Saturday, October 31st, 2009
Like most good security conscious people I’ve applied all the relevant security patches to my network as they are released. I’ve therefore left non critical patches to weekends when I can apply them at my leisure in case something went wrong. Today one of the patches I was applying was the WSUS 3.0 SP2 patch. I instigated the installation of this patch right after a reboot so I know all was good with the server, but after around 20 minutes the patch announced it had failed. It instructed me to grab a copy of the log files relevant to the installation which I did. It also told me that it had done a backup of my WSUS database located in F:\WSUS\{BC844490-1AB9-4C55-B6B6-F3FB3B755B98} (that last part is some random GUID it generates).
Ok – two choices – my entire server from back or try out the MS repair guides. I decided to follow the MS repair guide for SBS 2008 and in particular the link for repairing WSUS installation.
I followed the steps given in the article and used the repair DVD (DVD#2) to reinstall WSUS. I issued the command to start the WSUS installation and it quickly returned to the command line and then NOTHING happened on screen for a period of time. I was beginning to suspect the command had failed until I looked at task manager and was able to see MSIEXEC was busy doing something. I figure that it was just taking its time and left it be for now. The only way you know the install is complete is if you watch for the MSIEXEC to disappear from the task list. Once it had installed I deviated from the
In my original installation I had used the SBS wizards to relocate the WSUS from the C: drive to my F: drive. I ran the wizard to do this again and it moved over nicely.
Given I had a backup copy of the database I figured I’d try to restore it over the top of the existing database. To do that I had to stop a few services first.
Stop the Update Services service.
Stop World Wide Web Publishing Service
I ran the SQL Server Management Studio Express (SQL SMSE) tool from the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 program group as ADMINISTRATOR and told it to connect to \\.\pipe\MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE\sql\query using Windows Authentication.
I then right clicked on the SUSDB inside the SQL SMSE and selected Tasks, then Restore Database, then from file. I then selected to restore from File and located the SUSDB.bak file. I then went to Options tab and selected “Overwrite the existing database” and then press Ok to start the restore. It took 10 minutes to do the restore on my server but this might be as it’s an older server.
Once restored, I then started the Update Service and the World Wide Web Publishing Service once more.
I went into the WSUS console and found everything back the way it was before the upgrade. I checked the SBS 2008 console and found it too was working once more with the Updates section correctly reporting everything I needed.
Now – I’ve not attempted the upgrade to WSUS 3.0 SP2 again just yet – I’ll leave that for the moment and review the logs to see what might have caused it to fail.
Tags: Installation Failure, SBS 2008, WSUS
Posted in Blog | 4 Comments »
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
TechEd Australia 2006 – Exchange 2003 – Henry Craven
In 2006, at TechEd Australia, the SBS MVPs got the opportunity to present a day full of SBS session. This session is about SBS 2003 R2 and in particular the Exchange component of the server. Henry delves deep inside Exchange and gives practical tips on how you can avoid problems. Learn from the man who has done many Exchange recoveries in the past and don’t make the same mistakes that others have.
Duration: 1 hour
Tags: Exchange Server, SBS, TechEd 2006 Australia
Posted in FAQcast | No Comments »
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Apparently Microsoft are trying some cool things to promote Windows 7. Here you’ll find some cool videos that a group of different people made that have 3 things in common…
1. CIO Wiggins
2. Windows 7
3. “The IT guys are going to like this”
Check it out it’s a load of fun. http://www.youtube.com/user/Win7FilmFest
Tags: Windows 7
Posted in Blog | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 30th, 2009
TechEd Australia 2006 – Mobility – Dean Calvert
In 2006, at TechEd Australia, the SBS MVPs got the opportunity to present a day full of SBS session. This session is about SBS 2003 R2 and the mobility options that exist for it to enhance our customers’ remote working capabilities. Dean talks about how you can provide improved solutions to your clients using real world scenarios and experience.
Duration: 1 hour
Tags: Mobility, SBS, TechEd 2006 Australia
Posted in FAQcast | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
TechEd Australia 2006 – Sharepoint – Dean Calvert and Stuart Applegate
In 2006, at TechEd Australia, the SBS MVPs got the opportunity to present a day full of SBS session. This session is about SharePoint and all the great things you can do with it out of the box and beyond. Dean talks from both a business and technical angle as to how you can do better with your WSS installations for your customers.
Duration: 1 hour
Tags: SharePoint, TechEd 2006 Australia
Posted in FAQcast | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Today, Computer Reseller News Australia www.crn.com.au rang an article that I wrote last week. It was on the price disparity that Microsoft have had for some time on their products in AUD vs USD. This was a hard thing for me to write as I am normally very pro Microsoft which many of you know. I’m keen to ensure that we send a real message to Microsoft here so that they can make a real change to make it better for us. Check out the article here and please leave a comment on the CRN site so that Microsoft and others can see what this issue really is.
Tags: Business Focus, Windows 7
Posted in Blog | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
TechEd 2006 Australia – Disaster Recovery – Wayne Small
In 2006, at TechEd Australia, the SBS MVPs got the opportunity to present a day full of SBS session. This session is about disaster recovery of the SBS 2003 network environment and draws heavily on a slide deck created by Jeff Middleton. You can find out more about SBS Migration from www.sbsmigration.com
Duration: 1 hour
Tags: Disaster Recovery, SBS 2003, TechEd 2006 Australia
Posted in FAQcast | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Tech Ed 2006 Australia – SBS 2003 R2 – Wayne Small
In 2006, at TechEd Australia, the SBS MVPs got the opportunity to present a day full of SBS session. This session is about SBS 2003 R2 and it’s patch management strategy that allows it to automatically look after the servers and workstations in the SBS network with minimal administrator intervention.
Duration: 1 hour
Tags: Patch Management, SBS 2003 R2, TechEd 2006 Australia, WSUS
Posted in FAQcast | No Comments »
Monday, October 26th, 2009
Reviewed by Ben Love from Grassroots IT
I should know better. I know I should. Or more accurately, I should at least pretend that I know that I should know better. Or something like that. I’m an IT Pro with a dirty little secret. Wanna hear? I’m a sucker for a Dummies Guide. There. I’ve said it. Please don’t judge me. I know I should like mucking around in spec guides, deep dive how-to’s and RFC’s, but seriously, have you ever tried to read that stuff?
What I want is something that will cut to the chase, tell you 90% of what you probably want to know, use simple language and point you to where you can find more if you need more details. True to form, the latest release by Dummie’s author Lisa Sabin-Wilson doesn’t fail to deliver.
It was fortuitous that “WordPress for Dummies” arrived courtesy of Wayne Small (www.sbsfaq.com) when it did. I’d been considering a refresh of our corporate website for a while, but wasn’t overly excited about having to work with the existing platform. After talking with Wayne about his new WordPress based site, I thought some further investigation was warranted.
The WordPress platform came to life in 2003 as the successor to a personal publishing system called b2/cafelog. Since then it has grown to become arguably the most popular self-hosted blogging tool in the world which, as I was to learn, is also a formidable CMS platform for less ‘bloggy’ sites. Sabin-Wilson’s publication guides the reader through an easy introduction to WordPress, including options to either self-host, or use the hosted wordpress.com offering. Beyond this the majority of the book is devoted to how-to-use topics on the various sections of the WordPress product. Sections such as “Inserting media files into your post” and “Making your post links pretty” provide an easy to read introduction to help get beginners up and blogging in no time.
One of the great features of the WordPress platform is the flexibility provided by the truly astounding range of often free Themes, plugins and other customisation options available. Sabin-Wilson provides a brief introduction to the range of options available, and then sets the reader loose to explore with a list of recommended sites for further reading. In my case even more tantalising was the chapter on “WordPress as a Content Management System”, or in other words, WordPress as a less-bloggy-than-usual site. Worthy of a book on its own, this topic is given 27 pages that barely scratch the surface. What it does provide however is a true Dummies Guide experience, giving you just enough of a firm but gentle push to get you moving in the right direction.
All in all, a classic Dummies Guide. The language is conversational and easy to read, the technical details sufficient, but ultimately leaving you wanting more. In my opinion, the perfect introduction to a new technology.
Tags: New Web Site, WordPress
Posted in Reviews | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
We are starting to see the adverts in the papers now for upgrades to Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate. The Aussie price for the Win7 Pro Upgrade is $400 AUD and $430 AUD for the Ultimate upgrade. Ok – so let’s take a moment and look at the US pricing and we find that the US price for these products is $200 USD and $220 USD respectively. Hang on… isn’t the Aussie dollar doing really well now? Isn’t Australia the worlds first major economy to pull out of the recessions – in fact technically Australia did not enter the recession but thats a whole other story.
How then can Microsoft Australia hope to justify the massive price difference between the US and AU versions?
It saddens me to write this you know, because I know the individuals in the MS AU team are trying to do their best, but as I understand it, it’s the corporate rules that govern the pricing. Maybe if MS AU get enough feedback on this they will do something more about it. Why don’t we all just purchase it from Amazon.com and totally avoid this mess then. Maybe that will help Microsoft understand how wrong they are in their pricing policies. Vote with your feet people…it’s the only thing that MS hear.
So – yes – you can have Windows 7 real soon at a nice price… nice for Microsoft for sure, but not nice for the clients that wish to get up to it on their current hardware… Microsoft take a good long hard look at yourselves here… please… before it’s too late. I was hoping that the Windows 7 release would be the thing to really help spur on the IT recovery here in AU, but with things like this it makes me wonder if it will help or hinder…
What are your thoughts on this – do you see this as a kick in the guts for us Aussie resellers?
Tags: Windows 7
Posted in Blog | 3 Comments »