Exchange 2007 SP2 On SBS Time

We completed a SP2 install using the SBS wrapper.

The time it took was about 50 minutes.

The SBS 2008 was running as a VM on Hyper-V with two vCPUs assigned. It was a fresh install with no real users or production based configuration yet.

The hardware was a single Xeon Processor 3400 series with a hardware RAID 5 disk setup.

It looks as though this service pack will take _a long_ time to install depending on the hardware configuration, number of mailboxes, and other factors.

Keep this in mind when scheduling for the update.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

SBS 2008 – Installing Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 Using the SBS Wrapper

Instead of reinventing the wheel, Tim Barrett has an awesome step-by-step for installing the service pack and the extra components that may be needed here:

• No Geek Left Behind: Exchange 2007 SP2 on SBS 2008.

The files needed:

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP2 Installation Tool for Windows SBS 2008
• Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP2 File (884MB)
• Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable (Need v2-x64)

Yes, the Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 files is a whopping 884MB in size! Go have a coffee or lunch even after starting that download! :0)

We just finished installing the service pack on a freshly installed SBS 2008 VM with no issues that we can see. We did need the Windows Installer 4.5 update before we could install the service pack in this instance.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Two Service Packs NOT To Install At This Time

Currently, we are abstaining from installing the Windows SharePoint v3 Service Pack 2.

The second service pack we are holding off on installing is Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 on our SBS 2008 installs.

• Official SBS Blog: Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP2 installation is blocked on Windows SBS 2008.
• Microsoft Knowledgebase: KB973862: You cannot install Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 on a Windows Small Business Server 2008-based computer.

While the KB article contains some content addressing things that break when Exchange 2007 SP2 gets installed on SBS 2008, there is no real need at this point to install the Service Pack.

Also, there will be an SBS 2008 specific Exchange Service Pack 2 package released at some point that will allow us to install the Service Pack without it breaking things.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Vista RTM to SP2 – Note SP1 Required First

A client’s laptop came back from the repair facility with a reloaded hard drive. We took an image of the drive before it left, so no worries on the data, but we now have to update the laptop.

Wanting to jump right up to Vista SP2 we ended up with:

The prerequisites for Service Pack 2:

• Notable Changes in Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Vista SP2

So, we have SP1 on its way down right now, it will be installed then after the final reboot we will be installing Vista SP2.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Group Policy Client Side Extensions for Vista Service Pack 2 will follow …

Okay, so we know that despite all indications, CSEs are not included in the OS install via Windows Vista Service Pack 2 OS installation disks.

• Vista Service Pack 2 Not Applying Group Policy Preferences

Apparently the Client Side Extensions for Windows Vista Service Pack 2 slipstreamed media will be released sometime later this month or early next month.

So, make sure that any fresh OS install using Windows Vista SP2 media that needs Group Policy Preferences applied gets the above “hack” to enable GP Preferences to function as expected.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Vista Service Pack 2 Not Applying Group Policy Preferences

We are collaborating on an SBS 2008 and Windows Server 2008 Core Hyper-V fresh installation.

The Hyper-V server will host 8 Windows Vista desktops for the organization that has users that are out of the office more than 85% of the time.

This solution keeps their data organized and protected as well as enables them to run a Line of Business application that is not Terminal Services friendly.

The Vista software is provided by a base retail OS purchase with Open Value Vista Upgrade + SA added.

The media that was downloaded for the VMs:

A fresh Windows Vista Service Pack 2 OS.

Well, we have discovered that the slipstreamed version of the OS does not have the Client Side Extensions functioning properly.

After troubleshooting our User and Computer based GPOs that contain Preferences, the following page came up in a search:

• TechArena: Group Policy Preferences not applying on Vista with Service Pack 2.
• Full thread here: Microsoft Newsgroups on Group Policy.

Ouch … this is not a happy scene because we had to burn critical time today troubleshooting this problem instead of placing the new SBS domain into production.

• The CSE are supposed to be in Vista SP2 according to Microsoft.

Jake Paternoster in the above TechArena page gave us a good lead towards the solution, but for some reason we could not come up with quite the right process to get the CSEs to install.

But almost every combination that we could come up with would fail with:

Or, at least UAC us but still fail ... with nothing in the Event Logs to even give us a clue as to what we were running up against.

But then, wait! It gets better! After leaving the first Vista SP2 VM alone for a while then coming back to work through the processes and see if we missed anything the GPPrefs were applied! 8O

So, was it the RSAT and GPMC that was enabled that made things work? Or, was it running the GP wizards in the GPMC that got things going?

Since we have 8 VMs to play with, we started with the next one and worked our way backwards through the process to figure out which step actually worked.

Gotta love these in the middle of everything too:

Windows 7 TS Client. They have not been very frequent, but they seem to hit when they are the least welcome!

Here is the methodology for getting things working:

1. Download the CSEs (Microsoft KB site).
2. Copy the KB file to C:\KB943729
3. Open an elevated command prompt.
• It is absolutely necessary that the command prompt be elevated with the domain admin credentials.
4. Navigate to C:\KB943729
5. expand Windows6.0-KB943729-x86.msu –F: *\KB943729 [Enter]
• Note the space _ in between the –F:_*
6. Delete the original Windows6.0-KB943729-x86.MSU
7. start /w pkgmgr.exe /ip /m:C:\KB943729\Windows6.0-kb943729-x86.cab [Enter]
   • No quotes around the path.
   • Make sure the full path including the CAB is there.
   • A bunch of files and folders will show up in the directory. This indicates that the CSEs are seemingly installed.
8. GPUpdate /Force [Enter] 
9. shutdown –r –t 0 [Enter]

Note that the syntax of the PkgMgr.exe command is extremely important ...

The actual command line format is to be found in this link:

• Aaron Tiensivu’s Blog: Generic way of brute force installing a .MSU package in Vista or Server 2008.

Lesson:

• Question:
• What is the definition of insanity?
• Answer:
• Doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different result! ;)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Vista SP2 on Hyper-V SP1 – Integration Services Install Error Code 1

When trying to install the Hyper-V Integration Services on a newly installed Windows Vista Enterprise VM, this is the error we received:

Error

An error has occurred: One of the update processes returned error code 1.

Apparently, we need to Service Pack 2 our Hyper-V box too (Kit Kai’s Tech Blog).

In the mean time, if connected to the Hyper-V manager via an RDP session, there will be no mouse access to the VM.

To shut the VM down, do the following:

1. Click the button.
2. Hit the down arrow on the keyboard to get to Start Task Manager and hit the Enter key.
3. Type ALT+N to hit the New Task button.
4. shutdown –s –t 0 [Enter]

The VM will shut down. We shut down all of the desktop VMs on this Hyper-V box before installing the service pack.

You folks in the US sure have it good with your Internet connections!

• Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 - Five Language Standalone for x64-based systems (KB948465)

The update took a while on the dual Xeon E5420 series Dell 2950 2U. There were 5x 300GB 15K SAS drives in RAID 10 with a hot spare.

We shut the VMs ahead of applying the update to give the server as much dedicated processing and disk I/O as possible. Even though we are working with a Server Core install, the update is quite large.

At about 5 minutes:

And here we are about 17 minutes after the update was initiated:

Keep in mind that any Hyper-V server that hosts Windows Vista Service Pack 1 will need to be updated to Service Pack 2 prior to service packing the Windows Vista VMs.

When the Integration Services disk gets inserted into the VM the AutoPlay feature should pop up a window that enables us to hit the Enter key to initiate the setup routine and an ALT+A to continue through the UAC prompt.

If the VMGuest.ISO was already mounted, then make sure to dismount and click Insert Integration Services Setup Disk in the VM’s Action menu.

Once installed, we will see:

After the reboot, our remote mouse movements will be enabled. If the above menu gets lost behind the default Vista Welcome window, hit the CTRL+ALT+DLTE button in the VM manager and bring up the Task Manager to switch to the Hyper-V setup.

Another reason Windows 7 in a VM is way ahead of Windows Vista! Windows 7 has the Hyper-V Integration Services already installed!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

Windows 2003 Service Pack 2 - Intel ProSet teaming broken.

We got called in to a client's location because they could not figure out why their server was no longer connected to anything after a bunch of updates. It turns out that one of the updates was Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2.

After a bit of investigation it was discovered that the adapters were showing that they were part of an adapter team, but there was no team entry in the Network Connections folder.

This is how the setup should look for the Intel ProSet adapter teaming:
LAN Adapter 1 (Connected)
LAN Adapter 2 (Connected)
LANTeam 1 (Connected) in fault tolerance mode.

After Server 2003 SP 2 it looked like:
LAN Adapter 1 (Connected)
LAN Adapter 2 (Connected)

Because it is the LANTeam adapter that has all of the actual network bindings attached to it, the server was throwing all sorts of fits. Active Directory, DNS, WINS, and more were throwing codes left, right, and centre.

To fix it temporarily, we broke the adapter teaming by removing one of the physical adapters from the team, and then set the appropriate static IP settings to it.

We didn't do any updating of the ProSet software for now, as timing was critical for them. They had been down since early that morning when the service pack was applied.

There are no guarantees that when we go back to install the newest ProSet version that the adapter teaming will work as it should either. We will need to test that beforehand!

We are hesitant as far as installing the newest ProSet 11.x. This newest version has been giving us problems with the inability to set the adapters into teaming mode for fault tolerance. This is without W2K Server SP2 on the boxes as they all tend to be SBS based. So, there are no guarantees that this newest version will work with SP 2 either!

The investigation is ongoing! ;)

UPDATE 2007-07-16: We have a Windows Server 2003 Standard R2 box that had version 11.1 of the ProSet installed on it. The Service Pack did not kill the team in this case. However, it did kill access to any of the ProSet tabs when bringing up the NIC's properties via the physical NIC's Configure button.

We will reinstall the original ProSet 11.1 to see if that brings back the tabs and thus the ability to control the Teaming feature. If not, we will install the newest version of ProSet to see if that works.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

SBS and Server 2003 SP2

Microsoft's take on the subject:
Windows 2003 service pack 2 known issues on Small Business Server 2003.

I have been watching closely via RSS and Google searches for issues with the Service Pack on SBS.

By default, we do not install any service pack out of the box. We wait to see what the rest of the world is doing with it.

We also SP some of our virtual production imaged boxes. And, inveritably, they choke.

Nothing has really changed in all of the years of working with SBS and the standalone product's service packs. Test them first to see what happens, and verify with others out there that things won't break.

Virtualization makes this very easy to do. After obtaining permission from a client, retrieve a backup via USB drive and recover it virtually.

This tests your recovery skills, and it also gives you a production box sans data to play with.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Windows XP x64 SP2 now available

Okay, I am a little behind on my WSUS monitoring.

With a couple of critical client situations taking up most of our week, now is the first time to go through our servers and approve updates that need to happen.

This gem caught my eye under the highlighted updates:


We don't really work with XP Pro x64 that much due to the lack of need in our client base.

I was surprised to see that XP x64 gets an SP2 along with Server 2003 x64 versions.

Go to the XP Pro site and then link on to the XP x64 SP site and we get the following:



One thing that pleasantly surprises me in the links: We can now download the Service Pack CD via an ISO download. No more ordering and waiting for that CD to come, waiting for the TechNet update disks, or Microsoft Action Pack.

That in my opinion is an excellent move on Microsoft's part.

Click on to the actual download:



And, low and behold, the XP x64 version is the same as the Server 2003 x64 versions.

I am not a software architect by any means, but I do find it curious that the SP covers both server and desktop x64 editions.

Also, check out that download size: 475 MB!

This leads me to believe, given the size of the recent SQL 2005 service pack, that the Vista and eventual Longhorn service packs will approach 1 GB in download size. WOW!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists