Fixyourcpu’s technical blog and tips

I recently switched to Comcast for internet service and had a few minor issues getting a DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit router to work.  The Dlink router could not get an IP address from a Comcast cable modem.  On the status page of the router the renew / release buttons were greyed and there was a message to check the logs.  The logs had an error:  “The addressing of the Internet side learnt thru DHCP conflicts with the addressing selected for the LAN side. Internet communications will be disabled until you have changed the LAN side addressing to resolve the problem.”

The issue was the Comcast modem was handing out an IP address in the same range that the router uses for the internal LAN ie my home wireless network. Comcast gives an address in the 192.168.0.x network which is the same IP address range the Dlink uses by default. To remedy connect a lan cable from a computer to one of the ports on the router but not the internet or WAN port. Login to the router by opening a web browser to 192.168.0.1 and go to the Network Settings page. Change the IP address to another subnet such as 192.168.10.1, reboot the router. Now shut down the router and the modem, connect the lan cable from the modem to the internet port of the router, start the modem and wait 30-60 seconds, then start the router, now connect a PC and you should be in business.

dmw Uncategorized broadband, comcast, dir-655, dlink dir-655, dlink wireless router

I had a server running Windows 2003 on Vmware Esx 4 that was running out of disk space.  It is a pretty simple process to extend the disk space but it took some hunting around to find it.

1. Shut down the virtual machine.
2. Edit the disk you want to expand using the Vmware client, edit the disk and increase the size.
3. Boot the virtual machines into Windows, go to disk management and verify the unallocated disk space is available.
4. You won’t be able to extend the volume if its the boot volume so you’ll need a partition manager to extend the disk.
5. Download the GParted open source partition manager Live CD, mount the iso and boot the virtual machine from it, then extend the disk and boot into Windows.

I believe in Windows 2008 you can do all this from within Windows but haven’t had to test that yet.

dmw vmware add disk space, expand boot system, expand disk, extend disk, extend volume, vmware

I was converting an IBM Thinkpad T42 laptop from physical to virtual.  The conversion went through without any errors but the machine would not start.  In the console on bootup (after BIOS screen): “A disk read error occurred, press ctl+alt+delete to restart”.  The conversion is a success, it creates the VM with no error but won’t start.

This was resolved by running the conversion again.  During the conversion wizard select devices and change the default disk controller to SCSI Bus Logic.  Run the conversion and boot the virtual machine.

dmw vmware a disk read error occurred, p2v, physical to virtial, vmware converter

I’ve found that the steps to restore a Sharepoint farm can be quite complex.  Since the company I currently work for has become quite reliant on MOSS 2007 I started looking into how I would restore the server in the event of a failure where a new machine would not to be built.  This scenario involves a one server farm running MOSS 2007  with a SQL 2005 database.  The farm is backed up using Symantec BackupExec 12.5 agent.  By no means is this a comprehensive list of exact steps but it is a quick read of the general process and should help you if you are looking for what you need to document about your configuration and what info you might be missing.

What you’ll need to make the Restore easier:

• A backup of your Sharepoint farm made with Symantec BackupExec
• A list of your web applications and associated databases
• The build version of the farm
• A list of domain service accounts
• MOSS 2007 install media and key.

1. Install Windows, updates, IIS basically everything needed for a base install.
2. Install the BackupExec agent.
3. Ass any domain service accounts to local admins group.
4. Install MOSS 2007.  You need to also install any updates as well.  In my case I needed to install the WSS Sp1 update an then MOSS SP1.  If you try the restore to a different build number it won’t work in most cases.
5. Install SQL.
6. Run the Sharepoint Products and Technologies wizard.  Create a new farm.
7. Configure Sharepoint – This is  a good general overview of installing and configuring Sharepoint – http://blogs.msdn.com/martinkearn/archive/2007/03/28/how-to-install-sharepoint-server-2007-on-a-single-machine.aspx
8. On the Symantec server, go to restore, view by resource, browse to your old server and farm, check off the portal database.
9. Go to the MS Sharepoint Redirection, choose redirect Microsoft Sharepoint sets, enter your Portal url and server name.

dmw Sharepoint moss 2007 dr, sharepoint disaster recovery, sharepoint restore, symanec sharepoint agent

If you encounter this message when attempting to install Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7 drivers on a Windows 2003 Server x64 print server:  ”The specified location does not contain a compatible software driver for your device. If the location contains a driver, make sure it is designed to work with the Windows x64 Edition operating system.”

Copy the x86 drivers to a machine running Windows XP x86 or whichever OS you are trying to upload to the print server.  Browse to the server by going to \\servername, open the printers and faxes folder, highlight the printer, go to file,  server properties, drivers tab, add and browse to the location of the x86 drivers.  This makes the drivers available on the server and any machines connecting will be able to automatically download the correct driver.

dmw System Administration

I ran into an issue today where the sound on a Lenovo Thinkpad laptop running Windows XP Professional kept randomly not working. Even restarting did not fix. I checked all the normal places to make sure it was setup properly.  In windows everything was fine. I reinstalled the sound card driver and it started working but then later in the day stopped. Turns out Real Player had been opened, the volume set all the way down and then closed.  Even though it was closed Real Player was still running in the background processes and hence was controlling the sound.  Ending task on the process or raising the volume in the application fixed the issue. Hopefully this will help someone trying to solve an inexplicable issue with the sound on their laptop or desktop not working.

dmw Uncategorized no sound, sound not working, windows sounds

I recently needed to determine which Exchange 2007 users had IMAP4 and POP3 enabled and also review the logs to see which users actually access the server via either protocol.  These steps walk through how to determine which users are enabled for either IMAP4 or POP3 in Exchange 2007 and also how to turn on and view protocol logs to determine which users are accessing the server using the protocols.

I used Quest’s Powergui with the Exchange 2007 powerpack to do this – http://www.powergui.org/index.jspa.  Its free and a great tool if you don’t have it yet you should look into getting it.  Open Powergui, expand Exchange 2007, Client Access, User Configuration.  A list of the users will display in the middle, right click on the column header and check off PopEnabled and ImapEnabled.  You can now see which users are enabled and disabled.  You can also sort by any column by clicking the header.

You can setup a filter that will automatically show you only users that are POP3 enabled or IMAP4 enabled.  Click User Configuration then click the Filters button in the middle pane.  Click the drop down arrows and set them to  Property = ImapEnabled, Operator = Equal, Value = True.  You can save the Filter by clicking Save As entering a name and clicking OK.  A new script will appear under the User Configuration node which will automatically display only users with IMAP4 enabled.  You can do the same for POP3. 

Once you determine what users are enabled for IMAP4 or POP3 you’ll want to find out which users are actually accessing the server using the protocols so you can disable any that are not.  To enabled IMAP4 or POP3 protocol follow these instructions by Microssoft:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997690.aspx

Restart the service after making the change.

Once enabled you can use a tool like Logparser or if you only have a handful of users that are using IMAP/POP like I did just go to the log files and search it for their username.  You might want to search the log everyday for a few days before disabling IMAP/POP on the user accounts just to make sure they aren’t using it.

Imap logs are normally located here:  C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Logging\Imap4 

You can open with notepad and search for the username.

dmw Exchange 2007 Exchange 2007, IMAP, POP, Powergui

After deploying an image and trying to boot windows you receive an error “There has been a signature failure”

This message comes up as a result of the active partition being set to boot from the built-in recovery partition on the hard drive.  Most Lenovo laptops come with a hidden recovery partition used for the rescue and recovery software.  To fix the issue get a bootable floppy disk or usb drive with fdisk.  Boot from the device and use Fdisk to set the proper mark the proper partition as active then run fdisk /mbr and restart.  You could also use a Ghost 2003 cd and run gdisk which is their version of fdisk.  Run gdisk 1 /act /pri:1 assuming you want partition 1 to be the active, bootable partition.

Boot to ghost 2003 cd\support gdisk, gdisk 1 /act /pri:1 to set the first partition as the active one or use fdisk and set partition 1 to active and run fdisk /mbr

dmw Uncategorized signature failure, symantec ghost

You may encounter an error “Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item” or “Your current security settings do not allow this action” when trying to copy a file locally or run an executable file from a network share when using a Windows 2003 Server virtual machine.  At first I thought since I was running into this issue on a newly created virtual server guest on Vmware Esx it might be related to Vmware permissions.  It turns out it was a very simple solution.  All I needed to do was uninstall the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration component from Add/Remove Programs.    Go to Add\Remove Programs, Add\Remove Windows Components, Uncheck Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration in the list, click next and then finish.  

I only saw this error with virtual machines and not physical Windows 2003 servers.  After uninstalling the component you may have to restart for the change to take effect or just restart the explorer process.

dmw Uncategorized esx, virtual machine, vmware, windows 2003

1.  Open Exchange Management Console

2.  Drill down to Organization Configuration, Hub Transport and click on the Transport Rules tab.

3.  Right click and select New Transport Rule…

4.  Enter a name for the rule and description if desired and click next.

5.   Place a checkmark next to “from people” and “sent to users inside or outside the organization”.  On the bottom half of the screen click the people hyperlink, click add, select a person or group from the list and click ok.  Next click the “Inside” hyperlink and change the scope to outside.  Click next.

6.  Select an action you like to take.  I selected to bounce the message and notify the sender.  Click next.

7.  Choose an exception if desired then click next.

8.  Click New to create the rule.

You now have a rule that will prevent the selected user or group from sending any email outside your organization.  The rule can be enabled or disabled by right clicking it.  If a user tries to send an email and this transport rules applies to them they will receive a non-delivery report back in their inbox.

Delivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists:

‘outsidemail@somedomain.com’
Your message wasn’t delivered because of security policies. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for you. Please provide the following diagnostic text to your system administrator.

_____

Sent by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

dmw Exchange 2007 Exchange 2007