Blog.BenLuckman.com Random place for blogging stuff I learn and teaching others

22Aug/110

Unable to add new domain to Default Email Address Policy in Exchange 2010

Sometimes I think Microsoft purposefully break the EMC GUI in Exchange 2010 to push people to use the command line console.

Doing something as simple as adding your domain to the default email policy - which will automatically create the smtp email address whenever a new mailbox is created - ends is an error.

(Organisation Configuration > Hub Transport > Email Address Policies > Default Policy)

Summary: 2 item(s). 0 succeeded, 1 failed.
Elapsed time: 00:00:00

Edit Default Policy
Failed

Error:
The operation can't be performed on the default e-mail address policy.

Exchange Management Shell command attempted:
set-EmailAddressPolicy -ConditionalDepartment @() -ConditionalCompany @() -ConditionalStateOrProvince @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute1 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute2 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute3 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute4 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute5 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute6 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute7 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute8 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute9 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute10 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute11 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute12 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute13 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute14 @() -ConditionalCustomAttribute15 @() -RecipientContainer $null -EnabledEmailAddressTemplates 'smtp:@domain.local','SMTP:@mydomain.co.uk' -Identity 'Default Policy'

Elapsed Time: 00:00:00

Apply Default Policy
Cancelled

Not that I know why it actually fails, but I do know how to get it to work. Instead of using the EMC GUI use the command line Exchange Management Shell and the following command with updating with your domain details.

Set-EmailAddressPolicy -Identity "Default Policy" -EnabledEmailAddressTemplates SMTP:@mydomain.com,smtp:@domain.local

Note that the upper-case "SMTP" dictates which address is used as the default reply to address.

Also it may not apply straight away - so to push it out to all mailboxes, you can go back to the EMC GUI > Organisation Configuration > Hub Transport > Email Address Policies > Default Policy, Right click on the Policy and choose Apply...

18Aug/110

Windows 2008 Group Policy – Adding a shared printer crashes the GPM MMC

Here's a blog post I found on how to stop the MMC from crashing (stoopid Microsoft!)

http://www.safeguardict.com/blog/?p=66

28Jul/110

Keep on disconnecting the user session when using Remote Desktop Remote Control

After installing a new 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Server we found that when we used the Remote Desktop session manager to remote control user's sessions, when we disconnected the session using the breakout keys, it would also disconnect the user's session. This obvously didn't look good from a support perspective.

Here's a quick fix of how to avoid it:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverTS/thread/87fc497a-27fd-4a76-ab59-ea5fe01c9091

Naturally we now deploy this to all of our clients with Remote Desktop servers.

28Jul/110

Remove Administrative Tools from your Remote Desktop/Terminal Server using Group Policy

Bugged me for ages: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverGP/thread/4a129b22-84c5-4bc6-8fb5-f2291f227cc0/

28Jul/110

New Windows 2008 Server won’t respond to PINGs

If you've built a new 2008 server, or have an existing one, that you are simply PINGing but it strangely won't respond, you may find that it's one of the default Windows Firewall rules getting in the way of things.

All you need to do is enable the rule:

  1. Start Menu
  2. Control Panel > Administration Tools
  3. Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
  4. Inbound Rules
  5. File and Printer Sharing (Echo Request - ICMPv4-In) (v6 too if you are in the future!)
  6. Right-click and choose Enable Rule
  7. Et voila!
25Jul/110

Windows 2008 Terminal Server + Office 2003 + Office 2007 Compatibility Pack

Now this one has bugged me for quite a while so I'm pretty chuffed that I've managed to fix it.

I had created a new Windows 2008 R2 (x64) Remote Desktop Host (a.k.a. Terminal Server) for one of our clients who still using Office 2003. Naturally they are receiving documents on 2007/2010 format with the xlsx format.

It all sounds simple. Just install the OS, the Apps and the compatibility pack. Not so - you won't be able to open .xlsx files or save files to .xlsx format.

The secret is that you need to set both the Excel Shortcut and C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\excelcnv.exe to run in compatibility mode to run for XP SP3.

Since it's a Terminal Server remember to "Change the settings for all users"

 

23Jun/110

SQL Truncate Logs T-SQL Script

A great little script to include in your SQL maintenance plan to be sure that the transaction logs truncate and don't suck up all of your disk space.

USE [Master]

DECLARE @Database nvarchar(150)

DECLARE @SQLQuery nvarchar(4000)

DECLARE dbCursor CURSOR

FOR

SELECT Name FROM sys.databases

OPEN dbCursor

FETCH NEXT FROM dbCursor INTO @Database

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

SET @SQLQuery = 'BACKUP LOG ' + @Database + ' WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY

DBCC SHRINKDATABASE(' + @Database + ', TRUNCATEONLY)'

EXEC (@SQLQuery)

FETCH NEXT FROM dbCursor INTO @Database

END

Written by Kev Ritchie

Filed under: SQL Server No Comments
9Mar/110

Migrate DHCP from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008 Server = Simples

As part of a server migration to replace a lone 2003 DC with a new 2008 DC, one of the roles/services that had to be moved was the DHCP. Here's how to make life simple and hopefully error free.

Exporting the existing scopes

On Windows 2003 Server

c:\>netsh dhcp server export c:\dhcp_2003 [scope]

Where [scope] is the scope address that you want to migrate. E.g. 192.168.0.0

You do have the option of using "all" instead of the scope option, but I found this wouldn't work without error.

Now copy the exported file to the C: of the new server.

 

Importing the scope

On 2008 server

c:\> netsh dhcp server import c:\dhcp_2003 all

Now check your DHCP console and you'll find it's there.

Note - if you are decommissioning the old 2003 server, remember to update the server option for the DNS server and anything else that you may have.

Done! :)

7Mar/110

Milton Keynes FTTP (Fibre-to-the-premises) // I’m one of the lucky ones

At the back end of last year I was one of the lucky people who bought a house in the right place to be eligible for the BT FTTP trial. Basically this means that my Broadband now gets to my house by fibre optic cable which is much much much faster than the existing copper (or aluminium) cabling that most towns are wired with.

I just found this article today which goes into pretty good detail about the trial - I found out most of this speaking to the engineer to who came and installed the fibre (it comes straight into my living room!):

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/03/bt_milton_keynes_fibre_to_the_premises_trial/

FYI: The best speeds I've measure for upload/download are around 40Mbps up, 30Mbps down. In real terms, and through use, this means that I'm downloading large files at around 3.5MB/second which is equal, if not, better than the transfer rate to a memory stick plugging directly into my laptop!

These days I see anything running slowly on the web is down to the internet being a bottleneck - it's no longer my broadband!