I recently noticed that out domain time was drifting about 5 seconds a week, not a big deal for a while but if it gets too out of sync we would start having Kerberos issues, so better fix it now before we start seeing problems. Here’s what i did to get our domain back on the proper time (and keep it that way)

First off go to your DCHP serve, open DHCP, select ipv4, right click “Server Options”,Check 004 Time Servers and type the IP address for the server you want to be the time server (strongly recommend you use your Primary Domain Controller)

Now open up your PDC, and run “CMD” as an administrator and type the following commans:

w32tm /config /manualpeerlist:”0.pool.ntp.org 1.pool.ntp.org 2.pool.ntp.org”,0×4 /syncfromflags:MANUAL

net stop w32time
net start w32time

w32tm /resync /rediscover

That will set round robin time checks with 0.pool.ntp.org,1.pool.ntp.org,and 2.pool.ntp.org. the second set will restart the time service, and the third forces a sync. you should be all set and as your computers renew their dhcp leases they will start getting their time from your time server! if you need to force a computer to update its time you can use the “w32tm /resync /rediscover” command.

If you want to use a different time server just replace the *.pool.ntp.org with one of these servers

Enjoy!!

If your exchange 2010 server is stuck on Applying Computer Settings during boot up it could be any number of things! First off make sure that noone recently disabled IPv6, that can screw up alot of things. if that has recently happened boot into safemode with networking, and re-enable IPv6. Another cause could be if someone has brought up another exchange server on your domain. You really hafto get the configuration perfect on the new exchange server before rebooting the original. otherwise the original willnot boot properly. if this may be the cause just shut down the new server and reboot the original. once it safely boots up you can bring the new one back up aswell.

Another possible issue is that your server was never placed in the proper groups. Check to make sure your exchange server is a member of the following:

Domain Computers, Exchange Domain Servers, Exchange Enterprise Servers, Exchange Servers

It may be different if your on a forest, but this is what solved the problem for me! If you have anything to add or need any help please comment!

Ive run across this issue several times, and with several installs. the story always goes like this, Cannot install X software because the system is waiting to reboot. and obviously a reboot doesn’t clear it or i wouldn’t be posting about it. The software that prompted me to post this was SQL server 2008.
Heres how to fix the error. we need to open up Regedit by clicking start (then run) and typing “regedit” and hitting enter. Now navigate to the following key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager
\PendingFileRenameOperations

There will probably be several files listed in there, just edit the key and delete them all. Then restart the installation of whatever software it was, and it should get past that step!

Ive been playing with converting some of our physical servers into virtual machines lately using the System Center Virtual Machine Manager. its actually surprisingly easy! but occasionally on some of our web servers i would get the following errors:

Error (3154)
An internal error has occurred trying to contact an agent on the server.
(Internal error code: 0x8099319E)
Recommended Action
Ensure the agent is installed and running. Ensure the WMI service is installed and running, then restart the agent.

and

Error (2910)
VMM does not have appropriate permissions to access the resource on the server.
(Access is denied (0×80070005)
Recommended Action
Ensure that Virtual Machine Manager has the appropriate rights to perform this action.

It turned out this was due (for the most part) to port 443 being used by apache and other programs, If anything is listening on 443 it will throw a wrench into the P-V process. so you can try killing apache and all, and sometimes that works. i killed everything listening on port 443 then ran a “NETSTAT -ANB” to see if anything else was listening, came up that nothing was. so i ran it again and it failed. If your experiencing anything similar here is the solution:

1. Open Regedit.exe. on the physical machine (Not the SCVMM server)
2. Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager Server\Setup
3. Change the DWORD value “P2VBITSTcpPort” to a port number less than 32768. (i used 32485, but aslong as its a unused port you’ll be fine)
4. Restart the Virtual Machine Manager P2V Agent service.
5. Retry the job on the SCVMM server

That will change the default port that the Virtual Machine Manager P2V agent uses. If you have any questions let me know! Hope this helps!

Ive been running windows 7 for a while now, and decided to pull some data off of old hard drives. I plugged in one of my ata drives though a usb device and the disk management said it was an invalid disk. i tried taking it off line and bringing it back online and that just crashed disk management. I did have the option to convert it to a basic disk but that would wipe all data! So here’s what i did to fix it and keep my precious data!
First i downloaded HxD its a free Hex editor. once its installed open the problem disk by clicking “Extras” then “Open Disk” Make sure you open the right disk! your disk management will list your disks starting with 0, this tool will start with 1. this is very important as you could seriously fuck shit up if you don’t do this proper . Also, the default option is to open the disk read only, your going to want to uncheck that when your ready to fix your “Invalid disk”.
So we’ve got the broken disk open, scroll down to offset 1C0(the row) and look in the 02 column. that cell should read “42″ which means Dynamic disk, Change it to “07″ and save changes. if your using this drive externally unplug it and plug it back in. otherwise reboot your computer.
That should have re initialized the disk and it will now be readable. if not go into disk management and take the disk offline then bring it back online. and the best part No Data Loss!!! Hope this helps!

A while back i had users complaining that they no longer had their drop down address list when they were sending email in outlook. You know that list that drops down when you start typing the name of your intended recipient? If your not using folder redirection this is how to move that list form one computer to another:
First off go to the computer that already has the auto complete list on it. close outlook and go to:

For Windows XP: “C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\”
For Windows 7: “%appdata%\Microsoft\Outlook\”

show hidden files and locate the .NK2 file (it’ll prob be called Outlook.NK2). that’s the file containing the auto complete address list. Just copy this file to the same directory on the new computer (If your switching to 7 follow the windows 7 path above) and the list will be transferred! Enjoy!

So when swapping out a users computer, if you don’t have folder redirection setup you’ll need to manually move their bookmarks and all over to their new compy. this is easy with IE, but with Firefox its a little different. Everything you’ve configed in Firefox is located in one directory that you can just copy paste to the new computer. That magical directory is:

%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

If you want to move Everything just copy the contents of the profile folder in that directory to the same directory on the new computer. if you want to pick and choose these are the files of interest:
places.sqlite – Bookmarks and history
key3.db – Key database for your saved passwords (if you move your passwords, you gotta move this file too)
signons.sqlite – Saved passwords
cookies.sqlite – All your cookies

All these files can be moved while firefox is running using \\computername\c$ style admin shares! Enjoy!

I just moved DHCP services from a Windows 2003 server that’s about to be decommissioned to a new Windows 2008 server during office hours with no service interruptions; the scope, reservations and all were moved over to the new server with no issues. here’s how i did it:

First log into your 2003 DHCP server with an administrator account. click start, run, type “cmd” and hit enter. in the command prompt type

netsh dhcp server export C:\dhcp.txt all

That will back up all your DHCP settings to the specified location, in this case “C:\dhcp.txt”.
Next up login to your soon to be 2008 DHCP server as an administrator and copy the dhcp.txt file over to the c: drive. now verify that you have the DHCP role running, and open up another cmd window, but this time type

netsh dhcp server import C:\dhcp.txt all

That should do it! just shut down the old DHCP service and your migrated!
Note: my first try i did get this message:

Error while importing option “6.”
This option conflicts with the existing option “” An internal error occurred.

Nothing to worry about, just go into your 2008 DHCP settings and remove the server options that were automatically imported. I had to remove my 006 DNS Servers and time server stuff.
If you have any questions or need help leave a comment.

Not really, I just love sensational titles! So there’s allot of noise being made recently about the IPv6 changeover; when it should happen, how, etc. and the consensus is that we’ve already waited too long and we are pretty much boned. That is to say, we don’t have enough time to make the IPv4 to IPv6 transition go smoothly.
For those of you unfamiliar with how ip addressing and the internet works, more specifically how the numbers are handled. that job falls to the NRO (Number Resource Organization) which was formed by the RIRs (Regional Internet Registries) to “protect the unallocated Number Resource pool, to promote and protect the bottom-up policy development process, and to act as a focal point for Internet community input into the RIR system” which basically means, they’re the guys who release IP blocks and addresses to the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) who then hands these over to the RIRs, who will distribute them to the LIR (Local Internet Registries – usually an ISP), who then gives you the end user your ip address.
Sounds like a big mess but each step is very important for managing our addressing space. So here’s the bad news. The NRO warns that only 10% of the IPv4 addressing space is unused. Meaning, there’s very very little room for more addressing under our current system. DOOMED!!!!!

Well not entirely. IPv6 is here to save the intarwebs! It allows for a possible 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addressed. So we will not have any issues like this anymore. The next problem will be the conversion. Which if you’re reading this you probably have no control over; this is a job for the big guys to sort out: the ISPS and backbone folk. But one thing is for sure, the transition should already be underway if it was going to go unnoticed. It’s going to be a bumpy road, but by 2012 you should have a whole new IP address to memorize!

Some more pretty IPv4 useage history and IPv6 info can be found here

As it turns out windows 7 loves you. there is a way to get pretty much every setting on the OS all in one spot. and that is by creating an admin folder! just go wherever you want this, create a new folder, and name it

Admin.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Then bask in the majesty that is an easy to use config page!