Yeah, me too…. and it is only since Sonicwall updated the firmware to fix this DNS vulnerability.
The problem is, as you know if you are reading this, it means that you cannot play online games in “full” as the video or voice with other Xbox gamers will not work correctly etc. If you read this article from Microsoft, it explains the issue further.
It will not matter, even if you open up the ports detailed in this article, you are still going to get the “Strict NAT” result from the Xbox Live test.
Now the good news…
I have been… well for lack of a better word… “Bitching” at Sonicwall, and in fairness to them they have engineering working on seeing if they can get this fixed, while at the same time not opening up the DNS vulnerability again.
Fingers crossed people!
Nick.
Today I am installing the Unified Messaging role on my SBS2008 Exchange 2007 install. I am going to be implementing the excellent 3CX Phone software on our network for test (more on that later!).
During the installation of the Unified Messaging service I got prompted for the EXCHANGESERVER.MSI file because the SBS2008 installation gets rid of the files it temporarily creates during setup in C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin\CMPNENTS\EXCHSRVR80
Simple, I thought… just point it to the CDDRIVE:\CMPNENTS\Exchange12 directory and we should be good to go… but alas, this is not the case. I ended up with this error:
Installing product E:\CMPNENTS\Exchange12\exchangeserver.msi failed. Fatal error during installation. Error code is 1603. Last error reported by the MSI package is 'An installation package for the product Microsoft Exchange Server cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package 'EXCHANGESERVER.msi’
Very odd.
After some research and general screwing around with things, I copied the Exchange12 directory from the CD to the hard drive, and pointed to that instead…. sure enough, the installation continued on without issue!
You MUST watch this video to see what cool stuff is coming for the Xbox 
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/
Oh YES, of course… just do a good backup first, which is standard practice.
The question keeps on coming up on forums and in my inbox, so I figured I would just post the answer here
If you are in doubt, the official SBS blog team (Microsoft) are saying the same….
Directly from the official SBS Blog:
We are investigating an issue with certain Intel PRO/1000 EB with I/O Acceleration network card drivers on Windows Server 2008 that can cause the BITS service to become unresponsive after a few hours to several days of operation. When that happens, the entire Network Service hosting service (SVCHOST) also goes unresponsive causing the COM+ EventSystem to also become unresponsive. This can cause issues with the following services:
- BITS
- IAS/Network Policy Server
- This can cause VPN and RWW login failures
- VSS
- This can cause backup failures and shadow copy failures
- VSSADMIN /ListWriters will be empty
- RRAS
- WMI
Note: This issue will disappear after a reboot only to return a while (hours to days) later.
The current resolution is as follows:
- Update network card's firmware
- Update network card's drivers
Note: If this NIC is an onboard NIC, you may need to search on your Motherboard Make/Model to find the updated drivers. Use drivers from 2009 or the last half of 2008. Here is a link to some or the more popular motherboards with this adapter.
- Install hotfixes KB959816 and KB961775 (Will be included in SP2 for 2008)
- Disable RSS and Offloading on the network card's advanced features
- Set the following values on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters:
- EnableRSS = 0
- EnableTcpa = 0
- DisableTaskOffload = 1
- Reboot
If for any reason you must disable BITS as a temporary solution, follow KB922330 to prevent WSUS from losing functionality.
Note: The third-party product(s) that are discussed in this post are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.
Strange as the title might sound, it is indeed possible to get into this scenario with a bad installation of the APC Powerchute 7.0.x software on Windows Small Business Server 2008.
We recently deployed the APC Powerchute 7.0.5 software to a Small Business Server 2008 site, and the software functioned for a few days without issue. We still received good server reports, including the backups, until on closer inspection during a spot check things did not quite appear ok. This is the mail received on the 15th May 2009, can you spot the issue?
Yes, there it is…. even though we have a nice GREEN check, the backup has in fact not run since the 4th May 2009! Quite a shocking discovery because the end user was simply looking at the green check and presuming that everything was ok. Frankly, so were we!
This was quite a worrying development so I asked the SBS team to take a look. It turns out that the Powerchute 7.0.5 software had caused a problem with the UPS driver and the server thought that it was on battery power! Because of this, the scheduled tasks did not run, and that included the backup.
I then spoke to APC whom initialy said to me over the phone that it should work, then told me that in fact only version 8.0.1 and above were supported. (Though I cannot understand then why it worked for a few days, but there you go).
The outcome of this will be (if I have my way):
- The SBS Best Practices Analyzer will be updated to spot Powerchute 7.0.5 software installed and recommend removing it as it is not supported by APC on 2008 based servers. It will recommend installing the new, simpler APC Powerchute 8.0.x agent only (web based control).
- We’ll get an updated report on the codeplex site that will trigger alerts if the backup scheduler does not run / the server is on battery power. (As a temporary solution to my next point)
- I hope that the backup report, vital as it is, will be changed as part of a SBS 2008 update rollup to give a yellow or red if the scheduled task did not run.
For what it is worth, and this is directed at the SBS Team management, not the technical folks whom help us and the community out…..
PLEASE can you get those codeplex unofficial report updates in one of the SBS 2008 rollup packages! Then, can you PLEASE get the reports to be as good as the SBS 2003 versions!
Lets hope for a response on the Official SBS Blog
An update from Tom in AVSIM for the community.
There is a temporary forum here that is reporting the status of updates for the rebuild of AVSIM.
Good Luck!
PRESS RELEASE:
AVSIM Hacked – www.avsim.com
Tom Allensworth, CEO and Publisher of AVSIM, today issued the following announcement; “We regret to inform the flight simulation community that on Tuesday, May 12, AVSIM was hacked and effectively destroyed. The method of the hack makes recovery difficult, if not impossible, to recover from. Both servers, that is the library / email and web site / forum servers were attacked. AVSIM is totally offline at this time and we expect to be so for some time to come. We are not able to predict when we will be back online, if we can come back at all. We will post more news as we are able to in the coming days and weeks.
My own comment on this however is how such a large site, which is a business, could not have a good backup and recovery solution in place. It fails comprehension.
Terrible news for the community.
As posted on the official SBS blog, you may have noticed that since installing SBS2008 UR2 that your documents are opening in read only mode.
The solution is documented here
If you search the iTunes store for “iLinX” you will find a product that simply changes the way Netstreams DigiLinX functions in your home. This product simply is the cherry on top of the DigiLinX system and is a must!
Here are some screenshots from the application. Essentially it does pretty much everything you can do at a TouchLinX device, with some exceptions (Like the Door control at this time). Of course that is not to say that won’t come later!
EDIT: More on www.ilinx.info !
Sorry about the overload of images! but it is the only way to get across just HOW good this product is. If I get a chance I will do a video!
Cheers!
Nick
How Microsoft could make such a catastrophic error is beyond me…. but there you have it.
I can simply welcome Steve to msinfluentials.com!
As you can see on the official SBS blog, update rollup 2 for SBS 2008 has been released.
Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2008 Update Rollup 2 is now available on Microsoft Update and WSUS. This rollup package addresses the following issues in Windows Small Business Server 2008.
- Issue 1
- After you configure Windows Small Business Server 2008, you manually change the Favorites and Links setting for Internet Explorer in the default domain group policy by using the Group Policy Management console. When you run the Internet Address Management Wizard, the wizard exits unexpectedly.
- Issue 2
- You may receive the "HTTP ERROR 401.1" error when you visit the following Web site from Windows Small Business Server 2008: http://companyweb
- Issue 3
- In the Add a New User Account Wizard, the order of the Last Name field and the First Name field is reversed. This problem occurs in the following language versions of Windows Small Business Server 2008:
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese (Traditional)
- Japanese
- Korean
- Issue 4
- In the Italian versions of Windows Small Business Server 2008, when you click Connect to a Computer in the Remote Web Workplace, you navigate to an invalid Web page.
- Issue 5
- The Windows SBS Console may stops responding if duplicate entries of Anti-Virus programs were reported in client WMI database.
- Issue 6
- The Windows SBS Console may report "unknown" for some firewall applications that are installed on client computers.
NOTE: This update also includes all updates from Update Rollup #1, and supersedes that update rollup.
…..for the MSDN people out there, you can now go and get Windows 7 (or shortly anyway). I have it already and it’s rock solid. I highly recommend trying this out!
http://blogs.msdn.com/msdnsubscriptions/archive/2009/04/25/windows-7-rc-on-track-for-release-to-subscribers-on-april-30th.aspx
Interested in Windows 7?, this is the site you should be looking at….
www.talkingaboutwindows.com
So, here is an interesting one, that took me to the highest levels of Sonicwall support. I should thank them as well, as Microsoft’s Xbox team blew this off as “not their problem” and refused to troubleshoot with us. Sonicwall however, I kept the pressure on, and they got me to a great guy who worked for nearly a month with me on this issue.
What issue?
Well, essentially, the Xbox would not connect to Sonicpoint wireless access points. It would look like it did, and it said connected on the Xbox screens, but no IP address would ever make it to the Xbox machine. On top of that, the WPA would still know that the wrong or right password was entered on the Xbox, but still no connection to the wireless. It was all very odd!
The solution….
This is a doozy.
Microsoft XBox does not recognise or accept 802.11 management frame if the country code in the information element is set to IE, or in fact some other countries! At the same time, some major countries in the same regulatory domain such as British, Germany or France can still work!
The workaround for the moment is to set the Access Point to another country (in my case the UK).
Anyone from Xbox listening?
Yep…. the Xbox team don’t like the Irish it seems. They need to fix this, and as of yet I have not found someone on the team that will accept a bug report. Maybe this blogpost will bring it to someone's attention ;)
Remember this post?
Well, recently we have had a couple of requests for “localised” examples of its use from potential clients. So we brought in the services of local designer Eoghan Reidy to come up with these for us!
Munster Rugby TLA250
Irish Rugby TLA250
Nice!
Today, after 15 years of giving our companies money to Vodafone and its previous incarnations, we are leaving them for O2 Ireland.
Why?
iPhone.
Simple as that, we are not saving any money by making the move but we are getting a better customer service from our representative and we get all the iPhone features our company needs. I have officially given up on waiting for Microsoft and phone providers to come up with something better. I am putting my bet in the Apple / O2 pot.
I would have stayed with Vodafone if they could have got me iPhones or they reduced their price significantly to our company, but alas… they did neither.
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