Turn Windows 2008 Server into a Workstation

Lots of posts today…

Here is a great walkthrough to turn 2008 Sever into a usable workstation.

2008 Server R2 – WTF? Where’s my WI-FI?

So configuring 2008 Server R2 on my laptop and would like to connect to a WLAN.  After verifying that the driver was functional, there was no way to connect to a network, WTF?

So it looks like you need to install the Wireless LAN Service to work.  Seriously?

Open Server Manager > Click on Features > Add a Feature > Locate Wireless LAN Service and install.

No reboot required, now your WNIC is able to connect to a WLAN.

That took way too long to figure out…

Backup Exec Error: 0xe000848c – Unable to attach to a resource

*NOTE*

According to Microsoft this issue was resolved with Rollup 4 for Exchange 2007 SP1.  If you have installed this update, do not perform this work around.

Recently I was working with an Exchange 2007 setup where Backup Exec was giving me the generic error, “unable to attach to a resource” when trying to do a GRT restore to an Exchange 2007 mailbox.

Now there are hundreds of issues out there when you search on this error.  Here is what happened to me:

The environment previously had an all in one Exchange 2007 server.  To stabilize we pulled the mailbox role off leaving a CAS/HUB server running on 2003 Server and a Mailbox Server running on 2008 Server.  Prior to this the customer was able to perform GRT restores without problems.

The issue started because 2008 Server likes to use IPv6 as a preferred protocol over IPv4.  Exchange 2007 listens on ports 6001, 6002, and 6004 on the IPv4 stack, but only listens to ports 6001 and 6002 on the IPv6 stack.

The DSProxy listens on port 6004 and is not listening on IPv6.  So ::1:6004 goes unanswered.  You can work around this by adding the following entries to the host file of the server to force it to see itself:

127.0.0.1              localhost
::1           localhost
192.168.x.xxx     hostname
192.168.x.xxx     FQDN

Restart Backup Exec services and try restore again.

See Symantec documentation here.

NewSID breaks Windows Server 2008 R2

Testing 2008 R2, I learned that SysInternals NewSID breaks the VM.  Yuck.

My work around, run sysprep.  Start > Run > Sysprep

Doubleclick on Sysprep to run the application

Choose System Cleanup Action: Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE) and check Generalize.

If you miss the Generalize check, sysprep will not generate a new SID.

Click OK.  Sysprep will now prepare the VM and shutdown/reboot.

After rebooting, it takes quite a while to get to the OOBE.  But at least it works.  Besides, Microsoft stopped supporting OS’s that have been prepared with NewSID some time ago.  So I guess this is a good thing then.  Maybe.

Hyper-V Virus Scan Exclusions

I have found that Hyper-V is easily broken by any on access virus scanning software.  To make life easier, if you are running Hyper-V, or plan to.  Put these exclusions in your vurs scanner:

• Default VM configuration directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V
• Custom VM configuration directory
• Default virtual hard disk directory: C:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual Hard Disks
• Custom virtual hard disk directories
• Snapshot directories
• C:\Windows\System32\Vmms.exe
• C:\Windows\System32\Vmwp.exe