Re-register VSS Writers

On occasion, we see VSS throw errors when a snapshots are taken. In some instances, a reboot corrects the issue. You can check the status as follows:

From an admin command prompt, enter

vssadmin list writers

If there are any errors, try re-registering the associated DLLs as follows:

net stop "System Event Notification"
net stop "COM+ Event System"
net stop "Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider "
net stop "Volume Shadow Copy"
cd /d %windir%\system32
net stop vss
net stop swprv
regsvr32 /s ole32.dll
regsvr32 /s oleaut32.dll
regsvr32 /s Vss_ps.dll
vssvc /register
regsvr32 /s /i swprv.dll
regsvr32 /s /i eventcls.dll
regsvr32 /s es.dll
regsvr32 /s stdprov.dll
regsvr32 /s vssui.dll
regsvr32 /s msxml.dll
regsvr32 /s msxml3.dll
regsvr32 /s msxml4.dll
net start "COM+ Event System"

Restart the server for the changes to take effect.

SQL 2005 SP3 install error x80070643

A client needed SP3 installed for their line of business app. For some reason, the service pack failed and would not install. We found the solution in Microsoft’s forums as follows:

• Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\Setup
• Locate the "Resume" REG_DWORD and change the decimal value from 1 to 0
• Reboot

This permitted the service pack to install properly.

Increasing Rule Limits in Exchange

If you’re a heavy user of rules in Outlook, you may have hit Exchange 2003’s 32K quota limit. In Exchange 2007, the quota was increased to 64K as a default but can be changed to 256K.

To do this, open the Exchange Management Shell. To increase the quota for all users, enter the following:

get-mailbox | set-mailbox –rulesquota 256kb

To verify the setting for a mailbox, enter the following:

get-mailbox al | fl rulesquota

The response should indicate the quota for the user.

Thanks to Simon Page.

Using Machine Names With Windows’ VPN – Revisited

Back in March, we posted about how machine names do not work over a Windows SBS 2008 VPN.

Evidently, we were not alone. This post from Nicholas Piasecki’s blog describes a work around:

Click Start > Administrative Tools > Routing and Remote Access.

In the tree view, drill down past the server name to IPV4 > General. Right-click the General option and choose “New Routing Protocol” and choose DHCP Relay Agent.

Now right-click the newly appended “DHCP Relay Agent” node and choose Properties. Add the IP address of your DHCP server (which is probably your SBS server itself), and click OK. Then click it again and choose “New Interface” and add the “Internal” interface.

Now if you connect through VPN, an ipconfig /all should show your domain name as a “Connection-specific DNS suffix” and pinging machines by their suffix-less computer names should work. (If it doesn’t, make sure your DHCP server is using that 015 DNS Domain Name option, which the SBS 2008 wizards set up by default.)

Thanks, Nicholas!

Windows Virtual PC and XP Mode RTM’ed

For those of you with TechNet and MSDN subscriptions, you can begin working with the RTM (release to manufacturing) versions of the new Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode products.

A few weeks ago, we posted about these companion products for Windows 7; they provide an excellent way for businesses to maintain Windows XP compatibility when moving up to a new PC with Windows 7.

While we found no issues with older software, we ran into a few hardware driver issues with the prerelease version of XP Mode. We’re looking forward to testing this latest version and we’ll report back with our results.

Cleaning Up Old IIS Log Files

Older SBS servers with separate system partitions tend to run low on space when they’re not maintained regularly. A quick cleanup is to delete old IIS log files.

Here’s a great script for keeping things tidy.

Windows 7 Libraries

When you open up Windows Explorer in Windows 7, you’ll notice the new “libraries” groups. Libraries are another way to group your data together and it can be much more useful than a drive letter or a Favorite. It’s a “super-folder” that shows you several folders at once.

Windows 7 ships with several libraries predefined for documents, music, pictures and videos. These are great to give you an idea how they are used.

Although each library is a collection of folders, it can be used in  file operations such as save and open file dialog boxes. The library has a default “save location” that’s referenced when saving a file to library location. The save location is defined in the library properties.

At this point, network drives can only be included if the folder is available offline or indexed using Windows Search 4 or later. There are, however, workarounds others have published that describe how to get around this.