05 January 2009
Troubleshooting a Spooler Crash
I ran into an interesting issue this evening where the Spooler service on a customer's print server was crashing constantly immediately after logging an event about unpublishing a specific printer. Since this was a Windows 2000 machine, troubleshooting... Read More...
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28 December 2008
Sage Wisdom
I received this piece of advice this afternoon logging into a box. Haven't seen this in a while… Read More... Read More...
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13 December 2008
Forcing a Blue Screen via iLO – iLO2 Version
Sometimes one of the most useful resources at your disposal when troubleshooting a hang or other issues is the memory dump file Windows will write out during a blue screen. If a system is hung and you are not able to get to it locally, pressing Ctrl+ScrollLock... Read More...
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13 December 2008
NMI Blue Screen
Ever had a blue screen pop up with a message like this? *** Hardware Malfunction Call your hardware vendor for support *** The system has halted *** Windows makes this screen look something like this: There are a couple of other specific errors that can... Read More...
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13 December 2008
Script to Inventory Print Servers
Chatting with a friend this afternoon, I was reminded of a script I have that will collect a bunch of inventory data from print servers and dump it out to a text file you can import into Excel and do whatever you want with. The script goes out to AD and... Read More...
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08 December 2008
More on Enlisting in DNS Application Partitions
Here's another error you might run into if you're setting up a DNS server to use some existing application partitions. I got it because I was being impatient and restarting the service constantly after enlisting in a couple of app partitions.... Read More...
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08 December 2008
Enlisting in DNS Application Partitions
I for the first time this evening had to enroll a DNS server in some custom app partitions at a customer site. I've never actually done this before, though I knew it was a simple dnscmd command. I ran what I felt was the obviously correct command... Read More...
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08 December 2008
WINS Error – Replication with a Nonconfigured Partner
I was trying to setup a WINS replication partnership (one-way) yesterday which was completely not working. When I tried to initiate pull replication from the server on the edge, it would give me no error and clearly not replicate. A network trace showed... Read More...
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02 December 2008
NEW BOOK - Active Directory, 4th Edition
If you’re serious about Active Directory, you should pick up a copy of my new book , Active Directory, 4th Edition . Even if Active Directory is just something you run into from time to time as part of your job, you should still pick up a copy.... Read More...
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19 November 2008
Managing ILO Users & Passwords from the Command Line
To follow up on the previous post I made about ILO scripting, this one runs through how you can change the password or add a user without having the login details to the ILO. I do thi al the time when I get new servers built in the field and while the... Read More...
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19 November 2008
Read/Write ILO Details from the Command Line
If you have access to an HP server running Windows but you don't have access to ILO information (such as IP info), you can export it all to an XML file using a tool HP includes in the Proliant Support Pack. The tool is called hponcfg.exe and it's... Read More...
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16 November 2008
Scripting the Installation of Supplemental Language Support
I've spent a lot of time lately working on automating server builds. One of my TODOs which I finally tackled today was installing support for the Complex Script and East Asian language packs which you normally have to manually check off in the regional... Read More...
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15 November 2008
Updated Attachments and Links
I just went through and fixed all of the posts (mostly scripts I shared) which referred to attachments which weren't there anymore. When I migrated this site to the new software I'm using a couple months ago, the migration tool didn't migrate... Read More...
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15 November 2008
Amazon EC2 on Windows
Amazon announced the ability to run Windows virtual machines on their cloud computing platform, EC2, a few weeks ago. I had the opportunity to play with the technology for a few weeks and I was really impressed all around with the experience. If you're... Read More...
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15 November 2008
Retrieving Machine Serial Numbers from the Command Line
Here's a handy trick I discovered recently when I needed to get a lot of server serial numbers pretty quickly. Normally you have to login to the Dell or HP management website and dig around before you can get the serial number. Sometimes the website... Read More...
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31 August 2008
Zune Error
Apparently the error below from Zune is indicative of some sort of problem with your DRM data. The redirect is to KB 929642 which of course doesn't list the error message, but it was a useful clue. --------------------------- Zune ---------------... Read More...
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25 August 2008
Word Tip - The Draft View Gutter
Since I've been living in Microsoft Word lately, I figured why not take some time for a couple more handy Word tricks. This one is about getting a gutter to show up in Draft view so you can see what styles have been applied to text. If you've... Read More...
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25 August 2008
Word Tip - Outline View and Document Map
Another handy Word tip today is using Outline view to work with big documents. If you've got a sizeable document, chances are your document is also structured hierarchically. By this I mean that you are probably using multiple levels of Heading styles... Read More...
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23 August 2008
Slick Site - GrubHub.com
If you happen to live in Chicago, New York, Boston, or San Francisco, GrubHub.com is definitely a site worth checking out. I'd heard of it but never tried it until last night, and it's great. The site has a very extensive collection of restaurants... Read More...
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05 August 2008
MSDTC Exits on PDCe Transfer
One of my colleagues reported an issue at a customer this past weekend where every time he transferred FSMO roles, MOM would report that the MS DTC (distribution transaction coordinator) service had terminated unexpectedly on all the domain controllers... Read More...
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