User Profile Tip: Windows Explorer Favorites

Some of us are big on redirecting most folders to the server.

Some of us have learned the hard way to leave AppData and its contents alone on the local desktop. ;)

By default we redirect Desktop, My Documents/Documents, and Favorites.

We recently did a profile refresh using our Event ID 1511, 1515 Profile loss to TEMP method for one of our clients. Their profile had become hopelessly corrupted.

Now, to date we’ve not encountered too many folks that avidly use the Windows Explorer Favorites (pinning):

The above is a snip of my own Windows Explorer pins.

Okay, so we don’t redirect that folder and we’ve not really had to migrate those links before.

That begged the question: Where the chicken are they?!?

Our search foo both on the local machine, via AppData where we thought they should be, and via Internet turned up nothing but one clue: %UserProfile%\Links.

Bingo!

We copied the files from the UserProfile–OLD folder into their new UserProfile\Links folder and they were happy to have them back.

We’ve since added this step to our checklist and will pay a bit more attention to our client’s environments to see if we need to redirect %UserProfile%\Links to save on some time later on.

Philip Elder
Microsoft Cluster MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

A Brief on Storage Spaces

This is a repost of a comment made on an Experts Exchange question.

***

Storage Spaces (SS) is pretty unique. It's driven by Microsoft's need to run data centres full of storage but not foot the bill for huge SAN arrays.
There is a Windows Server Catalogue page of approved hardware for a SS solution.
Our preference is for Quanta and DataON for non-Tier 1 solutions. We've done a lot of testing, and have deployed to on-premises and data centre based clients, prior to being confident in our solution set. That get's expensive _fast_ as we do not deploy anything we've not tested first.
As can be seen, Dell has their products on the SS list and Microsoft chose them for their Cloud Platform System.
A lot of planning and foresight has gone into SS especially with the upcoming Windows Server 2016 feature set (should they all make it into RTM). There are a lot of big storage vendor aimed features that will allow us to deploy SS solutions sets at a fraction of the $/GB cost of the big box vendors.
As an FYI we have a solution set for IaaS vendors that has been in production for close to two years now that works flawlessly. Backend is 10GbE to start with 40Gb SMB Direct (RDMA) and 56Gb SMB Direct (RDMA) over InfiniBand as options.
The solution can scale from 60 drives (4TB, 6TB, or 8GB NearLine SAS) in one 60-bay JBOD to three JBODs, four, or more. With three or more we get enclosure resilience. A full enclosure of drives can fail and SS keeps moving along until that enclosure is brought back up or replaced.
Storage Spaces' cost per IOP, cost per GB/Second (throughput), and cost per GB can't be compared.
Check out Storage Spaces Direct (S2D). Our v2 data centre product will be based on S2D with an all flash option providing _millions_ of IOPS to tenants. Storage fabric via RoCE while storage to compute would be RDMA via InfiniBand.

***

Further Reading:

• TechNet: Storage Spaces FAQ
• TechNet: Storage Spaces: Designing for Performance
• MPECS Inc. Blog Category: Scale-Out File Services (SOFS)
• MPECS Inc. Blog Category: Storage Spaces

There is a very strong economic motivation to get Storage Spaces right for Microsoft and for us. We’ve staked our company direction on Microsoft’s direction with storage while Microsoft’s driver is reducing the overall cost of storage in their Azure data centres.
We believe our Cloud Services Provider data centre backend products are some of the best available and Storage Spaces is a critical piece of the puzzle.
Philip Elder
Microsoft Cluster MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Third Tier: Be the Cloud – Client Facing Environment Demo & Chat

Tomorrow at 1700MST is my regular monthly Third Tier chat.

Since we’ve spent a fair amount of time on our Be the Cloud product (IaaS to your clients) backend setup, now it’s time to have a look at what the BtC clients would be working with.

The client environment is based on our SBS (Small Business Solution) that provides a Small Business Server like IT experience but greatly improved.

• Remote Web Portal access
• Remote desktop access
• Exchange services (OWA, EAS, OA, Public Folders, ETC)
• RemoteApp based application access
• SharePoint CMS for Check Out/In and Versioning in Documentation

Our goal in designing our SBS was to give our clients as close to a Small Business Server experience as possible.

I believe we’ve done that in spades and after our chat tomorrow I believe you’ll agree. :)

When: 1700MST

Where: Third Tier Join.me

A recording of the chat, barring any technical difficulties, would be posted on the Third Tier blog at a later date.

Philip Elder
Microsoft Cluster MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

WebDAV Download Error: 0x800700DF File Size Exceeds Limit Allowed

We set up a WebDAV based file repository for some of our Cloud deployments.

When we did so we hit the following:

An unexpected error is keeping you from copying the file. If you continue to receive this error, you can use the error code to search for help with this problem.

Error 0x800700DF: The file size exceeds the limit allowed and cannot be saved.

Search results indeed bring up a plethora of results all with the same fix:

1. Regedit
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters
• 
3. FileSizeLimitInBytes
1. Set to the following Decimal: 4294967295
2. Click OK
4. Restart the WebClient service
5. Refresh the Windows Explorer WebDAV window
6. Authenticate again
7. Voila!
• 

We’re now in business.

Philip Elder
Microsoft Cluster MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Happy Monday Because …

Kittens! :)

Momma’s Momma was a Blue Point Siamese with an unknown Papa. In this case the kitten’s Papa is our male black and white cat “Two Face”.

The black and grey tabby and the calico are females while the fully black and white one, like the Papa, and the cream coloured one are males.

There are many things in life that can bring a smile to our face. This is most certainly one of them.

Happy Monday everyone and thank you for reading! :D

Philip Elder
Microsoft Cluster MVP
MPECS Inc.
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book