Archive for the 'General Info' Category
August 3rd, 2009 by Michael
We have several (15 or so) Hyper-V hosts running a number (126 or so) guests. We use DPM to backup our servers, but only a few of our VMs are backed up at the host level. Most are backed up as regular clients. I have been having trouble with a couple of the ones that we do backup at the host level and just got to looking for the answer to what is going on. Lucky for me I waited long enough for the Core Team to come up with some suggestions:
Ask the Core Team : DPM 2007 – Troubleshooting protection for Hyper-V
This post is about Windows Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role installed, that are being protected by System Center Data Protection Manager 2007. There may be one or many Virtual Machines on each Host/Parent Partition, and they may be running Windows 2003 and/or Windows 2008.
Ask the Core Team : DPM 2007 – Troubleshooting protection for Hyper-V
May 7th, 2009 by Michael
Recently I attended the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas. One of the big pushes that is on the minds of everyone these days, is the Cloud Computing concept. As a Systems Engineer, the thought is that I should be afraid of this push, because it moves the processing out of the datacenter and into a hosted environment. During the conference this was addressed in part by saying, you can have it both ways… You can have the Cloud available in a “Capacity on Demand” kind of way, but also use the same technologies to manage your Private Cloud.
I came accross an interesting article that addresses some of this concern with the suggestion that IT needs to learn how to build and manage the Private Cloud:
One of the biggest strategic challenges facing IT organizations today is remaining competitive in a world full of cloud services that essentially outsource the IT function.
How to Build Private Clouds – IT Management
April 16th, 2009 by Michael
If you see this:
‘VMName’ failed to initialize.
Could not initialize machine remoting system. Error: ‘Unspecified error’ (0×80004005).
Could not find a usable certificate. Error: ‘Unspecified error’ (0×80004005).
Then this could be your answer:
Symptoms and resolution:
§ You may be unable to start or connect to virtual machines running on Windows Server 2008 or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008. This occurs when connecting using vmconnect. Connections made using remote desktop won’t be affected.
§ KB Article 967902 has been created that details the symptoms and resolution. This KB article provides a direct link to download the quickfix to resolve this error.
Important Notes:
§ Though this error may occur, the Hyper-V service will continue to operate. Neither the Hyper-V host nor the running virtual machines will go offline.
§ It is not expected that this issue can be exploited for malicious purposes.
§ Customers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V beta won’t experience this error.
That last line it my favorite…
I guess we should be running the beta in production… and what’s with the ‘Unspecified error’?
Windows Server Division WebLog : Hyper-V certificate expiration and resolution
April 4th, 2009 by Michael
I use Windows Live Writer to create most of the posts for my Blog(s). I recently updated to the latest version and I do think it is a good product, and seems to work very well with my WordPress blogs. (I contribute to 3, but this is the main one.)
I have occasionally had trouble getting Writer to open. I will click on the shortcut, the splash screen comes up and then I get an error. Then it is gone. I finally got around to digging into the cause and did a search and found this post from one of the Microsoft guys that builds this tool:
http://jcheng.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/windows-live-writer-2009-wont-start/
We’re getting ready to ship an update that fixes the problem, but in the meantime, there is a straightforward workaround to get Writer running again:
- Start | Run
- On Vista, enter this command:
%AppData%\Windows Live Writer\Keywords
On XP, enter this command:
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Windows Live Writer\Keywords
- You should see a bunch of files whose names begin with “keyword” and end with lots of letters and numbers. Delete all of these files.
That should fix it.
The problem, as you may have guessed, is that one of these files is getting corrupted. This is due to a race condition in our code where the settings file can be closed while it’s still in the middle of being written. Our update will both fix the race condition, and also deal more gracefully with corrupted settings files (by ignoring them).
Well, that didn’t fix it for me. In that post, Joe has updated to say that version 14.0.8064.206 includes the fix for this problem. That happens to be the version I am running. 
So back to searching…
I was digging around trying to figure out if I had just missed something, but instead I found a log file. In my case the log is in the \AppData\Local\Windows Live Writer\ directory and it is named, funny enough, “Windows Live Writer.log”. I looked in the log and found lots of stuff, but the part that stuck out was:
The network location cannot be reached.
That got me to thinking and after doing some testing, I went back to Joe’s blog entry and left this comment:
Joe,
Another potential cause of the for the problem, Splash screen and then error and then nothing, could be My Documents redirection.
The company I work for as a policy doesn’t back up user machines, but we do redirect the My Documents to a network share. Most of our users have their My Documents set to be available offline. I don’t.
When I tried the steps that you recommended, it didn’t fix the problem, but then I remembered that I have had this problem before, and that it seemed to work fine when I was in the office.
I have two work arounds for this:
1. Open Windows Live Writer while still at the office and don’t close it. Hybernate the machine until I get home and use as normal.
2. Use Run As to run it as a local account so that it doesn’t fall victim to my My Documents being unavailable.
This is a good reason (among others) that it would be nice to have the option to change the default location for post data to be saved.
So, there you have it. Another reason to NOT use My Documents redirection… “Let me tell ya about My Documents redirection…”
April 4th, 2009 by Michael
I was roaming around looking for an answer to a question (didn’t find the answer, and I don’t remember the question), when I happened upon a site that had a Cluster Map, like the one I use, and also something called a worldmap.
See where your website visitors are from with WorldMaps. WorldMaps (currently in Beta) is an IP address to geographic mapping service designed to give website owners the ability to visually see where their visitors are coming from (red dots represent the top 5%, i.e., the most active visitors). These images can be displayed publically on the home page, or on a private page for administrators.
It looks to be a very similar idea to cluster maps, but this one has a bit of variety in the way it marks the map, and you get a few more options on how to display it.
http://www.structuretoobig.com/development/worldmaps.aspx
April 2nd, 2009 by Michael
The best way to uninstall any program from Server Core, is to go into the registry to HKLM\software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall . In there, you will see GUID for the various programs that are installed. If you select the GUID and look at the right had side you will see some good information:
One of the REG_EXPAND_SZ values on the right is the UninstallString. If you copy that value and paste it into the command line, it will politely ask: Are you sure you want to uninstall this product? If you are sure you want to uninstall it, go ahead and hit Ok.
If you want to get rid of both pieces of Forefront ( the Security State Assessment Service, and the Client Security Antimalware Service) you will need to find both registry keys and run both uninstalls. There is a catch though… the Client Security Antimalware Service has a value that looks like this: MsiExec.exe /I{436028CD-6476-4224-9274-8F0320F30FD1}. To get it to uninstall, you need to change the /I to /X like this MsiExec.exe /X{436028CD-6476-4224-9274-8F0320F30FD1}.
March 26th, 2009 by Michael
After following a link to a story about Google’s abilities to “route around outages” that Patrick had on his Blog, I saw a link to another story about Google’s Data Center practices. Apparently you don’t have to keep the Data Center frigid these days…
Most data centers operate in a temperature range between 68 and 72 degrees, and some are as cold as 55 degrees. Raising the baseline temperature inside the data center – known as a set point – can save money spent on air conditioning. Data center managers can save 4 percent in energy costs for every degree of upward change in the set point, according to Mark Monroe of Sun Microsystems, who discussed data center set points at a conference last year. But nudging the thermostat higher may also leave less time to recover from a cooling failure, and is only appropriate for companies with a strong understanding of the cooling conditions in their facility
Google: Raise Your Data Center Temperature « Data Center Knowledge
March 19th, 2009 by Michael
This came up in conversation with a friend of mine, and so I searched and found this answer. Maybe instead of purchasing physical disks, we just need to get everyone to practice using their brain to remember things… on second thought, we can’t get them to practice using their brains for much of anything so… never mind.
What is the memory capacity in GB of human brain?
Something like 2 Terabytes and you are still going to be very far from the truth. I don’t think that it is possible (yet) to evaluate the capacity of the human brain. The fact is that a person can remember hundreds of movies, songs, books, events from the past, pictures, faces, names, phone numbers, etc., that if all those memories had to be put on a hard drive, terabytes upon terabytes wouldn’t be enough.
A quote from some researchers.
“The human brain contains about 50 billion to 200 billion neurons
(nobody knows how many for sure), each of which interfaces with 1,000
to 100,000 other neurons through 100 trillion (10 14) to 10
quadrillion (10 16) synaptic junctions. Each synapse possesses a
variable firing threshold which is reduced as the neuron is repeatedly
activated. If we assume that the firing threshold at each synapse can
assume 256 distinguishable levels, and if we suppose that there are
20,000 shared synapses per neuron (10,000 per neuron), then the total
information storage capacity of the synapses in the cortex would be of
the order of 500 to 1,000 terabytes. (Of course, if the brain’s
storage of information takes place at a molecular level, then I would
be afraid to hazard a guess regarding how many bytes can be stored in
the brain. One estimate has placed it at about 3.6 X 10 19 bytes.)”
WikiAnswers – What is the memory capacity in GB of human brain
March 12th, 2009 by Michael
Like a lot of impatient people, I do buy things from Best Buy. I also happen to get e-mails from them from time to time. I don’t usually read them, but sometimes there is something that catches my eye.
Recycle Your Old Electronics
Did you know you can recycle electronics at your local Best Buy® store
? Bring in your old TVs, computers, DVD players and more and we’ll recycle them for you. There is a $10 recycling fee for each TV, CRT, monitor or laptop you bring in, but we’ll give you a $10 Best Buy Gift Card to offset the cost.
March 5th, 2009 by Michael
So, after my adventures in moving my Blog to WordPress… I was thinking I would try to write up "detailed" instructions on what I did to get it up and going, but then I remembered… I am lazy.
I still need to move my other websites over to my new server. The sad thing is, I need to really clean all that junk up. I am hoping I can get a few pieces put in and then turn it over to my wife to do all the real work.
I still need to get a photo gallery setup, and maybe set my wife up with a blog so she can talk about what is going on with our family. That does seem to be the most common way of communicating with family these days…
But first… I have to pick a theme I like…
