Exchange Server 2010 has the ability to limit user and administrative actions. But in testing this feature in a lab I set the default policy (which by default affects everyone, including the Administrator account) to a policy that stopped me undoing the policy again!
I ran Set-ThrottlingPolicy def* -PowerShellMaxConcurrency 1 -PowerShellMaxCmdletsTimePeriod 1000 -PowerShellMaxCmdlets 1 which had the effect of saying I could open one PowerShell session (that is okay - its my lab environment), run a single cmdlet (maybe a bit too low) and to run one cmdlet every 1000 seconds. I had not worked out that 1000 seconds is over 15 minutes.
The problem came two days later, starting Exchange Management Shell and connecting to the remote PowerShell endpoint obviously invokes more than one cmdlet. The second cmdlet is terminated, and so Exchange Management Shell cannot start - ever!
The error message I got was:
The WS-Management service cannot process the request. The user load quota of X requests per Y seconds has been exceeded. Send future requests at a slower rate or raise the quota for this user. The next request from this user will not be approved for at least Z milliseconds.
X is the value of PowerShellMaxCmdlets and Y is the PowerShellMaxCmdletsTimePeriod
So to fix I cracked open ADSIEdit - not to be done lightly, as it runs the risk of destroying the entire Exchange organization and Active Directory.
To fix this and reset the Throttling Policy connect to the Configuration Naming Context in ADSIEdit and navigate to CN=Global Settings,CN=organization name,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=domain. Open CN=Default Throttling Policy_guid and edit msExchPowerShellThrottlingPolicyState to read:
v~0~con~18~cmds~-1~per~-1~que~-1~excmds~-1
Once Active Directory replicates you will be able to run PowerShell cmdlets in Exchange Management Shell. The first cmdlet I would run would be one to ensure that you are back to the default policy just in case you made a mistake in ADSIEdit:
Set-ThrottlingPolicy def* -PowerShellMaxConcurrency 18 -PowerShellMaxCmdletsTimePeriod $null -PowerShellMaxCmdlets $null -PowerShellCmdletQueueDepth $null
permalink posted by Brian Reid : 8:34 PM
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Error -2147024894 appears when you use the WScript.Shell RegRead object to read a registry key that does not exist. But why would you get this error when the key does exist!
Probably because you are running your code inside a HTA and using a 64bit operating system.
The HTA environment is mshta, which is 32 bit. This means that when your code reads registry entries such as HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows via a HTA on a 64bit OS it is really reading HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows. Therefore if you have values or keys at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows and not at HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows then you will get error -2147024894 because the value/key cannot be found.
Run the HTA on a 32bit OS and it work fine. But most confusing is that if you take the code from the HTA script and save it to a .vbs or .js file and run it (on the 64bit OS) via wscript or cscript then the script will find the registry key at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows because in this instance the wscript or cscript environment is 64bit.
Of course this is true for any HKLM\Software registry entry.
permalink posted by Brian Reid : 9:55 AM
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To do a backup of the virtual machines installed on your Hyper-V Server (2008 or 2008 R2 editions) you need to complete the following steps.
- Install the backup feature by typing start /w ocsetup WindowsServerBackup from the command prompt.
- Get a list of the drives on which Hyper-V Server has stored virtual machines. This will be C: unless you have made changes.
- Determine the times you want to run the backup at.
- Determine the drive letter of the removable disk by typing at the command prompt each of the following commands
- diskpart
- list volume
- The disk drive letter will be displayed for the disk that matches the size of your removable disk.
- Type exit to exit diskpart.
- From the command prompt type wbadmin enable backup -addtarget:x: -schedule:hh:mm,h2:m2 -include:y:,z: -systemState -allCritical to backup to drive X: the contents of drives Y: and Z:, the system state and all drives critical to the running of the server.
- Confirm you want to schedule the backup at times HH:MM and H2:M2 (for twice a day). If you want one backup a day use HH:MM and if you want more than two just comma separate a group of times. Enter times as per local timezone. Check the current time on the Hyper-V Server by typing time from the command prompt.
- Start a backup now if you want by typing wbadmin start backup and confirming to use the same settings as the scheduled backup.
- Backup will proceed in the console. If you log out backup will remain running.
- Enter wbadmin enable backup to see the settings you have enabled.
- Type wbadmin get versions to see what backups have completed.
permalink posted by Brian Reid : 8:11 PM
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The recently release Release Candidate (RC) version of Exchange 2010 also has available the Management Packs for System Center Operations Manager. Unfortunately it does not have any documentation available!
To configure System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) to work with the RC version of the management packs you need to enable proxying of the agent, or you will just be left with each Exchange Server listed, but showing “Not Monitoredâ€.
So install your agents to your Exchange Servers and wait until they appear under the Agent Managed node of the Administration view. Right-click the agent and choose Properties. Change to the Security tab and tick the box “Allow this agent to act as a proxy…†and click OK. Finally restart the System Center Management service on the Exchange Server (net stop healthservice | net start healthservice).
Then each Exchange Server will begin to report issues with the installation within 15 minutes.
permalink posted by Brian Reid : 9:06 AM
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Windows XP Mode is a new feature of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate Editions. It allows you to run a copy of Windows XP on the same machine at the same time as Windows 7 to allow you to run software that does not work on Windows 7 Though support for hardware virtualization is needed for the software to run, all business class PC’s with Intel or AMD processors available at Windows 7 launch (except the AMD Sempron) will have this hardware support.
Microsoft recommends that anti-virus software be installed on the Windows XP Mode installation, which is wise advice because this is a standard Windows XP SP3 machine with all its inherent flaws. Tall three bits (antivirus, firewall and browser protection). Installing the firewall component breaks the component that allows the software that is installed on the XP machine to integrate seamlessly with Windows 7.
Your get the following error on starting either the full window version of XP Mode or any of the applications you have installed on XP Mode.
Could not enable integration features.
Ensure that the remote access and Group Policy settings in the virtual machine operating system allow remote connections. Please contact your administrator for more details.
You can continue without these features.
Currently Kaspersky and Symantec anti-virus products are supported in Windows XP Mode. Nothing yet on whether you need two licences though!
permalink posted by Brian Reid : 11:15 AM
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There are numerous instructions on the internet for creating and booting a server with a USB key, but they were all complex or hard to read – even for a techy like myself.
So I thought I would rewrite a simple list of instructions to allow you to create a DOS bootable USB pendrive/key that you can use for any purpose (i.e. flashing BIOS's and other low level functions, as well as booting into other operating systems).
- Download download bootable_usb.zip from www.lowfps.com. This is the website these instructions are based on, but I wanted something clearer than that.
- Extract the download to a temporary location (i.e. C:\Users)
- Run the HP bootable media.exe program and install the software.
- Insert the USB key you want to use – it will get wiped during this process to backup its contents if needed.
- Run the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool from the desktop or Start Menu. If you are using Vista or later then you will need to run the program in elevated mode (right-click program and choose Run as administrator).
- Select your USB key and choose to do format the key with the FAT or FAT32 file system. Choose Quick Format and select Create DOS Startup Disk. Pick the sub-option "Using DOS files located at" and select the same "DOS Files" subfolder in the location where you extracted the download too (C:\Users in my above example).
- Click OK. The USB key will be wiped during this process and a copy of the core files for Microsoft Millennium DOS will copied to the key.
- When complete copy to the key any files that you need to execute in DOS mode on the PC (for example I needed to update the BIOS on a x64 Windows Server 2008 Server Core installation running on a Dell Optiplex 755 and it said this was not allowed). The files you copy to the key must work in DOS though.
- Shutdown the server and insert the USB key. You must do a hard reboot, a restart will not work.
- Restart the server and press F12 to bring up the one-time boot menu (if you do not have this option then go into setup [Del or F2] and ensure USB booting is enabled and set to the primary option).
- In the boot menu choose the USB key option.
- From the C:\ prompt run the programs you need to start. Note that this is old style DOS and not the Command Prompt in later versions of Windows – so no command completion using the TAB key. So place the files in or near the root folder.
permalink posted by Brian Reid : 3:40 PM
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I recently had a case where Windows Backup would fail at approx. 75% complete during a full backup. The backup utility and command line both reported that "The system cannot find the file specified". The Event Viewer/Application... Services/ Microsoft/ Windows/ Backup/ Operational reads "Backup target is running low on free space. Future backups to this target may fail for want of enough space." and then at the same time and immediately after that we get "Backup started at 'TimeZ' failed with following error code '2147942402'" which means file not found or unknown error.
After a series of email communications with the Windows Backup team at Microsoft India (where, incidentally, the program was developed) the answer came back that I should run chkdsk /r and reboot the server. As this process can take hours this occurred out of hours and actually in my case needed to be repeated twice. A normal chkdsk command, run whilst the server was online, reported that the disk had errors and could not continue.
After running chkdsk /r twice, from an elevated command prompt, the backup started to work again.
permalink posted by Brian Reid : 3:01 PM
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