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I recently had the task of backing up Exchange 2007 using DPM 2007. I added the DPM agent to the Exchange server just fine. When I modified the protection group to add my storage groups I got an error saying I needed the eseutil.exe and ese.dll on the DPM server. I got these off my Exchange server and copied them to the DPM bin folder (C:\program files\Microsoft DPM\DPM\bin\). This took care of that error. You can also create a hard link to eseutil.exe and ese.dll. For more on this see: Exchange Server Database Utilities  & DPM07. 

After I got past that error I then ran into other errors on my Exchange protection members in DPM.

• “DPM has detected a discontinuity in the log chain“

and

• “Error 30216: DPM has detected a discontinuity in the log chain for Storage group First Storage Group on SERVERNAME.fqdn since the last synchronization.
  Error details: Unspecified error (0×80004005)

To resolve this I turned circular logging off on my Exchange storage groups and restarted the Exchange Information Store service. I then performed a consistency check on each of my storage group protection members and all errors went away.

• For further help backing up Exchange with DPM 2007 visit: Troubleshooting Exchange Server Protection Issues
• Here a blog on restoring Exchange using DPM: DPM 2007: Recovering Exchange data

At a client’s site they had Small Business Server 2008. For some reason Exchange 2007 was no longer working after they ran some windows updates on SBS 2008 and did a reboot. The information store service would no longer start. I checked event logs and saw this “Source: MSExchange ADAccess Event ID: 2114“. After doing some research I found out that if you disable IPv6 it will cause this error. Sure enough they had disabled IPv6.

I re-enabled IPv6 and the information store service would start again and all was good. Exchange 2007 requires IPv6 be enabled even if you are not using it. You can read more on this here: Don’t forget IPv6

Check out this free SharePoint event in Minnesota.

Twin Cities SharePoint Saturday IV on March 20, 2010

The 4th Biannual Twin Cities SharePoint Saturday! (Formerly known as the Twin Cities SharePoint Camp.)  Spend a day with other SharePoint Administrators, Developers and End Users and come away with tips, tricks and a richer understanding of how you can leverage SharePoint to meet your needs.

Audience
SharePoint Saturdays are about the SharePoint community at large.  It’s a free forum for SharePoint Architects, Administrators, Business Users, Developers, and other SharePoint users to come and learn from their peers.  Topics are always based on community interest.

Date: March 20, 2010
Time: 8:00am – 5:00pm
Location: University of Minnesota’s Computer Science Building, Minneapolis
Cost: Free

http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/twincities/default.aspx

Do you need to track equipment, software, and IP addresses in your IT department? These are a given. The issue is many IT budgets have been cut. Well I have had the same issue. There is a solution. If you have SharePoint 2007 you can use it to manage and track all of these things. If your company has not or does not plan to purchase SharePoint 07 dont worry. You can get Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for free and you can manage track all of the above with it.

Download Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

I have made som custom lists that I use everyday in SharePoint to help out in my IT department. I am attaching them to this post to share with others admins out there. You can off course modify these once you have them added to your own SharePoint. These lists are:

• Equipment Tracker: Use this list template for tracking equipment in an IT department.
• Software Tracker: Use this list template for tracking software in an IT department.
• IP Tracker: Use this list template for tracking IP addresses in an IT department.

Click to download my SharePoint IT Kit

These list templates are provided “As Is”. I assume no responsibility with use of them. If you find these lists helpful please sign up and leave a comment letting us know how they have helped you.

I was working on a 2003 server and needed to give remote access to users that are not administrators on the server. This was not a terminal server. I added them to the Remote Desktop Users group but they could not logon. When trying to log on as one of the users It gave a message saying the user did not have permission for remote access. To get around this I created a security group called RDPUSERS in AD and gave that group terminal services access to the server in group policy. Here are the steps:

• Go to Active Directory and create a security group. Call it whatever you want
• Add all of the non-administrative users you want to have remote access to this group
• Go to start run and tpye gpedit.msc
• On the left pane of the window, expand Computer Configuration>> expand Windows settings>>expand Security Settings>>expan Local policies>>click on User Rights Assignment
• On the right-pane of the window, right click on “Allow log on through terminal services” and choose properties now click add user or group and add the group you created before

Now the non administrative users should be able to log onto the server.

So you have your 2008 servers systemstate backed up by DPM 2007. Your server crashes and you need to recover. DPM 2007 does not give an option to recover to the server only to tape or a network share.

 

What do you from here? The answer is you have to actually restore the system state using Microsoft’s built in windows backup utility. There is another catch it has to be done via command line using WBADMIN. Here are the steps to recover a server using Windows 2008 Backup from the command line: Read the rest of this entry »

I had a Windows Small Business Server 2008 with WSS 3.0 running on it.  I needed to get to the content databases. I tried to connect to the SQL instance using the default server name (SERVER)\MICROSOFT##SSEE in SQL Management Studio. I was unable to connect no matter what account I used. I discovered it is installed on a windows internal database. Even though the server had SQL Express edition installed I still could not connect via the default server name. I found out that you have to connect using the named pipe. Here is what should be used to connect through SQL Management studio:

\\.\pipe\MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE\sql\query

 I recently had to renew my Exchange certificate as it expired. The original admin that set up this Exchange bought the previous certificate from Digi. I decided to go with Startcom (Free SSL) as I have used them once before in an OCS deployment and they worked out well. Exchange is a little different in that you must use Exchange management shell (PowerShell) during the process of installing a certificate for Outlook Web Access (OWA). I am going to cover 5 steps to installing a certificate Exchange for OWA.

 To Open Exchange Management Shell: Go to START >>Programs>>Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 >> Exchange Management Shell

 

This is the management shell

 

Read the rest of this entry »

 

I ran across a tool Microsoft has for testing remote Exchange connectivity such as: Outlook Anywhere, ActiveSync, Autodiscover and more. Here is the URL: https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com

Recently I had a virtual machine that would not obtain an IP from DHCP. I noticed the DHCP client service was disabled in windows services. I would enable it, start it and it would start just fine. I would then reboot the VM. The DHCP client service would be disabled again. I had a feeling there was a GPO that was disabling that service. I wanted to check this without going through the domain policy, the local policy and any other group policies that could be causing this. I used a tool in windows called Group Policy Results Tool. You can use this tool to find out how Group Policy settings are affecting both the the computer and the logged-on user.

To track down the GPO setting faster this is what I did:

• Open a command prompt on the client machine
• Type: cd\ (to go to the root of C:)
• Type: gpresult /v >gposettings.txt (This gave me a verbose report of all group polocies applied on the client machine)
• Go to the C: drive and open gposettings.txt in notepad
• I did a search for DHCP in this text file

This brought me to any GPO settings that had anything to do with DHCP. This helped me identify which group policy was pushing down the setting that was disabling the DHCP client service. It was in the Default Domain Policy. This is the path to system services:  Computer configuration\Windows settings\Security settings\System services

If you have a similar issue you can use the above method and Group Policy Results Tool to track down the cause of it.

More information on using the Group Policy Results Tool:

• http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/gpresults.mspx
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321709