I thought second time around was meant to be easier? This one certainly wasn’t. Initially I had to reboot the server to get all of the windows patches installed but one of the Exchange patches wouldn’t install properly and the machine hung. Rebooting, stopping the services and installing the patch manually fixed it. After a reboot the server was back up and I started the install off. The first part of the install went through fine and the server rebooted again. After logging in the server struggled to create (or rather populate) the database on the existing instance of SQL. I kept getting messages that the database couldn’t be created and the logs showed DDL statement not allowed. Funny thing is that the database was being created, it just wasn’t being populated with any tables or data. Not much in google to go on and after trying various things I ended up installing a new instance of sqlexpress on the machine and then using that for the install which went through perfectly. Unfortunately I’ve inherited this particular server so I’m not sure why it failed to install on the built in database which seems to work fine.
I’ve had two requests in the past week to install the Blackberry Professional software for clients – this software allows you to sync your blackberry to Exchange (or domino) without having to buy a Blackberry Enterprise server. It comes with one free client access licence and others can be added for $99 (up to 30 devices).
The software is fairly straight forward to install as long as you follow the documentation carefully and ensure you have the prerequisites satisfied. My notes below are all covered in the documentation but for those of you who don’t read the instructions, hopefully it will help.
- Watch the tutorials/read the manuals from the Blackberry Professional Software Installation Toolkit
- Ensure you check the Microsoft kb articles on setting up appropriate permissions for the Besadmin account as this is needed for the Besadmin account to send the mail for you.
- You do need to install the software as your newly created Besadmin account – not the administrator account. The server does need a reboot and the first login on the server needs to be the Besadmin account.
- When installing the database and an SQL instance already exists on the server you will typically need to enter server\instance for the host – a new database will then be created for you.
- Once you create a user, using the wizard, you will need the user to go to options/advanced options/activate and enter their email, password and activation code that was emailed to them – so this needs to be done before the user goes out on the road with no email access!
- The software can be downloaded from the Blackberry Professional page but you do need to register (with the pin number of the Blackberry Device that is going to be used) as you will get an activation key via email.
- Don’t forget to document the password for the BesAdmin account!
The total time to install is probably about 15-30 minutes pre-configuration of exchange, creating the besadmin account, 30-45 minutes to install the software (plus reboot time) and then 5 minutes to set the first user up.
I’ve been thinking about reducing the power consumption of pc’s for clients and have also had some questions directed to me about these settings. Doing a bit of research I’ve come across these useful links. I’ll write a post about my findings when I get around to deploying this in production….
- EZ GPO for setting power management settings in Group Policy
- Using Powercfg to create power schemes
- Wake On Lan tips
- Using scheduled tasks to wake a computer
One of my clients has 11 sites connected to an MPLS network provided by Sprint and part of that service is proactive monitoring for outages. For the past 3 months Sprint have been unable to contact me when an outage occurs as they cannot update their contact information correctly and when they do contact me (or I call into their support center) they fail to meet their SLA’s of 1 hour on ANY of the many outages we’ve had.
The call I received today is the worst I’ve had. Two days ago one of the lines was disconnected (and Sprint notified). 48 hours later I receive my first phone call from Sprint telling me that there is an outage. 48 hours for a proactive monitor?????? The weird thing is that the ticket stats show they have advised me of the outage but yet again they called the wrong number. I have no idea why they are monitoring a disconnected line but 48 hours to let me know is a VERY slow response time.
I logged a ticket with Symantec today as I needed to download Maintenance Release 7 for their corporate edition 10.1 yet their fileconnect website only gave me version 11 (which is so unstable we refuse to install it). 2 hours later I got an email from their support site that started “We have been trying to reach you in the last few days to assist you with the issue regarding Symantec Antivirus but unfortunately we have not been able to do so.”
I guess they’ve invented a time machine in order to try and beat their really long wait times on hold for support…..either that or I forgot that I logged a ticket several days ago and they’ve finally got round to dealing with it!
Anyway, they’ve given me a new serial number to log into the website with so I can download the older version. I’m not sure if it’s an inplace upgrade (I hope so) rather than a removal and reinstall again – if its the removal and reinstall that means *another* 3 or 4 hours to remove, reboot, install and then fix the issues of the client software breaking other software again.
I guess I *really* need to get some time to investigate nod32 network deployments – anyone had any experience with this?
I took the 70-297 test this afternoon. It’s a lot different and a lot harder than the other tests due to the amount of information that you need to digest and analyze (and in some cases assume). I passed with a score of 781. It could have been higher, but the main thing is that I passed and I now obtain my MCSE accreditation. This month has been very busy trying to study most nights for these tests – this was my third one this month and so for the next week or so I’m not going to be doing any overtime – I’m looking forward to being able to relax, watch some films and play rockband. Hopefully I’ll also be able to post some more stuff to the blogs now too.
I took the 70-297 test this afternoon. It’s a lot different and a lot harder than the other tests due to the amount of information that you need to digest and analyze (and in some cases assume). I passed with a score of 781. It could have been higher, but the main thing is that I passed and I now obtain my MCSE accreditation. This month has been very busy trying to study most nights for these tests – this was my third one this month and so for the next week or so I’m not going to be doing any overtime – I’m looking forward to being able to relax, watch some films and play rockband. Hopefully I’ll also be able to post some more stuff to the blogs now too.
You can now access sysinternals tools direct from the command line (great for scripts) by accessing \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\toolname.exe for example \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\autoruns.exe This is great for running the command directly from a dos prompt or in a script or even just copying the file(s) directly to a server automatically without having to download each file from a web browser. Thanks to Ed Bott for the tip off and extra thanks to sysinternals for doing this
You can also download most of the tools in one go with tips on creating start menu icons for all the files in the zip file
Alternatively you can just “copy \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\*.exe .” to copy them to your drive.
It was quite disappointing to come out of the exam having not scored higher than 900. I was pretty convinced I had a higher score, but 873 is still a respectable score as 700 is the passmark. I won’t be taking any more tests at this test center though – the room was hot and right by reception and the front door so all I could clearly hear the (long) conversations as people had their smoke breaks, came back from lunch etc. It made it pretty hard to concentrate and in this exam you really have to concentrate on precisely which user in which OU needs access to which resource in which domain Almost every question had an exhibit button that needed to be pressed and the screens are at such a low resolution you need to scroll all the time (although this seems to be a standard resolution for the Microsoft exams – they really should give you the abilty to change them on the fly)
So I now have only one more exam to go and then I get my MCSE qualification – I hope to take this one next Thursday – I’ve not decided whether to do 70-297 – Designing a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory and Network Infrastructure or 70-298 – Designing Security for a Windows Server 2003 Network. 297 sounds easier as it builds on the skills in the other exams (and we have the mspress book in the office) but 298 would be more interesting but possibly harder and we don’t have the book.
As I found out that the 2nd chance exam offer runs out at the end of this month (for the initial exam – you have until the end of June to take the retake) I’ve decided to try and get my MCSE by the end of the month so I’m swotting really hard. I’ve finished the first half of the Microsoft Press book for 70-293 tonight – I started it on Sunday night and last night we were out for a couple of hours so it’s not bad going. I’ve scheduled the exam for Friday afternoon and after that I’ll only have 2 more to go.
I’ve also pushed the guys at the office to take advantage of the offer, so far I know at least 2 of them have booked exams and if the others are reading this – then just do it! With this offer I really don’t think there is any excuse for someone not to be an MCP at a minimum, especially when the exam fee is reimbursed on passing and the 2nd chance removes a lot of the pressure.