High processor utilization after SBS2003 Service Pack 1 installed

Recently we upgraded an SBS 2003 Standard system to Service Pack and everything went well until the following day when we received all these processor idle time warnings. When we logged in we found that indeed the processor usage was averaging above 50%. Hmmm.. we looked at the task manager and found that the process “System” was consuming an abnormal amount of processors time.

We then loaded processor monitor from sysinternals, which showed all the processes that form part of system, to help us determine where the problem lay. We didn’t install the Microsoft debugging tools like you are supposed to so we couldn’t really identify where the issue lay. Hmmm..most likely some sort of system drive needed updating.

We had updated the system BIOS before performing the Service Pack upgrade so it couldn’t be that. Our thoughts turned to the hard disk drivers being the next most likely option. When we looked at the HP drivers site for the server we were confused as to exactly what disk drivers the server had. We became hesitant about applying these sort of driver updates remotely. Hmmm…

After a little more contemplation we got the feeling that this issue was remarkably like another we had seen previously. A while back we saw issues where an SBS2003 server would slow to a crawl when it had Etrust 7.X installed. That little bug took us over 6 months to solve. The problem turned out to be an update of the Etrust realtime drivers. These updates can be found here.

We then checked the dates on the realtime CA files, INO_FLTR.SYS and INO_FLPY.SYS files located in the WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS directory and they were pretty old. Thinking that updating these was a good first step we downloaded the realtime updates from the CA web site and applied them to the SBS 2003 server. Of course applying the updates required the server to be reboot ( what doesn’t these days?).

After the reboot, guess what? The processor activity returned to normal. Who ever thought that such small files can cause problems but we suppose when you consider that any realtime antivirus works at a pretty low level most of the time on a server, it makes sense that old realtime files can cause problems.

So in summary, if you are seeing high processor activity on a SBS 2003 server with Etrust V7.X antivirus installed, our advice is to try applying the realtime updates first (you’ll need to reboot your server for them to take effect).

Wanna know why Vista took so long and will cost so much?

If you do then you should read this article about the Cost analysis of Windows Vista Copy protection. You’ll find the article at :

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

Here’s the Executive summary :

“Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called “premium content”, typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it’s not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista’s content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry.”

It would seem that Microsoft has spent a hell of a lot of time and effort basically trying to appease Hollywood, who fear their “content” being stolen. The article details how the Vista will be slower and less stable for all users with “features” designed to prevent copying by a small minority. Such “features” also appear to have wide ranging effects on the whole PC industry with providers of accessories, such as graphics cards, will need to comply with these “murky” standards to get their equipment working in Vista PC’s.

The scarey part appears to be the fact that Vista will disable or degregate an interface (say video output) if it senses premium output. So let’s say that you are working on a spreadsheet while trying to watch a HD movie. If Vista doesn’t like the HD movie then guess what the whole screen may go blank as the interface is shutdown. The other interesting “feature” is the inclusion of “tilt bits”. “Tilt bits” monitor the bus for “abnormal activity” and if detected shut down the bus. This is supposed to prevent people inserting equipment in PC to by pass software protection.

We highly recommend you read the article (which has much better explanations and details) and decide for yourself. The more you start to look at what is presented here the more you see how running Vista could be a problem. What we want to know is why the hell didn’t Microsoft put all this time and effort into adding the features they initially said they would or improving security. Instead we potentially have an operating system with inclusions for a very small minority of the population but with ramifications that could affect the whole industry.

Managing SQL 2005 memory in SBS 2003 R2

When we install SBS 2003 Premium with SQL 2000 we normally go into the SQL Manager and manually limit the total amount of memory that SQL can use. This generally gives better performance for the whole SBS box. We certainly wish we could do this with Exchange, but alas no.

Now we have been trying to do the same on SBS 2003 Premium R2 which includes SQL 2005. No where could we find anywhere to manually limit the memory. After some research it urns out that tools to do this aren’t even installed on the server by default. What you need to do is go back into Control Panel | Add and Remove Programs, select SQL 2005 and Change. When the application launch you need to modify the installation to install the Management tools. You will be asked for the Premium Technology CD 2 to install the software. After what seems like a long time the tools will be installed and you can then run the Management tool to limit the maximum amount of memory SQL 2005 uses.

We’ll detail specific steps to limiting the memory in our next post but the first step is to install the SQL Management tools on SBS 2003 R2 Premium, which they aren’t installed by default.

Using Windows Vista and Outlook 2007 in a Windows Small Business Server 2003 Network

Document from Microsoft :

Brief Description
Use this document to join computers that are running Windows Vista to your Windows Small Business Server 2003 network using the “Update for Windows Small Business Server 2003: Windows Vista and Outlook 2007 compatibility (KB 926505).

Overview
The “Update for Windows Small Business Server 2003: Vista and Outlook 2007 compatibility (KB 926505)” adds support for the Client Deployment tools in Windows Small Business Server (Windows SBS), and it resolves compatibility issues for running Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 in a Windows SBS network. Use this document to join computers running Windows Vista and Outlook 2007 in your Windows SBS network.

An guess what ???? You can only install this update on your SBS 2003 server if you have already install Service Pack 1.

Update for SBS 2003 to support Vista and Outlook 2007

You can now download a fix from Microsoft (KB 926505).

Brief Description

This update adds support for the Windows SBS Client Deployment tools along with other compatibility issues for Windows Vista and Office 2007 in a Windows SBS network. For the full list of updates necessary for Windows Vista and Outlook 2007 compatibility see the Instructions section.

Overview

You can use the Client Deployment tools in Windows SBS to easily connect a client computer to your Windows SBS network. You can also use the tools to configure the correct settings to support solutions that are specific to Windows SBS (like remote access to your office computer).

This update, together with the additional updates and service packs listed later in this section, addresses compatibility issues with Windows Vista and Office 2007 in a Windows SBS network, including the following:

Support for the Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista (including both 32-bit and 64-bit). This update does not apply to Windows Vista Home.
Updated Client Deployment tools, so you can configure the newer versions of components in Windows Vista.
Changes that make a user who is assigned to a computer that is running Windows Vista an administrator in Admin Approval Mode.
Changes to Group Policy to support configuration of the new Windows Firewall in Windows Vista.
Configuration of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 (MAPI profile, not Outlook deployment) for client computers that are running Windows XP or Windows Vista.
A small change to the user experience when joining Windows Vista to the Windows SBS domain using http://server/ConnectComputer to address Internet Explorer 7 in Protected Mode.
Changes to Remote Desktop settings that support Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Changes to the Power Management settings to support Remote Desktop.

Why isn’t this a critical update?

Got wireless? Have you got this “patch” from Microsoft? KB917021 . If you don’t then I’d make sure that you do. You’ll also have to download it MANUALLY, yes manually it is not available from Windows download at all. Why is this “patch” important? Well …

Changes for nonbroadcast networks

In Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Wireless Auto Configuration tries to match preferred wireless networks to wireless networks that broadcast their network name. If no network matches a preferred wireless network, Wireless Auto Configuration sends probe requests to determine whether the preferred networks are nonbroadcast networks. In this manner, a Windows XP wireless client advertises its list of preferred wireless networks. An observer may monitor these probe requests and configure a wireless network by using a name that matches a preferred wireless network. If the wireless network is not secured, this network could enable unauthorized connections to the computer.

Yes, you read right. If you have Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and all the patches and a wireless adapater that you leave on even when it is not connected to a wireless acess point then without this patch Wireless Auto Config sends probe requests to determine whether the network you used to connect to are there. Bottom line Windows XP wireless client tells anyone who wants to listen its list of preferred wireless networks. This ain’t good.

Also while you are in fiddling withyour wireless setting turn off your wireless adapters ability to connect to ad hoc networks. This option is default on Windows XP and may allow someone to connect to your computer via ad hoc wireless if you leave your wireless card turn on.

Safest bet? When you aren’t using wireless on your laptop – turn the adapter off.

Exchange update 931978

Know what we hate about updates like 931978? They basically stop all the Exchange services like the Information Store, SMTP service, WWW publishing service and fail to restart them. Basically, this means you have to reboot the server immediately so the services will restart. You can however, restart all the service manually from the Services MMC but until the server is rebooted the updates won’t take effect. But you gotta remember to this immediately after the update has been installed.

It would be nice at the end of a Microsoft Update if it said something like … we tried to restart these services but couldn’t…. or … the following services are stopped… This way you’d know from the update what wasn’t working rather than from your customer who starts ringing after you have applied the update that Outlook is coming up with all these errors since Exchange server has stopped. Gotta admit we hate that, so come on Microsoft give us techies a little more information about exactly what your updates are doing in the background, especially what services are being stopped and started.

How many times do we have install this *&%@%@^& Genuine Advantage?

Come on Microsoft. We are getting sick of having to Genuine Advantage everytime we want to download something. Surely by now you’d know that we have a legitimate version of Windows XP on our machine.

It is not as though we had to register our copy of Windows XP when we installed it – Wait a moment we did!

It is not like we have installed the latest Genuine Advantage via Windows Update – Wait a minute we did!

It is not like we have never installed Genuine Advantage via a manual download before – Wait a moment we did!

We could go on ….

Geeze Microsoft if you are going to make it such a pain for LEGITIMATE users of your software to keep the stuff up to date then why would you bother?

Please, why the hell can’t we just install Genuine Advantage once and be done with it? We have no issue with it being loaded on our systems and being used to verify our software BUT we think this download and install of Genuine Advantage should only HAPPEN ONCE!