Category: Uncategorized

It’s a hard sell

Why is SharePoint such a hard sell? We generally tend to find that convincing customers to use SharePoint is hard work. They just don’t seem to get the real productivity saving that they could make with the product. I suppose that you don’t really appreciate SharePoint if you don’t use it. These days we’d be lost without SharePoint in our business, it helps fill the gaps in so many areas. A good example now is the roll that it is playing after we shut down Microsoft CRM 3.0. We can say that we have almost replaced all the functionality that we were using with CRM 3.0 with SharePoint. It also provides greater flexibility and interoperabity to boot.

Now that we started using SharePoint 3.0 we think the product is going to be big. Again, it is still a hard sell for many small businesses but hopefully Microsoft will product some good marketing materials. The great things about SharePoint is that it can be hosted by people like Webcentral. This means that you can sign up customers without the need for messy infrastructure on a month by month basis.

Microsoft has some greating e-learning training resources on Sharepoint 3.0 ( click here ) which you’ll find are currently free. They provide a good overview and introduction to the features of Sharepoint 3.0. We are really excited about things like wikis and inbuildt RSS feeds. We are currently looking at potentially migrating our online knowledge base ( www.ciaops.net.au ) into a hosted Sharepoint 3.0 because the felxibility is marvellous with Sharepoint 3.0 alomost seeming to be designed for this sort of application. Microsoft is also planning to release a swag of Sharepoint 3.0 application templates that include things like knowledge bases and room hire ( click here for more info ). We’ve already seen a few of these previewed and think that having these templates should make it even easier to convince customers to at least give Sharepoint a try.

We like to think that we are a little ahead of the curve here. If so we expect that in the next 6 to 12 months the biggest thing to come from the latest release of software will be Sharepoint 3.0. Our advice, get into it now!

Recovering deleted public folder

So you thought you could use the Exchange Server 2003 recovery group to recover a deleted public folder? Sorry to tell you that you can’t. The Exchange recovery group is only for Mailboxes, not public folders. So how do you restore it? Unless you have a backup program like Brightstor or Veritas, with the appropriate agents then you have these options.

1. Attempt a restore of the deleted folder.

Go to Microsoft website and search for PFDAVadmin.  Download the public folder tool and you can recover your deleted folder
 
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287110/en-us
The above is a command list.
 
You can also try and use Outlook to recover the deleted folder by going to the location where it was deleted, on the user that deleted and select Tools | Recover Deleted Items.
 
Another method is to use OWA.

 
1. Go to OWA and login as the user that deleted the folder.
2. Click on the button for public folders and it will open up a new windows with the public folder structure.
3. Browse to the parent folder of the deleted item, right click on the parent public folder and select “Open in New…”
4. Change the URL from http://servername/public/toplevel/subfolder/?cmd=content
to http://servername/public/toplevel/subfolder/?cmd=showdeleted&btnClose=1 (replacing servername with the name of your server).
4. Find the deleted folder, highlight the folder, and click Recover.
 
2. Restore the Exchange store
 
If the above options fail then you are going to have to restore the whole public folder store. If you attempt this on the same server it will overwrite the public store that is already there. To avoid this you will need to build a new server ( same name ), with the same AD name, install Exchange and then do a complete restore of the databases from the original server. Then you should be able to recover the deleted public folder.
 
The second option isn’t that nice but it maybe you only option. This issue should make you stop and think about wide spread usage of public folders, because they are so cumbersome to restore.

Hot and heavy

When we get servers into the shop to run up we normally have to install a number of additional components inside the beasts. This usually means that we rip off the cover and get everything installed and then power the sucker up to make sure that it all works. We also then generally leave the machine running so it can “burn in”, basically see if anything “burns out” and needs replacing before the customer takes delivery.

Recently, we left the side cover off the machine overnight and came back in the morning to discover a number of warnings being displayed in the server monitoring software. Turns out that the disks were running pretty damm hot. Why? Well, servers these days are specially crafted to ensure that they receive adequate air flow WITH the covers ON. Removing the cover completely destroyed the carefully crafted airflow designed to keep everything cool.

Once we returned the cover to the machine and switched it back on it was only a few minutes before everything was back operating at the correct temperature. So there you go, don’t run servers for extended periods of time with the covers removed or you risk overheating the internal components.

Computer Associates (CA) licensing

Something we have always found very mysterious is the way Computer Associates (CA) license their products. Generally, it is hard to locate exactly what product may be generating an out of license error. Hopefully the following information will make it easier for people to locate.

Computer Associates (CA) licensing information is usually held in
 
c:\program files\ca\shared components\ca_lic
 
in here you’ll find a file called lic98.log. This contains a log of all the license errors. Check this log to see what products aren’t licensed.
 
Also in this directory you’ll find a file calicnse.exe which when run will display the products that are licensed and their license count. Prior to selecting a product listed here you are able to enter additional licenses at the bottom of the window.
 
The license details are held in the register at hklm\software\computerassociates\license\products. Under this key you will find a number of subkeys that designate the products ( like 31AM, 3EPP ). A list of the corresponding product code can be found at :
 
http://supportconnectw.ca.com/public/reglic/infodocs/itcodes.asp
 
Under each product key should be a folder 011 and under that ( if the product is licensed ) you will find a key ( folder ) with the license code. If the product doesn’t have a license key ( folder ) under it then the product is not licensed.
 
To re-license the product simply delete the product key (folder) and return to the licensing options in the product ( usually under Help | About ) to re-license the product.

We can’t wait for these

Already have SharePoint 3.0 and love it. Next thing is a swag of SharePoint templates that are being released by Microsoft. You’ll find more information about what’s on offer here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/wssapps/v3templates.mspx

We have already see a few of these in operation and can’t wait. We are really keen to get our hands on the knowledge base template since we are currently building a new CIAOPS knowledge base in SharePoint 3.0. As soon as the templates are ready we are planning to release the site. At stage we are planning to offer it on subscriptions basis ( around the $ 40 per annum mark ). It will contact knowledge base articles on all the products we use and focus especially on SBS 2003. We are also planning to provide an amount of marketing material around SBS including things like logos, links to relevant web sites and what not. Hopefully, it will become a one stop shop for the SBS consultant who wants marketing as well as technical information to assist in their business.

If you have any ideas or suggestions we’d love to hear them as we go about designing our vision.

Try new filters first

We’ve been mucking around with ADSL2 lately and it has proved to be very frustrating. The problem is trying to locate the issues. Firstly, you change all the equipment at your end. Next you upgrade everything at your end. After that you blame the ISP and give their tech support a hard time and just when you think you are going to pull all your hair out you replace the ADSL filter on the phone line and viola, everything works.

From what we can work out ADSL, operating at higher frequencies, is much more sensitive to interference than normal ADSL. So using an older ADSL filter on an ADSL2 line may not provide enough “filtering” to allow adequate reliability. If you are having issues, the first thing that we would recommend you try is buying and installing a new line filter. It worked for us.

We have also seen some cases where ADSL filters have caused issues on lines so for what it is worth go out and buy a few filters and keep ’em handy and if problems develop try a new filter first. It may save you the hours that we wasted.

There are multiple accounts with name MSSQLSvc

Having nothing better to do over the Christmas / New Year break (yeah right) we thought we might enjoy a good swing. A swing migration that is. Firstly, all credit to Jeff Middleton for his excellent guide on how to get a new SBS server working without disrupting and old SBS server. It doesn’t even have to be an SBS server but we know that it works with SBS. For information about the process see www.sbsmigration.com.

Our only criticism of Jeff’s work is that although it is very through we found it a little disjoined. To overcome this we developed our set of custom migration notes that made it clear for dummies like us. During this process we have come across a few interesting tips and issues that aren’t mentioned in Jeff’s notes.

The first of these is the following error that started appearing in the logs :

There are multiple accounts with name MSSQLSvc/:1433 of type DS_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_NAME.

Turns out what happens was that our initial SBS Premium server ( with SQL 2000 installed ) was set to run the SQL services under a specific user. However, when we installed the new SBS server we set up the new version of SQL to run under another account. This means that two different users in the Active Directory think that they in control the SQL service accounts generating the above error.

The fix is pretty simple. Use the setspn utility to check the accounts and then change the setting so only one is registered for SQL.

Use

setspn -l account1

&

setspn -l account2

to check that both accounts were registered for mssqlsvc. Now use

setspn -d mssqlsvc/:1433 account2

to remove the suplicate SPN from the second account (in this case account2).

So for all you SBS swingers out there keep this in mind if you are planning to change the service accounts logins for accounts during migration.

Windows updates fail to install

Having a problem installing Windows Updates from the Microsoft web site on your XP machine? Typically they download but when they actually go to install the message you get says “failed”. If so try this :

1. On the machine with issue, locate and stop the service “Automatic Updates” in Services under Administrative Tools from Control Panel.

2. Locate C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution and delete all the contents in this folder but do not delete the folder C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution, just all files and folders underneath it.

3. Return to Services and restart “Automatic Updates”

4. Re-run Microsoft Updates from the web site. You will need to reinstall the Microsoft Update ActiveX control but updates should now download and install.