Updating the Java plugin in Firefox

 I was trying to use Logmein from my Suse 10 Linux laptop but the Java viewer kept crashing. Despite installing JVM 1.5 the plugin was still showing v1.4.2. I eventually found the plugin directory was /usr/lib/firefox/plugins and had to create a link from here to replace the Java v1.4.2 one.

The command I used was:
ln -s /usr/java/jre1.5.0_06/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so

The Mozilla plugin directory is /opt/mozilla/lib/plugins so adjust accordingly.

The Java verifier now shows both browsers using JRE 1.5.0_06 and Logmein works!

OES and Imanager not working

Playing with OES and could not get iManager working. Turns out you have to disable IPv6.

Novell TID 10098152 tells you how:

The following steps should be followed to disable IPV6 on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9:
1- Modify /etc/modprobe.conf.local by adding the following:
#
# please add local extensions to this file
#
install ipv6 /bin/false
2- reboot

*** In some circumstances, it is also necessary to modify the /etc/modprobe.conf and change the following:

alias net-pf-10 ipv6
to
alias net-pf-10 off

ClustrMaps Beta

Just added ClustrMaps Beta to the blog - Just to get an idea where hits are coming from.

Thanks to Dugie for the idea.

How to remove ADC-GLOBAL-NAMES attribute

Had a problem with a mixed Exchange 5.5/2003 system where some Exchange 5.5 directory entries were refusing to synch into the Active Directory. Turns out the 5.5 directory entries were pointing to non-existent AD entries. I had to remove the ADC-GLOBAL-NAMES attributes by running Exchange 5.5 Administrator in raw mode (c:\exchsrvr\bin\admin.exe /r). Having done this, a full sync of the ADC got everything working again.

More details in Micrsoft support article 319474.

Unable to install Microsoft .Net 2.0 Framework

I've had a Windows update refuse to install on a couple of machines which are used for software testing. Turns out these machines had Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 beta1 and Visual J# Redistributable beta1 installed.

Machine #1 was easy, I just went to add/remove programs and removed the beta stuff but machine #2 did not show the beta software to remove.

I found a Microsoft KB article Q320112 but I am always squeamish about manually deleting stuff from the registry so I did it a slightly different way.

Firstly I downloaded beta1 of .Net 2.0 and J# packages from here and here.

Then I used the installer cache to uninstall J#

• Start > Run > Installer
• Right Click Date Modified
• Select Comments
• Click Comments
• Scroll down to find Visual J# Beta
• Right click and uninstall

Then I installed it from the downloaded file

Then I uninstalled it from add/remove programs.

Repeat for Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 beta1.

Finally I manually installed Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 from here.

CS Gallery Upload Manager Added

I've added the rather awesome CS Gallery Upload Manager to this CS 1.1 based site. It allows bulk photo uploads from Windows into CS.

You can find CHiwi's Blog here.

CS 1.1 Gallery Service Extension is here.

CS Gallery Upload Manager (Works with CS 2.0 and 1.1 with above extenstion) can be found here.

Windows Server 2003 Access-based Enumeration

Ever wanted to hide the files and folders that a user did not have access too (just like them old NetWare days?), well now you can with Windows Server 2003 Access-based Enumeration.

Thanks to Brian McCann for this one.

Download the Admin tool.
Download the readme here.

Citrix ICA Web Client

This client needs either local administrator or power users rights to run correctly on the workstation. To allow normal users to run it, edit the permissions on this registry key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing - Users - Full control

You could this either manually or through group policy.

Installing Windows Sharepoint Services v2 to use SQL Server

You need to do two things:

1. Extract files to temp directory:
stsv2 /c /t:c:\temp\wssv2

2. Install to use external SQL:
c:\temp\wssv2\setupsts remotesql=true

Upgraded to CS v1.1

I've upgraded the Server to CS v1.1.

It wasn't without problems - The main one was that the tables aspnet_Membership, aspnet_Users and cs_Userprofile did not agree with each other before the upgrade.

Thanks to Derek Larkin for the answer! He also has a blog here.

MOM 2005 error SQL Server 2000 SP3 or later not detected

Trying to install MOM 2005 on a test 2003 Server only to receive the error message "SQL Server 2000 SP3 or later not detected".

Because I have SQL 2000 SP4 installed as an upgrade of an earlier MSDE incidence (and it seems MOM 2005 install does not detect SQL 2000 SP4 correctly) I had to temporarily change the following reg key:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSDE\MSSQLServer\CurrentVersion"
CSDVersion REG_SZ change from "8.00.2039" to "8.00.761"

Do not be confused by the MSDE term - This was what the incidence was called before being upgraded to SQL Server 2000.

Don't forget to change it back!

Feed added to RSSCache.com

http://www.rsscache.com
[RC:c1e27f68]

Building an MS Cluster with VMWare Workstation 4.5.2

I used to be able to build clusters in VMWare Workstation 4, I'm sure, but when I recently tried it didn't seem to work any more. I found someone (sorry - lost the URL) on the VMWare forums who claimed to have created one on VMWare workstation 5. I tried thier suggestions on VMWare 4.5.2 and with a few changes it worked for me. I created the quorum (100MB) and shared disk (2GB) as fixed size SCSI devices.

Here are the important lines from my node_1.vmx file:

diskLib.dataCacheMaxSize = "0"
diskLib.dataCacheMaxReadAheadSize = "0"
diskLib.dataCacheMinReadAheadSize = "0"
diskLib.dataCachePageSize = "4096"
diskLib.maxUnsyncedWrites = "0"

disk.locking=FALSE

scsi0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0:0.fileName = "Disk1.vmdk"
scsi1.present = "TRUE"
scsi1.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
scsi1.sharedBus = "virtual"

scsi1:1.present = "TRUE"
scsi1:1.fileName = "..\shared\quorum.vmdk"
scsi1:1.redo = ""
scsi1:1.mode = "independent-persistent"
scsi1:1.deviceType = "plainDisk"

scsi2.present = "TRUE"
scsi2.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
scsi2.sharedBus = "virtual"
scsi2:1.present = "TRUE"
scsi2:1.fileName = "..\shared\shared.vmdk"
scsi2:1.redo = ""
scsi2:1.mode = "independent-persistent"
scsi2:1.deviceType = "plainDisk"

Remove non-existant DFS root

I had to rebuild a DFS root but the 2000/2003 Servers and AD insisted the old one was there though it wasn't! I eventually found this KB article at Microsoft to fix it:
Article ID: 224384

Quickly reset users home directory permissions

This is not my work but that of Shawn Hopkins that I found on Google Groups.

I faced a situation where my users home and profile directories were ok but the users had simply lost their permissions (importing foreign disk, long story....). Shawn's scripts were written for NT but they worked fine with Server 2003. I did the following:

Gave Administrators full access to d:\home and d:\profiles.

Ran this:
net user /domain >> users.txt

Then ran this script:
for /f "eol=; tokens=1,2*" %%i in (users.txt) do cacls d:\home\%%i /T /E /G %%i:C
for /f "eol=; tokens=1,2*" %%j in (users.txt) do cacls c:\home\%%j /T /E /G %%j:C
for /f "eol=; tokens=1,2*" %%k in (users.txt) do cacls c:\home\%%k /T /E /G %%k:C

Then this script:
for /f "eol=; tokens=1,2*" %%i in (users.txt) do cacls d:\profiles\%%i /T /E /G %%i:C
for /f "eol=; tokens=1,2*" %%j in (users.txt) do cacls d:\profiles\%%j /T /E /G %%j:C
for /f "eol=; tokens=1,2*" %%k in (users.txt) do cacls d:\profiles%%k /T /E /G %%k:C

One of those D'OH! moments

Sometime last night (or more accurately in the early hours of the morning) my Server 2003 box decided it wasn't going to have a default gateway anymore. The problem first made itself known when we started getting "Mail Delayed" messages back from Exchange. On investigating the problem using Remote Desktop I found that even though a default gateway was set in the LAN properties, "ipconfig /all" and "route print" showed that the box wasn't honouring it. I then made the brilliant decision to disable and re-enable the LAN card.

D'OH! Remember, I was using Remote Desktop to do this! Luckily I had an EMS connection to the Server so I was able to re-enable the connection from there. I'm lucky that 2003 supports this, unlike 2000, else I would have to crawl around attaching cables to my headless server.
(Image lost due to Blog move)

One of those D'OH! moments

Sometime last night (or more accurately in the early hours of the morning) my Server 2003 box decided it wasn't going to have a default gateway anymore. The problem first made itself known when we started getting "Mail Delayed" messages back from Exchange. On investigating the problem using Remote Desktop I found that even though a default gateway was set in the LAN properties, "ipconfig /all" and "route print" showed that the box wasn't honouring it. I then made the brilliant decision to disable and re-enable the LAN card.

D'OH! Remember, I was using Remote Desktop to do this! Luckily I had an EMS connection to the Server so I was able to re-enable the connection from there. I'm lucky that 2003 supports this, unlike 2000, else I would have to crawl around attaching cables to my headless server.
(Image lost due to Blog move)

Exchange 2003 OWA displays FTP style directory

If this happens to you the simplest answer is to recreate the web access directories. You can't just delete them and restart the SA service as you did in Exchange 2000!


1. Backup the IIS metabase
2. Delete the Exchange virtual directories in IIS Manager
3. Delete the /AD2MB path using ADSUTIL.VBS
4. Restart Exchange 2003 SA
5. Restore permissions to virtual directories

Microsoft has it covered here.

JRNL_WRAP_ERROR

Windows 2000 domain with a single domain controller was suffering the following error message in NTFRS Log in event viewer. After advice from Microsoft we set the following registry entry:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtFrs\Parameters\Backup/Restore\Process at Startup
BurFlags REG_DWORD 0xD2

This forces a non-authorative restore for SysVol and allows the message to disappear - Setting it to 0xd4 would have forced an Authoratative restore.

Thursday Evening

Left at 19:00 to arrive at Ipswich at 20:11 but arrived at 20:17. Not bad, only 6 minutes late. We've gone ober the 3 hour barrier - Now we have it at 3:03 for the week so far but there is still Friday to go.