SBS 2008 and SBS 2011 Folder Redirection To A Separate Server

Besides tweaking the SBS Folder Redirection Policy to point to the standalone server and the share that will be used as base for the user’s root redirected folder, we need to make sure that the permissions on the base folder are set properly before things start to work.

Unfortunately the base NTFS permission set that the SBS server sets to its own folder redirection share will not work when we are dealing with a separate server.

So, what we need to do is the following:

• CREATOR OWNER
• Subfolders and files only: FULL
• 
• Domain Users
• Add: Create Folders/Append Data to the default permissions set
• 
• 

With those permissions set at the NTFS (Share = Everybody: FULL) folder redirection should work without a hitch.

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

CaseWare and SMB2 Update – Install A Hotfix

A while back we indicated that we had started to disable the SMB2 protocol at accounting firm sites due to file corruption issues.

• MPECS Inc. Blog: CaseWare Working Papers 2010 – Network File Locations Errors
• MPECS Inc. Blog: CaseWare Working Papers – Disabling SMB2

CaseWare’s KB on the subject has been updated:

• CaseWare Support: File corruption when using Windows Vista/Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 with SMB2

From the updated KB Update on file corruption when using Windows Vista/Window 7 or Windows Server 2008/Windows Server 2008 R2 with SMB2:

We recommend that clients working in this environment install the hotfix (documented here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028965), to limit their exposure to file corruption.

If you require assistance implementing the hotfix, please contact our support department for assistance.

Windows 7

Microsoft has acknowledged that data corruption can occur when multiple users perform read and write operations to a shared file in the SMB2 environment. Microsoft has issued a hotfix (mentioned above) which we have tested on Windows 7 workstations and confirmed that the potential for corruption no longer occurs. As long as the hotfix has been applied to all Windows 7 workstations running Working Papers, and there are no Vista workstations accessing Working Papers engagements, SMB2 can be enabled.

Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008/Windows Server 2008 R2-based Terminal/Citrix Servers running CaseWare® Working Papers

The hotfix outlined above has reduced the potential for file corruption for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008/Windows Server 2008 R2-based Terminal/Citrix servers running CaseWare Working Papers environments. However, we have still noticed crashes of our application even with the hotfix applied.

Microsoft has acknowledged that SMB2 may cause problems with applications that require our level of performance/access to data files and have recently provided a number of possible recommendations. We are in the process of testing these recommendations to confirm whether they address the Working Papers corruption issues in these additional environments.

We expect to provide an update for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008/Windows Server 2008 R2-based Terminal/Citrix Servers running CaseWare Working Papers environments in early January. Until that time, we still recommend disabling SMB2 for these environments to avoid any potential data corruption.

Note the exception for the server OSs as well as Windows Vista.

This looks to be a client based hotfix at this time, so we will start updating the problematic Windows 7 machines and wait to see what CaseWare has to say in January.

Here is a direct link to the Request Page:

• Hotfix KB2028965 Request Page

A link has been placed in our Hotfix Quick Links in the left hand column of the blog for later access.

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

Partition Recovery Tool – Active@ Partition Recovery

This little tool may come in handy for those times when a partition just mysteriously disappears after a server or workstation reboot.

• Active@ Partition Recovery

Cost wise it is very reasonable for us to use here in the shop for any hard drive boot record work.

Hat Tip: Boon Tee

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 2011 Setup Guide – v1.1.0 Update

Our SBS 2011 Setup Guide has been updated to reflect some issues with installing the OS into a VM along with some additional tweaks.

• SBS 2011 Setup Guide v1.1.0

Thanks for reading!

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 2011 – Installing The OS Into A VM – Time

There seems to be a bit of a caveat when it comes to installing SBS 2011 into a VM on Hyper-V with regards to the VM picking up the proper time during the initial OS install.

We found that once the OS had finished installing both the time and time zones were not correct despite the time zone being set within the Answer File.

To mitigate any timing problems when installing the OS into a VM we can either:

1. Enable Time Synchronization in the VM’s Hyper-V Integration Settings temporarily.
• Make sure to disable Time Synchronization once SBS shows its successful install screen.
• This allows the VM to have its time correctly synchronized with the host’s clock.
2. SHFT+F10 after the initial reboots and set the time using the command prompt.
• 

If the VM OS install is being done in Migration Mode then any time mismatches between the source and destination servers will cause a total loss of the SBS 2011 install resulting in the need to step back on the source server.

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

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays!

Our family will be celebrating Christmas over the next 12 days or so.

And, our schedule will be fairly relaxed as projects we had lined up have been moved into January. It will be nice to actually not have to run around working a number of projects this year! :)

Have a safe and wonderful Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays!

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 2003 to SBS 2011 Microsoft Migration White Paper on TechNet

Microsoft’s migration story for SBS 2011 can be found at this landing page:

• Microsoft TechNet: Migrating to Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard

The first live link on the site is for the SBS 2003 to SBS 2011 migration process.

• Microsoft TechNet: Migrate to Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard from Windows Small Business Server 2003

We have already run the migration steps once through when we migrated our own SBS 2003 R2 Premium domain to an early release of the SBS v7 bits. For the most part things were fairly straight forward relative to our SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 migration guide.

We will be releasing an updated version of the Migration Guide for this process too as Exchange 2010 introduces a few nuances in the process.

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

Not All UPSs Are Created Equal – Surge Let-Through

As Chris Knight pointed out in a comment on our post on a failed APC BR1500LCD and both power supplies in an SC5295BRP chassis, the Surge Let-Through value is a very important one when it comes to determining what UPS needs to be put in front of expensive and critical IT equipment.

So, here we have three APC UPS products set up in an online comparison on APC’s site:

APC Smart-UPS 1000VA SMT1000RM2U $559.00

APC Smart-UPS 1500VA SUA1500RM2U $719.00

APC Smart-UPS 1500VA SMX1500RM2U $779.00

Now, out of the above units, which unit or units would have a better Surge Let-Through number?

The answer was actually a bit surprising:

APC Smart-UPS 1000VA SMT1000RM2U 0.3%

APC Smart-UPS 1500VA SUA1500RM2U 0.3%

APC Smart-UPS 1500VA SMX1500RM2U 5.0%

What caught us off guard was the fact that it was the most expensive unit that had the lesser surge let-through rating.

Now, considering that the BR1500LCD unit also shares in the 5% rating, if we had the SMX1500RM2U in its place we probably still would have had two blown power supplies.

Thanks to Chris, we will be paying a lot more attention to that rating on any of the UPSs we supply our clients or purchase for our own use.

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

Remote Desktop Connection Manager – Multiple RDP Sessions Managed Easily

This is a pretty kewl utility:

We can set up all of the servers and desktops that we manage on a regular basis in the Connection Manager and have quick and easy access to them.

• Microsoft Download: Remote Desktop Connection Manager

The RDCM can store credentials as well so we will only allow that to happen on workstations or laptops that are BitLocker enabled.

Hat Tip: Jason Miller

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

Primary A/C Breaker Fail – APC BR1500LCD and Intel SC5299BRP Dual PSU Fail

One of our clients had a primary breaker pop on Friday last week when an appliance was turned on while someone was running an oven’s self-clean cycle.

When the power failed it somehow managed to kill the APC BR1500LCD UPS protecting the server. The end result of the UPS being taken out was that both power supplies in the redundant PSU setup also failed.

The server was configured as follows:

• Intel Xeon X3220 Series CPU
• Intel S3210SHLX Server Board
• 4GB RAM
• Intel RAID Controller SRCSASRB + BBU
• 500GB Seagate ES series drives in dual RAID 1 arrays.
• Intel SC5299BRP with both PSUs.

Intel sent out a pair of replacement PSUs which fired up the hardware with no issues.

The BR1500LCD’s onboard display normally shows about 20 to 30 minutes of runtime on any given day. It now reads 1 minute so it will also be replaced.

We were fortunate that the spontaneous shutdown of SBS 2003 R2 Premium with ISA installed did not in some way mess up Exchange or Active Directory.

We ran a few reboot cycles and an update cycle checking to make sure that the Exchange database was happy in between each cycle which it was. We had their ShadowProtect backup on standby if there was a need to recover the server.

The final reboot happened in about 1/3 the time the first boot up after plugging in the new PSUs did. We will be keeping a close eye on this box to make sure everything stays happy.

It just goes to show that even with a good UPS in front of a system that includes line levelling that there are no guarantees.

Nothing replaces having a good backup that is known to recover without issues. The stress levels are so much lower when we know we have a fall back in the midst of a server down situation.

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

Windows Small Business Server 7(2011), Configuring Beta Exam Now Available

The new Beta exam for SBS 2011 is now available to be taken:

• Born to Learn Blog: (MONDAY UPDATE) Beta Exam 71-169 --- Registration open, code is working
• Promo Code: SBSS

We jumped onto Prometric’s site to find out what availability will be for the Edmonton site here:

• Prometric: Register for Tests Portal

We ran through the steps to find that the exam does indeed show as available:

After clicking next we found two locations:

But, neither of the sites had anything showing as available:

So, we called into Prometric at 1-800-853-6769 to find out if they could give us at least a timeline as to when the exam would be available here. They could not.

In their online system we went back into the system and chose the next closest location which is in Red Deer Alberta at about 150KM (100 miles) away.

The registration system did not seem to respond to any of our queries. The person we spoke with at Prometric stayed on the phone to see if the system would start behaving for us while we were logged in. It did not behave so they initiated an internal trouble ticket.

We will try again later and then tomorrow to see if we can indeed get registered for the exam.

Hat Tip: Susan Bradley via the SBS2K Yahoo Group.

UPDATE: The registration system came back online and accepted a date in Red Deer for the first week in January. We will keep a eye on the Edmonton sites to see if they have any seats go live just in case.

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

Legacy Taxprep T1, T2, and T3 Apps on Windows XP Mode

Now that many of our accounting firm clients are moving over to Windows 7 as the primary desktop operating system we have run into a roadblock of sorts with the legacy versions of Taxprep’s accounting applications.

That roadblock has to do with running any legacy version of Taxprep on a Windows 7 machine whether we install it locally or try and run it via a network install. The older the version of Taxprep the less likely we can shoehorn it into Windows 7 and it will fail to run.

So, to mitigate this we created a folder that we keep in the network install location:

In that folder is a set of shortcuts to the network versions of the Taxprep applications:

We drop a copy of that folder of shortcuts into the following location in the Windows XP Mode VM:

Once Windows 7 has picked up on the new folder we place a shortcut to it on the user’s Windows 7 desktop.

They can then run whatever Taxprep version they need to via XP Mode.

Another option may be Microsoft’s App-V though some of our accounting firm clients do not have the required licensing in place yet.

In the rare case where a partner wants to have access to those legacy programs while outside of the main office we will install the legacy versions directly into the Windows XP Mode VM and place the shortcuts into a folder on their desktop.

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

Windows 2008 R2 Web – .NET Install Error –You must use the Role Management Tool

We are trying to get .NET 3.5 SP1 installed on a Windows Web Server 2008 R2 clustered VM.

When we tried to run the full version of the install file we received the following error:

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Setup

You must use the Role Management Tool to install or configure Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.

However, when we open the Add Role Services wizard on the server .NET 3.5 is nowhere to be seen.

A quick search turned up the answer on an MSDN blog:

• MSDN Blog: The Way I See It: You must use the Role Management Tool to install or configure Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.

Vijay points out that .NET 3.5 will be found under the Features install.

Indeed, there it was:

We selected the root check box and away we went.

Note that once .NET v3.5 is installed some of the updates that will follow will require reboots of the server.

Our Web server VM is now ready for an LoB that required .NET 3.5.

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

Windows XP Mode – Boot From An ISO Instead Of XP

We set up a user’s Windows XP Mode a while back, ran updates and left it until it was needed.

One thing we neglected to do was to keep a record of the XPMUser local admin account.

Now, the setup process for Windows XP Mode takes a fair amount of time, so we dropped an ISO of ERD Commander onto the machine (our clients have MDOP) and hooked it into the Windows XP Mode VM.

One catch however was this: How do we boot from that ISO?

The answer was found after some searching here:

• Windows Seven Forums: How to Boot from a CD or DVD in a Windows Virtual PC

Essentially, we disable the Integration Features in the VM’s settings, reboot, and hit the DEL key until we get into the VM’s vBIOS. We can then change the boot order for the task at hand, make the password change, and set things back once into the OS.

Total time spent was about 5-10 minutes.

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

Correction – SBS 2011 RTM via TechNet is Microsoft Action Pack TechNet

It seems that the links to the SBS 2011 download does not become active unless the organization has the Microsoft Action Pack Subscription with TechNet add-on or something called TechNet Plus Consumer Service Professional Pilot.

Now, there may be another caveat involved in that we are Microsoft Small Business Specialists as well and we are not sure if a standard MAPS subscriber will have access or if only SBSC based MAPS subscribers would.

Our previous post was not quite in line with the above.

• SBS 2011 RTM Is Now On TechNet

Our apologies for any confusion our post may have caused.

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