Refresh Hosts file without rebooting

Tried this with Windows 8.1 and it is easier than you would think as it a command you should be very familiar with.

IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS

SBS 2003: Display message at logon

Windows Server 2003 and SBS 2003 can be configured using Group Policy or a script to display a message to users when Ctrl+Alt+Del pressed to logon.
This can be used to display a terms & conditions summary or important systems messages prior to a logon attempt.

More Information:
How to configure Windows Server 2003 to display a message when users log on

SharePoint: Cannot Backup WSS 2.0 Database

I was preparing a SharePoint Services 2.0 database for transfer from SBS 2003 R2 to SBS 2008 running SharePoint Services 3.0.

While trying to backup the WSS 2.0 database using SQL 2005 Express I was getting the error message:

Property BackupDirectory is not available for settings    'Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Settings'. This property may not exist for this object, or may not be retrievable due to insufficient access rights. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Express.Smo)

Solution:

A lot of information exists on this problem, however, they all pointed to the wrong registry key for backing up a SharePoint database.

You must add the following value to the Registry:

1. Registry key: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\SharePoint\MSSQLServer
2. Name: BackupDirectory
3. Type: Reg_SZ
4. Value: C:

Further Information:

Microsoft TechNet: Steps performed on the Source Server for Windows SBS 2008 migration

SBS 2003: Installing BlackBerry Enterprise Express

This can be a tricky install so I have taken note of this document for future reference.

First time I installed Blackberry Enterprise Server it killed the exchange server;  .net 1.0 destroying .net 2.0.

How to install BlackBerry Enterprise Express on SBS 2003 Premium

SBS 2003: Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Transition Pack

Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 is designed for businesses with up to 75 users or devices. If you have outgrown your SBS 2003 R2 and wish to upgrade to regular Windows Server, Exchange Server, SQL and ISA server versions. Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Transition Pack aids seamless movement to the full line of Windows Server products.

1. Converts your Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 license into standard licenses for each of the individual server components, such as Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition and Exchange Server 2003 SP2.
2. Removing the design constraints of Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2, which include a 75 user or device limit, support for branch offices, and a requirement to keep Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 as the main logon server.

Further Information:

Microsoft: Windows SBS 2003 R2 Transition Pack

SBS 2008: What about ISA?

Microsoft Comment on ISA and Windows Small Business Server 2008, for customers migrating from SBS 2003 R2 Premium to SBS 2008 and may want ISA or equivalent product.

ISA will not be included in SBS 2008.

Customers with active Software Assurance for SBS 2003:

Customers with active Software Assurance for SBS 2003 R2 Premium will be “made whole” by also receiving a free copy of ISA 2006 Standard Edition along with a separate copy of Windows Server 2003 R2 (since ISA Server 2006 does not run on Windows Server 2008).

Upon the release of the ISA Server successor product, Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010, customers will be eligible for a free upgrade from ISA 2006 to TMG 2010 Standard Edition. Once upgraded to TMG 2010, customers will have to maintain software assurance coverage for TMG 2010 independent of their software assurance coverage for SBS 2008 Premium in order to get future upgrades for TMG 2010.

Customers without active Software Assurance for SBS 2003:

Customers without active Software Assurance have to purchase a new SBS 2008 Premium Edition license, corresponding SBS 2008 CALs for each user or device accessing the server software, and a separate ISA 2006 license. And since ISA 2006 does not run on Windows Server 2008, a separate copy of Windows Server 2003 (R2) will be needed as well.

Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010

This cannot be run on Windows Small Business Server 2008 or Windows 2003 a second server running Windows Server 2008 will be required.

Essential Business Server 2008 includes a version of TMG but the 3 server requirement is not a realistic option a company of 5 users.

A hardware firewall may be the only consideration for small businesses wishing to deploy SBS 2008.

Further Information:

Microsoft Forefront: Threat Management Gateway 2010

Microsoft Download: Download Evaluation of TMG 2010

Microsoft EBS 2008: Essential Business Server 2008

ISA 2004: Support Lifecycle Ending

Mainstream Support for Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 Standard Edition was retired 13/10/2009 with Extended Support to be retired in 14/10/2014.

ISA 2004 was the version bundled with SBS 2003 Premium and could be installed on SBS 2003 SP1 or SBS 2003 R2.

In short you now will have to pay for support for ISA 2004.

The enterprise version of ISA 2004 still has time to run 13/04/2010 & 14/04/2015 for standard & extended support retirement dates.

Can I update my SBS 2003 running ISA 2004 Standard Edition to Enterprise Edition?

This has little practical use in the real world as you would probably be looking at ISA 2006 or a hardware solution from SonicWALL,  WatchGuard or ZyXEL.

You can upgrade Standard Edition to Enterprise Edition I do not know whether you can do it on the SBS 2003 server as the standard edition was integrated into SBS. I have a copy of ISA 2004 Enterprise if I remember before wiping my SBS test server I will try installing it.

Can I update my SBS 2003 running ISA Standard Edition to ISA 2006?

Answer NO & YES: ISA 2004 was integrated into SBS 2003. ISA 2006 cannot be installed on the same server as SBS 2003. If you want to use ISA 2006 in an SBS 2003 environment you need a second server.

Further Information:

This Blog: SBS 2003- Product Technologies Compatibility Chart

This Blog: ISA 2006- Support Lifecycle

Microsoft Support: Microsoft Support Lifecycle ISA 2004

WSUS: Panic Button

How to stop WSUS server downloading.

I went overboard with the automatic approvals one of my test servers, selecting every language and category. Not surprisingly huge amounts of disk space where being eaten up.

Naively thought that resetting the language selection to English only and resetting Approval Rules to Critical & Security Updates only that this massive download would stop. What was I thinking everything had been approved so of course the download would continue.

Often a fair bit of searching I found nothing apart from the fact that I was not the only one with the problem.

How do you stop the download:

Worked it out for myself

1. Start Windows Server Update Service
2. Expand Updates and select All Updates
3. Set Approval to Approved
4. Set Status to Any
5. Click on a update then Ctrl+A to select everything
6. Right click on any update and select stop download.
7. You can restart the download in the same way

Now short of reinstalling WSUS how am I going to reset the download to the minimum set I require?

There was some some instructions about clearing out the download folder and resetting WSUS … I’ll give it a go later and update the blog.

Further Information:

Managing WSUS 3.0 from the Command Line

Purge / Delete corrupted or Un-needed patches on WSUS Server

SBS 2003: Symantec Backup Exec or Protection Center causing issues with updates.

Recently installed Symantec Backup Exec and Symantec Protection Center on my SBS 2003 R2 test server. Several problems that I have previously blogged about appeared to point to Backup Exec being an issue.

Could not install a SQL and ISA 2004 SP3 update after removing both Symantec products the ISA service pack installed. I also noted that during the installation of ISA server a previous problem was rectified, update for SQL 2000 successfully installed during the ISA 2004 installation.

I will try reinstalling the Symantec products and see if they coexist with ISA and WSUS.

SBS 2003: Product Technologies Compatibility Chart

At-a-glance answer for installing and running standalone versions of Windows SBS technology on a server running Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003.

Couple of interesting points you can install Exchange Enterprise on SBS 2003 but not ISA 2006.

Product Technologies Compatibility Chart for Windows Small Business Server 2003

Further Information:

Microsoft Support Lifecycle page

ISA 2004: ISA Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool

Microsoft ISA Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool

The ISA Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool is designed for administrators who want to determine the overall health of their ISA Server computers and to diagnose current problems. The tool scans the configuration settings of the local ISA Server computer and reports issues that do not conform to the recommended best practices.

Microsoft Visio diagram of your network topology as seen from an ISA Server computer can be generated.

Further Information:

Download details- ISA Server Best Practices Analyzer

ISA 2006: Cannot install on SBS 2003 but is supported on separate server.

While SBS 2003 R2 ships with ISA 2004 it will not support an upgrade to ISA 2006 on the SBS server. It can be installed on an additional server and is supported by Microsoft in this configuration.

Further Information:

Product Technologies Compatibility Chart for Windows Small Business Server 2003

Tip: Windows Update vs. Microsoft Update

Do not confuse Windows Update with Microsoft Update.

If you only run Windows Update you will only get updates for the basic operating system. With Microsoft Update you get updates for important applications such as SQL Server, Exchange and Office products such as Outlook.

When you run Windows Update you will notice to the right of the Welcome sign the News section. Under the News is the link to upgrade to Microsoft Updates, follow the link and install the upgrade.

Express vs. Custom

The express button only installs high priority updates remember to select Custom from time to time and get all the less urgent updates that may be required by you system.

Windows Server Update Service (WSUS)

I have recently run Microsoft Update on my SBS 2003 Server that runs WSUS and found a few updates that WSUS was not installing. Either WSUS does not installing everything or is broken … either way I have some investigating to do … proves that you should never be complacent about updates.

Further Information:

Microsoft Update: Upgrade to Microsoft Updates

SBS 2003: WSUS Webcasts & Articles

Operations guide for Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (Level 200)

Architecting and Deploying Windows Server Update Services (Level 300)

Tips and tricks for troubleshooting Windows Server Update Services

Introduction to Security Patching Using Windows Update Services (Level 200)

A Hands-On Guide to Hands-Off Updates with WSUS -- Jeremy Moskowitz [MVP]

Managing the WSUS Automatic Updates Client Download, Install, and Reboot Behavior with Group Pol

SBS 2003: Security Update for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (KB970892) will not install.

Security Update for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (KB970892) will not install. After running the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.1 i found that this update had not been installed on my SBS 2003 Server. Checked WSUS and it had failed to install.

I found it to be an issue with Backup Exec and after a bit of internet trawling found this solution:

• Open the Programs and Features (Add/Remove Programs) control panel.
• Select Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and click Change.
• Select the database engine component.
• Allow the system configuration check to complete.
• Then choose Complete the suspended installation.
• You may get the error message "The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable. Click OK to try again, or enter an alternate path to a folder containing the installation package "SqlRun_SQL.msi" in the box below." This means that the installer needs access to the original installation files.
  • In this case download SQL Express 2005 SP3 from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=3181842a-4090-4431-acdd-9a1c832e65a6.
  • Execute SQLEXPR.EXE /x and extract the installation files to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\Baseline Cache\Express\SP3. This is the location recommended by the article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955250/, but the location may not really matter.
  • Provide the Setup subdirectory of this path in response to the error dialog above.
• Installation will continue, but you may encounter an additional error "[(Microsoft] [SQL Native Client [SQL Server] Password Validation failed. The password does not meet the Windows policy requirements because it is too short.. To continue, correct the problem, and then run SQL Server Setup again."
  • To correct this problem, open the Registry Editor.
  • Locate the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQLServer\Parameters. Note that it may be MSSQL.2 or some other instance number instead of 1. For x86 operating systems, omit Wow6432Node from the registry path.
  • Create a string (REG_SZ) value named SQLArg3 and set the data to "-T4606" (no quotes).
  • In response to the error message, cancel the installation and allow it to roll back. Then try the installation again.
• Once the suspended installation of SQL Express 2005 SP3 runs to a successful completion, the KB970892 security patch should install successfully.
• You will need to start up the Backup Exec services after the patch installation.

A link to the Symantec Group is posted below as a number of other usefull solutions to this problem are posted.

Further Information:

Symantec Connect: Security Update for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (KB970892) fails to install

Exchange 2003: Best Practices Analyzer

Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer

The Microsoft Exchange Best Practice Analyzer presents a list of issues that are sorted by severity. For each issue, the tool provides descriptions of what the problem is and of how you can fix this issue.

You would be well advised to run this on any Exchange 2003 Server.

Further Information:

Microsoft Download: Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer

Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyser and other Resources

Microsoft Download: Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant

SBS 2003: Best Practice Analyzer

The Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practice Analyzer

The Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practice Analyzer presents a list of issues that are sorted by severity. For each issue, the tool provides descriptions of what the problem is and of how you can fix this issue.

You would be well advised to run this on any installation of SBS 2003.

Further Information:

Microsoft Support: How to obtain the Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices Analyzer tool

Terminal Services: Imposing Session Limits

On of the most annoying problem I have as an administrator is trying to remote on to a server and finding someone has walked away from their desk with a remote session open or disconnected their session.

The best way to avoid this is to automatically close sessions by imposing time limits for Disconnected, Active and Idle sessions. This way you stand a fighting chance of getting remote access session.

Caution: Before imposing connection limits remember that some applications may require an open session. Automatically killing session may terminate an important process.

Imposing Terminal Services Session Limits

1. Start, All Programs, Administrative Tools and open Terminal Services Configuration
2. Right click RDP-Tcp and select properties
3. On the Sessions tag set time limits for
4. End disconnected sessions 30 minutes
5. Active session limit 2 – 3 hours
6. Idle session limit 2 –3 hours

Further Information:

Try attaching to the console session

My Blog: SBS 2003 Can’t Remote Control Session (ID 0)

Use Task Manager to kill of the offending session hogs under the users tab.

SBS 2003: Renaming Your Windows Domain

This is one of those SBS 2003 subjects that causes a lot of confusion. Yes Windows 2003 domains can be renamed but can you rename a Windows Small Business Server 2003 domain?

A quick examination of the documentation and it should be possible get nearer doing it and you find NO it can’t.

The problem being that you cannot rename a domain if Exchange 2003 is installed on a Domain Controller. SBS 2003 is a DC with exchange 2003 installed so the rendom tool will not work.

If you are installing SBS and have not yet installed Exchange you can use the rendom tool.

Like many you installed SBS without fully understanding your requirements. It was installed using sbsdomain.local and your external domain is abcaccountants.co.uk and you want to unify the domain names.

You have found that a single domain third party certificate is much cheaper than a multi domain cert and you want to rename the SBS domain to abcaccountants.co.uk

Step1: Ensure Domain Level is Windows 2003

Raise the default domain functional level to windows 2003 in order to rename it.  (See my post)

SBS 2003- Windows 2003 Change Domain & Forest Functional Levels

Step 2: Ensure Exchange 2003 at least SP1

Exchange 2003 must be at least service pack 1 and domain renaming is not possible if an Exchange 2000 server is in the domain

Step 3: Rename Your Windows 2003 Domain

Microsoft TechNet: What Is Domain Rename?

Microsoft TechNet: How Domain Rename Works

SBS 2003: Windows 2003 Change Domain & Forest Functional Levels

With Small Business Server 2003 there are only  two Domain Functional Levels Windows 2000 Native (default) or Windows Server 2003 and two Forest Functional Level Windows 2000 (default) or Windows Server 2003

The tool used to change the both the Domain and Forest Functional level is Active Directory Domain and Trusts

Raise the domain functional level

CAUTION: Cannot changed back to Windows 2000 native domain.

1. Log on to the SBS server with domain administrator credentials. The default Administrators account will do.
2. Click Start, All Programs, Administrative Tools and Active Directory Domains and Trusts.
3. In the console tree, right-click the domain, and then click Raise Domain Functional Level.
4. Under Select an available domain functional level, click Windows Server 2003, and then click Raise.

Note: You can also raise the domain functional level  in the Active Directory Users and Computers.

 

Raise the forest functional level

CAUTION: Cannot be change back to Windows 2000 forest functional level.

1. Log on to the SBS server with a user account that is a member of the Enterprise Administrators group. The default Administrators account is a member of this group.
2. Click Start, All Programs, Administrative Tools and Active Directory Domains and Trusts.
3. In the console tree, right-click Active Directory Domains and Trusts, and then click Raise Forest Functional Level.
4. Under Select an available forest functional level, click Windows Server 2003, and then click Raise.

Further information:

Microsoft Support: How to raise domain and forest functional levels in Windows Server 2003

Microsoft TechNet: Functional Levels Background Information

SBS 2003: Exchange 2003 Change Mode

This Blog: SBS 2003- Exchange 2003 Change Mode 

Microsoft Support: How To Convert from Mixed Mode to Native Mode in Exchange