Vista SP1 Cleanup tool

For those of you that are running Vista, but haven't deployed SP1 yet: do it!
Sure, the installation will take you 2 hours, not including the download, but the performance gain is considerable.

If you still have to install SP1, make sure you comply to the prerequisites before continuing with the installation of SP1. For laptops: make sure the AC power is plugged-in and don't remove it during the installation of SP1. If the laptop can't restart successfully during the No boot window you are f***ed ... During this fase, the critical drivers and components are updated.
For more information, check this guide: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Deployment Guide

OK, now that your SP1 is installed, the PC perfoms a lot better, but as you noticed, your hard disk has less free space available.

Now with the Vista SP1 cleanup tool you can reclaim about 2 GB. The VSP1CLN.exe tool will remove Vista RTM files that have been superseded by SP1 files. And it will also remove backups, which means that uninstalling the SP1 is no longer an option! (not that you will want to do that)

Where can I download this tool? You can't, if you have SP1 installed, you have the cleanup tool as well ... It is located in the %windir%\system32 folder so you can directly run it in a command screen:


The uninstallation can take some time. With me about 10 - 15 minutes, but afterwards no further action is required:


Enjoy!

Windows 2008 Core (WS08 Core): Core Configurator

When the first versions of Windows 2008 Core came out, I've posted some articles on how you can create user accounts, promote the server to a DC, change screen resolution, ... on the Core server itself.
Once your WS08 Core is setup, you can administer it remotely, as I'm sure you will all already know.

But now, a freeware tool has been created by Guy Teverovsky, a MVP. With this tool, you have a basic GUI that can:
- Change computer name
- Change and configure IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, DNS address
- Change firewall settings
- Join a domain
- Configure remote desktop
- Add or remove roles and features
- Upgrade the server to be a Domain Controller
- Change system time, regional settings
- Configure the paging file
- Activate the server or enter the product ID
- ...

Just download the tool from his blog: CoreConfigurator, install the msi on your WS08 Core server and run the CoreConfigurator.exe file.


The rest after that is point & click. Very cool!

VMworld Europe in Cannes: day 2

On the second day, the keynotes were presented by Doctor Mendel Rosenblum from VMware.

Together with the Break-out sessions, a few more interesting features were mentioned:

1. VCB enhancements
As you already know, VCB had to be run on a physical W2K3 server and have a HBA adapter to access the SAN storage in order for it to function. Now, VCB can be run on a VM and access not only SAN storage, but also iSCSI, NAS and local storage!

2. Platform enhancements
The VM's running on ESX hosts can be made aware that they are virtual machines and that the hardware they see it actually not really there. This gives as benifits that calls to the memory and processor can be encapsulated differently, resulting in better performance.

3. VMsafe
One of the biggest points on the second day. VMsafe is the new technology that will keep virtual systems more secure than physical systems. It will use host- and network based protection that cannot be compromised by malware (literally the best of both worlds). With this technology it is actually possible to have secure Vm's while your physical server is compromised.
Also very cool is that VMware does not try to do everything themselves, but provides API's that the security vendors can use to build their products on.
McAfee will ship its first VMsafe enabled products within 2 months!

4. SRM: Site Recovery Manager
This feature is very cool! When an entire datacenter goes down, a second, stand-by datacenter can be configured that will automatically restart the VM's with all it's functionalities. For this to work, you will have to have a backup environment of course, together with the required licenses, but hey: what's the price for a day of downtime? ;)
When SRM is configured, the VM's are automatically duplicated in the backup site but without HD's. In case of a disaster, the files on the datastores are unlocked and moved to the backup site. The HD is connected to the already existing VM and the VM is powered on. All within 10 - 15 minutes!

5. Vservices
Last new features I noticed while I was over there. But very cool none the less. vServices contain multiple VM's that work together, for example CRM, Sharepoint, ... Idea is that a specialist in that matter can create a complete package that you only have to download and drop it in your environment. During the demo from Dr. Rosenblum CRM was installed under a minute that way! :)

That's about it for me, I guess. And how about the last day? Well, those were troubleshooting sessions, labs or technical deep dives. I'll try to post some of the most interesting points, when I find the time.

VMworld Europe in Cannes: day 1

Last week I had the priviledge of going to VMworld in beautiful Cannes.


Lots of interesting new features were introduced in the new VI 3.5 or are going to be implemented in future updates.

I've created a short overview of the most important new features I noticed at VMworld at Day 1:

1. ESX server 3i
Several types of Siemens, HP and Dell servers are going to be shipped with ESX 3i. With this, ESX is already installed and during the first power up of the server a few configuration options have to be chosen and your new ESX server is automatically added to your existing ESX environment. So basically, extra CPU power and Memory can be added to your cluster within minutes.
In ESX 3i, no Service console is included anymore and only a 32 MB hypervisor. For command line instructions, a remote console can be downloaded.

2. Update Manager
The Update Manager can patch your ESX servers as well as your Windows and Linux VM's, even if those VM's are turned off. Also, a snapshot is automatically created which can be used for rollback functionality in case the patching went astray.

3. DPM: Distributed Power Management
Everything is in light of the "green" environment. So trying to reduce energy levels are high on the priority list of managers. An excellent sales point for VMware. Not only does virtualizing 10 VM's on 1 physical server has it's obvious benefits, now they also have DPM. DPM will monitor your power supplies and activate and deactivate them as needed, thus saving on power (and air conditioning) costs.

4. Storage VMotion
As you already know, we can easily move running VM's from one host to another. Now, with Storage VM, we can relocate a running VM's virtual disk from one datastore to another. Although now it is still command line based, several people have developped a GUI.

5. HA enhancements
HA is now enable to restart individual failed VM's. That's cool, and expected, but what is coming next is even better. VMware is working on HA being enable to VMotion running VM's to another host if the original host has failed! So, VM's can be moved to a new host even after a host running the VM's has failed. A feature I thought that will be called Distributed Playback. But I'm not sure of the naming. Since it is still being developped VMware mentioned it only very quickly once. I'm sure we'll hear about it in the future.

6. Template broadcast
VM templates that are created can now be used across multiple datacenters.

More of the second day in the next post.

Exchange 2007: adjust the default message size limits

Already noticed that in Exchange 2007 you cannot change the default message size limits anymore in the traditional Exchange management console?
In het Hub Transport of the Organization Configuration under Send Connectors we can see the various send connectors we have. But it is not possible to change the message limits here.

Of course, we can still change the message size limits on a "per user" basis under Recipient configuration - Mailbox.

Seems pretty excessive for thousands of mailboxes, no?
Of course, you can still change the default settings, but now it has to be done via the Exchange Management Shell.

First we can check how much the message size limit is at the moment with the command:
get-sendconnector | select identity,maxmessagesize.

Now we can change this to for example 20 MB by executing this command:
set-sendconnector "Connector Name" -maxmessagesize 20MB

Run the first command again to check if it worked:


O yeah, restart the Information store service and voila ... :)

Warning MSExchangeTransport, Event 15002, on Exchange 2007

So last week Friday I noticed in the afternoon I hadn't received a single e-mail today. I open the Exchange Management console and don't see anything wrong at first glance. The event viewer contains however a few warnings: eventID 15002

I think: "OK, a warning, I'll look at that later ..." and open a command screen to telnet the SMTP port of our Exchange 2007 hub transport server. I immediately get the error: 452 4.3.1 Insufficient system resources back.

Hhhmmmm ... insufficient system resources ... resource pressure constantly high ... Hey, those things belong together ...

So I do some research on Technet and start reading into this a little bit. Appearently this is a feature, not a bug ... and it's called back pressure.

What can we do?
Well it's obvious that the best way to go is adding the resource you are short off. In my case: disk space. The limit is 4 GB and I had only 3,8 GB left on my partition.

Now, if you don't have that option, there is a page on Technet that specifies which keys can be changed in the EdgeTransport.exe.config file (XML based) that you can find under C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Bin.
For every resource that monitored a key is present that can be adjusted. Of course, Microsoft does not recommend this and warns that adjusting the config file can lead to poor performance and data loss.

Still, I think this is a good new feature, but it should be more visible, not just a warning in the event viewer

Deploying Sysprep on VirtualCenter 2.0

Everyone who has followed the VMware Infrastructure 3 four day course will know how to install Sysprep on your VirtualCenter so you are able customize new VM's during their deployment. But for people who are just playing around with it still, not having followed the course or people that have to dig really deep in their memory (like me) in order to come up with it again, I've created this small post. (their doesn't seem to be lots of info on this on-line ...)

Sysprep is not installed and distributed by VMware for a good reason. Sysprep is free for end-users like ourselves, but not if you want to distribute it ...
So instead of having you pay VMware for Microsoft technology, they just tell you download and install it yourself.

The steps are fairly simple, but the path to which to copy the files are mostly the problem:
1. Download the Sysprep Update Version 1.1 (Q257813_W2K_spl_X86_EN.exe) from Microsoft at this link (if they haven't changed it again).
Info: Validation will be required.

2. Extract the package and copy the files to the directory C:\\Application Data\Vmware\VMware
VirtualCenter\sysprep\1.1. The result should look like this:

3. Download the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 32-bit Deployment Tools (WindowsServer2003-KB892778-SP1-DeployTools-x86-ENU.cab) from Microsoft at this link (if they haven't changed it again).

4. Extract the package and copy the files to the directory C:\\Application Data\Vmware\VMware
VirtualCenter\sysprep\Svr2003. The result should look like this:

Now, we can use the Customize using the Customization wizard option at the template after which you can specify all the desired settings.


Of course, easier still, is sysprepping the VM you want to convert to a template prior to doing so. If an unattend setup is specified, the VM's that are deployed from this template will automatically have all the correct settings, specified in the unattend file.
How to sysprep a machine is not included here since there are hundreds of step-by-step guides of this on-line.

Have fun!

MOSS 2007 and Exchange 2007: enabling e-mail on document libraries

Already upgraded your Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007? If you did, and your Sharepoint was configured with incoming e-mail settings, changes are e-mailing to the document libraries doesn't work anymore ...

By following these steps, you'll be able to set it back up. This starts from the beginning, so previous configuration is not required.

Step one: create an OU in active directory that will hold all the document library contacts.
Same as Exchange 2003!

Step two: delegate write permissions to the Sharepoint Central Administration Application Pool service account so that he can create new contacts in the OU.
Same as Exchange 2003!

Step three: Create an MX record in the DNS that points to the SMTP service of the sharepoint server
New for Exchange 2007!

Step four: Install the SMTP service on the MOSS 2007 server and configure the SMTP server to accept relaying from the exchange server
Same as Exchange 2003!

Step five: Configure on the MOSS server the incoming e-mail settings
Same as Exchange 2003!

Step six: create a SMTP send connector in exchange to relay e-mails to the sharepoint server. Otherwise the exchange server will drop the e-mails.
New for Exchange 2007!

Step seven (if required): create a new E-mail Address Policy (EAP) that adds e-mail addresses to the contacts
Same as Exchange 2003!

You'll see that by following these few simple steps your document libraries will accept your e-mails again.
These steps are a short summary of the whitepaper that was created by the fabulous Steve Smith.
Thank you for all your help Steve, and not just on this ... :)

Have fun!

OWA 2007: Error 440 - Login Timeout

The other day I was facing a Outlook Web Access problem on Exchange 2007. Users could succesfully resolve the URL, but would immediately receive a message "440: Login Timeout", without further explanation not in the browser nor in the event viewer of the exchange server.

This particular exchange server was a new installation, but I've read that this also happens to exchange servers that were upgraded from 2003.

On the msmvps.com blog site, Chad has written a post that can help you with this message.
Basically, the procedure he describes lets you manually synchronize the passwords of the IUSR_ & IWAM_ between AD and IIS.
From the comments below the post it shows that many were helped with this, unfortunately for me, it didn't ...

I did however find another article on the Microsoft sites that did help me.
Below are the steps needed restore the OWA functionality on a Exchange server 2007. Please be aware that although the risk of deleting valuable information is low (since we won't touch the "Management tools", only the "Client Access Server"), the server will be fully unavailable for users during these steps.

1. Uninstall the Common Files subcomponent of the IIS (Internet Information Services), located in the Windows components of Add or remove programs.
2. Reinstall the Common Files and reapply the appropriate service packs.
3. Remove only the Client Access Role! To do this select "Remove Microsoft Exchange server 2007" under Add or remove programs.
4. Reinstall the Client Access Role. To do this select "Change Microsoft Exchange server 2007" under Add or remove programs.
5. Open the Exchange management shell and run these commands:
a) get-owavirtualdirectory -server server_name -DomainController dc_name | ? {$_.OwaVersion -eq "Exchange2003or2000"} | remove-owavirtualdirectory -DomainController dc_name
b) new-OwaVirtualDirectory -OwaVersion "Exchange2003or2000" -VirtualDirectoryType "Mailboxes" -DomainController dc_name
c) new-OwaVirtualDirectory -OwaVersion "Exchange2003or2000" -VirtualDirectoryType "Exadmin" -DomainController dc_name
d) new-OwaVirtualDirectory -OwaVersion "Exchange2003or2000" -VirtualDirectoryType "PublicFolders" -DomainController dc_name
e) new-OwaVirtualDirectory -OwaVersion "Exchange2003or2000" -VirtualDirectoryType "exchweb" -DomainController dc_name

Now run the iisreset command and OWA should work.

The full article from Microsoft you can find here.

Enjoy!

VMware: ESX 3.5 & VC 2.5

As we are all well aware already, new versions of ESX and VirtualCenter have been published by VMware, which will demonstrated on the VMworld event this year held in Cannes (France) at the end of Februari.

Here is a short overview of all the new features introduced in these versions, some more interesting than others:
1. Integration of tools like Guided Consolidation and VMware Converter in the VI Client.
2. Image customization of 64-bit guests (sysprep based instead of xml based).
3. Provisioning across datacenters (in previous versions, you had to have templates in each datacenter).
4. Datastore browser that supports file sharing between hosts (you will be able to just cut and paste files between ESX hosts. Seems like a basic feature to have but in the past you had to do this from the console).
5. Support for 256GB RAM in the ESX host and 64GB RAM for a guest.
6. Lockdown mode: the ability to prohibit management of a host when it is already managed by VirtualCenter. (very practical new feature).
7. Limit the amount of remote console connections.
8. Update Manager: provides a patching solution for ESX hosts and (some) guests. This includes offline patching. (Microsoft is also working on an offline patching solution with codename "Himalaya").
9. Storage VMotion: the ability to migrate virtual machines from one LUN to another without downtime. The migration needs to be done on the same host. You just present the source and target LUN and off you go.
10. VMware Converter integration into VI Client: makes it easier to do V2V and P2V right from VI Client and also allows customers that use VCB to restore backed up virtual machines right from VI Client.

Especially the last 5 features are really interesting to sell and implement at our clients.

Where did I get this from? Who else but Mike Laverick! Check out the guide he made about the new features here.

Except the points mentioned above and lots of other stuff I can't all write down here, there are a few more things I read in the document:
1. Virtual disks can now be enlarged from VI Client. No need for vmkfstools. (GREAT!!)
2. Power-on boot delay for guests and an option to boot directly in the BIOS after a guest reboot.
3. Static MAC addresses for a guests, set from the VI Client.
4. The new datastore browser allows you to upload files to and from the datastore.
5. You can configure time synch with NTP from VI Client.