Exchange 2010 installation/configuration tricks

Just to summarize some of the issues I had when installing/configuring Exchange 2010

1. Add your domain to "Accepted Domains"
2. Configure the Receive Connector for incoming emails by enabling Anonymous authentication and specifying the FQDN name for HELO/EHLO
3. Create SMTP Send Connector
4. For blank OWA page issue - go to Server Manager->Features->Add Feature, select to install the “RPC over HTTP Proxy” feature and all dependent features
5. For "Base theme could not be found" OWA issue - run "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin\UpdateCas.ps1" from Exchange Management Shell
6. For the "You must close all dialog boxes before you can close Exchange Management Console" Management Console error - roll back your IE9 back to IE8.
UPD: Issue has been finally resolved. Here is the link to MS fix:
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=2624899 

VMware Certification Discounts

VMware Certification Discounts of 25% through 11/30/2011

Codes for 25% off VCP/VCAP/VCA exams through 11/30/2011

VMWLV25 (VCP4, VCP5,VCA-DT)
VMWORLDLV25 (VCAP-DCD, VCAP-DCA or VCP4-DT)

ESXi 4.1 installation failed

When ESXi 4.0 just came out I was testing it in my home lab, installing it on both USB stick and HDD on different "not supported" hardware including even my IBM Laptop - never had any problem with installation.

When ESXi 4.1 came out I upgraded my main ESXi 4.0 server without any problem whatsoever. However, when I decided to do a fresh install on my secondary ESXi 4.0 host few days later I got the following error message: 

The installation operation has encountered a fatal error:

Unable to find system image to install.

This is due to the image not being mounted correctly or the CD-ROM is not being supported.

The following system information will assist VMware team with your problem. Please record your information before proceeding:

System Information

Manufacturer:

Model:

Tag:

BIOS Rev:

That brought some good memories back from DOS era. No, seriously. I had not seen an "incompatible" CD-ROM for at least last 15-20 years! I take off my hat to VMware programmers - I have no clue how to make CD-ROM "incompatible" on purpose nowadays (maybe they're checking manufacturer against "white list" but I cannot believe they're doing it - that would be too easy).

Anyways, just for curiosity sake, here is what I tried
1. Replaced current IDE CD-ROM with another IDE one (it was actually DVD ROM) - didn't help

2. Replaced current IDE DVD-ROM with a SATA one - didn't help

3. Created bootable USB stick and booted from it - same error message

4. Connected cheap portable USB DVD-ROM - finally it worked !!!

Bottom line:
you basically have 3 options:

1. Install ESXi 4.1 on a USB stick on some "compatible" hardware, take USB stick out and use it on your hardware. Yes you can do it since it's not hardware dependent.... unless you use a custom kernel which is another story.

2. Install ESXi 4.0 first and then upgrade it to ESXi 4.1

3. Try an external USB CD-ROM (I cannot guarantee it will work - maybe VMware simply "liked" the manufacturer of my cheap external CD-ROM)

HP Team NIC RDP issue

Symptoms:
After dissolving HP NIC Team and running “netsh interface tcp reset” command (I was troubleshooting  network issues with Windows NLB) Windows 2008 Remote Desktop stops working with all services running and Remote Desktop enabled.

“Netstat -a –n” shows there is no service listening on rdp port 3389.

If you open to Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration -> Right Click on RDP-TCP, select Network Adapter tab - you get the following error:

 

And it’s impossible to select the network adapter or change Maximum connections, although there is nothing wrong with the network.

Here is the fix:
1. Set the following registry value to 0

2. Restart Remote Desktop Service

3. Go to Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration -> Right Click on RDP-TCP , select Network Adapter tab, make sure “All network Adapters” is selected and set Maximum connections to “2”

How to repair Windows 7 MBR

If you have MBR corrupted, Windows won't boot and neither "Startup Repare" or "System Restore" from System Recovery options on System Repair CD would fix it.
Here is what needs to be done:

1. Boot from Windows 7 instllation DVD or Recovery CD. (don't forget to change boot order in the BIOS if needed)
2. Choose your default "Language", "Time", and "Keyboard Input", click Next
3. Click on "Repair Your Computer" and choose "Command Prompt"
4. Type  bootsect /nt60 C: /mbr and press Enter
5. Reboot

Viewing Windows 7 Event Log remotely from Windows XP or 2003 computer

Surprisingly (or rather not), lot of people are having issues with that. Some even claiming that it is impossible to view Windows 7 Event Log remotely from an XP or Windows 2003 machine because "it's not designed for that". They are getting "Unable to connect. The network path was not found" error when trying to open Event Viewer, even though Services, Storage, Shared Folders etc are working

Problem is that Remote Registry service has to be running on Windows 7 machine and it's set to Manual startup type by default.

So, just start Computer Manager on XP/2003 machine, connect to remote computer (if you are not able to connect at all, check the firewall settings) and start this service manually first.

How to delete directories using wildcards

This script is also useful for deleting user profiles from Citrix servers (since they could be C:\Documents and Settings\UserID, C:\Documents and Settings\UserID.DOMAIN,  C:\Documents and Settings\UserID.old etc - last usually happens if somebody renames them)

It's a bit tricky since rmdir doesn't support wildcards.
Also , "CD" doesn't work with UNC path, so you either can do the registry fix described here or just use pushd /popd as I did.

========
@ECHO OFF

rem Usage : DelCtxprof.cmd UserID

IF (%1)==() GOTO ERR
@ECHO ON


Pause This batch file will delete all profiles that start with "%1%" from all Citrix servers. If you don't want to do it, press Ctrl-C

pushd "\\CitrixServer1\C$\Documents and settings\"
for /d %%a in (%1*) do rd /s /q "%%~a"
popd

rem Do the rest of your citrix servers there


GOTO END

:ERR
ECHO Please specify User ID !!!
:END
========