se hardware components exceeding Vista requirement and far more capability packed. But it's the question is how far we want to go on purchasing hardware and software to do the same task we did years back. As always security and information theft is a the biggest risk in the current and present future. So software vendors have busy time looking after their product and keep on covering their products t minimize such attacks.
As a summary of the situation I see year 2007 will be interesting place for OS battle. With Microsoft windows Vista and their latest server product range their will be significant change from the fans for the Linux world. They will think twice before jumping to OS.

Is Ubuntu really play well than windows?

2006-12-16T00:45:00.000Z

I've posted about the Ubuntu Linux distro in my earlier post. Since that I've been regularly using it as my main OS in my laptop. I've to admit everyday I'm loving it. I wonder why I didn't make that move long time ago. Yeah you can argue saying windows support various software and easy to install but what the heck Linux got more software than windows. You'll almost find a software to competitive to windows software. BTW Linux is not an operating system to a geek who wanna try all the latest software all the time but hey I got a answer for that too. Save the money to purchase VMware for Linux and install Windows virtually if you can't lave M$. (I also need M$ due to my clients support ) So I keep it in my virtual environment in order to support clients. I'll sharing some of distro pics in order to share my experience with Linux. Anyway I found downside also, for gamers Linux will be no no..pls go to windows. But I found simple games to enjoy.

Linux OS in a USB Flash Drive

2006-12-11T13:38:00.000Z

Most of us now aware of the Bootable OS CD's. For those who is new to this it's just a CD that will load the whole operating system into teh memory without thouching your Hard disk. Most of the tiem the main OS will be Linux. For windows XP users who needs to peek into the Linux world, this si teh ideal soultion. They can feel the OS without installing it to their system. But now time has change bootable option has been step forward to USB flash drives! This is much more faster thanks to the USB 2.0 . This means it's much more faster than loading from the CD. Otehr advantage is your CD-rom is free for you to use and you can recover data from your non bootable HDD and can write it to a writable CD. So without much introduction I'll introduct to one of the link I found in a web search.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/index.php (This site provide instructions to install various Linux flavours to USB drives. The instructions are easy to follow to a newbie.) If you're still not sure to do this then go ahead and buy a USB flash drive preinstalled with Linux OS. Good option will be buying the following product,

http://store.mandriva.com/product_info.php?products_id=277

Cheers!

Free Online data backup

2006-12-04T21:09:00.000Z

There are many commercial online backup software and products available for a resonable price. While searching through the net I found a free edition which gives away 2GB online space to backup. The usage is very easy though restore option is not straight forward but not difficult at all. (After all it is a free verion) They also offer commercial version starting with 30GB options.

https://mozy.com/?ref=XEL4QC

2006-11-09T00:24:00.000Z

Using UBUNTU in my Laptop

In my previous post I've mention about the Ubuntu Linux. This is the most famous and easy to use Linux OS I've found. I decided to move to Linux instead of Windows in my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. To my surprise I found Linux Os if much more quicker in responding time than the Windows XP. I'm really happy about that speed gain up. My machine spec is Intel M1.6 GHz 512 MB Ram, 40 GB 5400RPM HDD,...oh and share memory for the Intel VGA card.

First start with Ubuntu Linux 6.05 version and found out they have released the 6.10 version on 26th October 2006. This one code name as Edgy Eft. Upgrade process too long time than the new installation but it has greatly improved the speed. I prefer o stick with Gnome desktop environment. It is less graphics and response is much quicker. But if you're moving from Windows environment this will not make you unhappy.

Vmware player in Ubuntu Linux

2006-11-06T01:09:00.000Z

I've been searching forums and Googling about this one. I find various answerers to this. Some of them are very easy to follow just bring up the terminal window and type one command and it'll do the rest!!(Eg : sudo apt-get install vmware-player)
I was really happy I don't have to download any packages and go through lots of fiddling, unfortunately this didn't work for me. I get and error message when I tried this option. So what case the problem? It's just a simple matter of enabling the correct repositories. All you have to do is,

system-->software sources-->(select) software restricted by copyright or legal issues (multiverse).

After that it will update the sources list with additional download locations. So that's it. Go to the terminal windows (command prompt in windows language ...lol) and type sudo apt-get install vmware-player.

If you like to install the Vmware-server in your Ubuntu system then visit the folowing link,

http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_vmware_server

Welcome to Linux World

2006-11-02T01:33:00.000Z

I've been always curious to try out new operating systems. Trying to move away from expensive software like Microsoft and move to the freedom world called Linux. I think I found the perfect Linux distro to that which is "Ubuntu" This is one of the user friendly Linux distro for beginners. In my understanding with Linux I will prefer this one most. At the moment of writing the latest version is 6.10 called "Edgy" . As many Linux distributions this one also allows you to test this OS in bootable CD. Ubuntu linux is having few flavors. Kubuntu which is default desktop is KDE. and Ubuntu is having Gnome. Even though you can try both in the same environment I found Gnome is much less resource hungry and works faster. I've been used to Windows environment and thought moving to Linux will be really difficult. We all have been habbit of GUI environment of Windows and really afraid to go away from clicking mouse buttons (Lol). Anyway Linux GUI has been improved vastly. It almost like you're using windows environment and the great thing is applications are loading very faster. I hope the following links will provide you appearance of the Ubuntu linux and make a apatite to try them out. After all don't be afraid to freedom!!

Screen shots

more screenshots

Some free utlities to make your life easier

2006-09-23T12:55:00.000+01:00

1. Acrobat Alternative. (Loads very quickly) Download

2. Photoshop alternative ( to my knowledge) Download

3. Find your computer hardware information . Authors page

4. Did you whish for a proper windows temp files cleaner? This is it. Download

5. Good firelwall software (5 stars goes for this product from me) Download

Hope someone will find these untilties helpful in their day to day working life.

Walking through Windows Vista

2006-09-23T12:43:00.000+01:00

Always wanted to get my hands into latest software and test them out. I was so anxious to get my hands into Vista and try it out. Heard they released teh RC1 23rd of September for public. Manged to download a small 2.3 GB iso file. (lol) At first I went through upgrading which took nearly 8 hours and ended up with BSOD!
Next armed with a another hard disk went through the installtion which took nearly 1.30 hours. My machine specs are (AMD XP 2500+, 1024 Ram and 120 GB 5400 RPM hard disk) Windows Vista gave me only 3.4 points out of 10 to my machine! (too bab) But all along it runs smoothly. I am quite happy with that performance but so far didn't dig too much into the features even though I notice Microsoft had taken quite a step improving the visual effect rather than finxing the software problems (lol) I've attached few pics to show how it looks like. I couldn;t run my favourite programs like Alcohol120% CD emulating software and Nero. But manged to install the VM Ware workstation software in it.

Testing MS Office 2007 Beta 2

2006-06-02T23:25:00.000+01:00

Microsoft Office 2007.

I’m glad of the new appearance of the MS office product suite. You can publish your word document straightly to you Blog! So far I’m in the initial stage of testing the software. But I’m already starting to love its features. Now Microsoft has released MS Office Beta2 for public. You can download it from following link,

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/getthebeta.mspx

Microsoft also recommend to download and test your system for compatibility with the existing documents. Tool has been provided to download and test in your machines.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/converter.mspx

Susantha

02^nd June 2006

Playing Diablo 2

2006-05-01T16:44:00.000+01:00

Finally manged to finsihed the game after 3 days contiouns battle. I've to admit in the end of the game I used to registry editor other wise I'll be playinh this for months. 2 years ago I plyead half of this game for 6 months but never saw the ending. Now it's time to try this out in online mode!!
I've to admit I'm like to play computer games as a hobby. I whish I can upgade my AMD XP desktop in order to play better games but not doing so will also let me time to spend in my studies. Well I'm fooling my ownself!!!

SBS Specialist

2006-05-01T16:38:00.000+01:00

Finally passed the Small Business Server Administration Exam. this one is really cool, because the product itself test your knowledge in Exchange, ISA and windows 2003 server itself. I've to admit passing the exam really doesn't mean I'm a specialist in that product. Experience has to be count into that in order to wear that crown. But in the other hand I've got MCP to my credential list which is a good thing.

Learn by watching!

2006-02-19T13:43:00.000Z

While browsing through the net I came accorss a good web site. (http://www.blogcastrepository.com) This is a cool web site. You can watch videos, show how to do some of the Microsoft tasks. If you're a pro you can publish your own blogs to the site.

ISA, Exchange and SBS update

2006-02-17T12:34:00.000Z

After installing the SBS server in a test machine I got the chance to test the ISA server for the first time. I've to admit the GUI interface is pretty cool. I think newbies will love how simplify the the tasks to be created and started. After all Microsoft has thrown away some utilities that really help newbies.

I found ISA Server best analyzer tool & MBSA (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer) are really helpful. Thumbs up for the MS guys developing these tools. It's really easy to find how powerful or how weak is your server and what patches you're missing. So if there are any SBS administrators (newbie and pro) I think this is a must tool in their toolbox.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/tools/mbsa2/default.mspx - MS MBSA

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d22ec2b9-4cd3-4bb6-91ec-0829e5f84063&DisplayLang=en - MS ISA Best Pratices Analyzer

Another day in January 2006

2006-01-20T17:00:00.000Z

1. Came up with a CCH login error complaining by user. CCH pro system gives an error "Maximum sessions" had been used. To solve this you’ll have to go to file and select Detach user" option and remove the currently logged in users. These are orphaned sessions which have not been closed properly. This will also depend on the number of license you've accrued from CCH. If the number of license is 4 then 5th user cannot login and access the database.

2. Mnaged to isntall Clisn't UPS software (APC smart UPS ) by installing following orderly manner
Agent software, server software and fianlly console software.

Exchange SP2 notes

2005-11-27T22:38:00.000Z

Microsoft had already released the SP2 for the Exchange server. With lots of goddies to the It people and the users. So it's time to dig into the web and read lot of info. My concern is all about how it apply to the Small business Server 2003. Surfing around few favourite sites I came across a blog which gives you nice article about the upgrade and other info for a newbie (just like me..) So it's my pleasure to share it wiht all the other readers.

http://www.vladville.com/about.asp

Hope this site will give you some idea about the SP2 even though he is not going very deep about it.

2005-11-21T15:53:00.000Z

Usful links I came across in my studies.

www.overclockers.com - My first subscription to a technical web site and where I came a overcloking addict. Really cool web site adn you can get lot of help from the techncial forum.

www.smallbizserver.net - this is a site I came to hang around most of them time, when I found out there is a server software called Small Business Server. Now I've providing support for this product so sticking to get more information from these guys. Cool techncail forum too.

www.yousendit.com - To send a large file to someone. If your ISP won't allow you then these guys will allow you upto 1 GB.

www.computerperformance.co.uk - Can't say much about this site because I'm still getting into it. But it's seems to be useful to anyone because this guy offer lot of information. thanks pal keep up your good work, at least I'm promoting you in a good manner.

www.msexchange.org - Another paradise to hang around if ya scratching your head to troubleshoot Exchange server.

www.petri.co.il - Great web asite, and he is doign a great service. Really worth a looking. It's all about windows server software and windows XP tweaks.

So far that's all for now until I find intrestign places for you all. Well these are my tasing but if anyoen looks for more info please let me know soI'll be keen enough to look intot hat also.

Configuring POP3 Connector in SBS 2003

2005-11-21T14:21:00.000Z

Oki I'm back to my own space after a long time. Keep on pulling my hair to resolve a Small Business Server 2003 matter for the past few weeks. When you are a real idiot with less knowledge and trying to do a big task it is really painful hahahah! You'll have to be in that position to feel that. Anyway my task is to configure an Exchange mail sever to receive mails from ISP and then send mails to outside world. Things will be easy if this is a new company and wanted to host their own e-mail server but in my scenario this company have already started and they have 200 branch offices!! Head office is also not hosting mail server but relying on ISP to do that one. So here I'm with a branch office screaming they want to keep their own mails in a server. Initially I didn't have any idea how to configure this apart from the information I grab from the Internet but sometimes they are so confusing. Finally I managed to setup my own server computer and install SBS 2003 to it. Today I successfully completed the mail part and managed to send and receive e-mail to branch members.
Big thanks goes to the SBS development team making the taks wizard driven. It makes really easy to understand what we are doing. To me it's all about configuring the POP3 connector to reterive the mails from the ISP gloabal accoutn and deliver it to the relavant user accounts. The task is completed after several mouse clicks.

Configure 2 Desktop computers

2005-10-14T09:36:00.000+01:00

Configured 2 desktop computers. Need to install CCH today. Configuration start on 13-10-2005. One has to be Dispatched today. CCH will be isntalled as client version without the databse instalation. After that need to move other 2 computers which need to be created as peer to peer. HP Printer also has to be configured to the network.

First Post

2005-07-01T13:41:00.000+01:00

This is my sample post.