Nick Whittome - The Naked MVP

HP MediaSmart Windows Home Server - System overheat?

NickWhittome — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:42:19 GMT

Is your HP MediaSmart server reporting a false overheat like mine?    It seems that HP engineers are recommending that you run a system restore to fix this issue, which is a joke.

My advice…   take it or leave it.

If your processor heat is not reporting silly temperatures, and the system is the only high temperature…    check the box to ignore the warning until HP pull there finger out and release a patch for this obvious HP bug.

Edit:
HP have released this temporary fix (unsupported etc) which disables the sensor giving the error on your WHS, but it is not a full solution obviously.

File Attachment: systemtemphotfix.zip (11 KB)

Squawkbox 4 released!

NickWhittome — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:58:54 GMT

You may well have read this already, but I thought it worth noting here on the blog as I mirror the download on my personal site as well.

The Squawkbox version 4 release is at this link.

As always, I am still mirroring the older releases in case someone needs them for testing or some other reason.

Old (Unsupported) versions
Version 3.03
Version 3.04
Version 3.10

Tags: Squawkbox+4, Flight+Simulator

SBS2008 Released to Manufacturing!

NickWhittome — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:39:43 GMT

In case you missed it… which I am sure you did not

http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/08/21/sbs-2008-released-to-manufacturing.aspx

Easy File Upload fails on Windows Home Server PP1

NickWhittome — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:30:45 GMT

Hi all! A quick post…..

I have had a couple of people report this problem and I was going to create a support.microsoft.com community solution article but Microsoft have not added it to the product list for us MVP’s yet… so here it is instead.

If you have apostrophes in your folder names and you try to use the Easy file uploader on Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 RTM, then you will have problems. The control will not load and you will not see the “target” where you drag and drop files to upload multiple items. You may also see a “Done with errors” message on the bottom of your browser.

For the moment, the work around is to simply remove the ‘ from your folder names.

Funky SBS Monitoring Reports?

NickWhittome — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:58:24 GMT

Susan Bradley has an interesting thread going on her blog, which you should give feedback on so we can get the team to fix the problem!

She asks:

Can you guys do me a favor?
How many of you have SBS Monitoring reports that as of lately have gotten a little funky?
(Meaning that one day they will work, another day they won't)
When you go to the server monitoring console and select Monitoring the screen comes up with:

The page cannot be displayed
An error occurred on the page you are trying to view.

If you are one of these folks, so far we've seen this on SBS 2003 R2 servers that have integrated WSUS's.

If you see this can you send me a list of the servers you've seen this on?

What a/v is on that specific server?

What the processors and RAM specs are on the impacted servers?

And if you've installed the SQL patch?

And are you on WSUS 2 or WSUS 3?

Right now we're on a fishing expedition and we/I honestly don't think it's due to the SQL patches because we've seen it happen prior to that but we're just wanting to see if there's a pattern somewhere.

(thanks for helping out in gathering this info ahead of time btw)

Have a read here, and post your comments!

The advert I am waiting for from Apple

NickWhittome — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:48:34 GMT

You know...

I bet that Apple will come back with one of their adverts after this. It will be something like this...

Apple Man: [Enters from right]

“Hi, I’m an Apple....”

Naked PC Man: [Enters from Left, has no clothes on... (maybe a leaf or something for the watershed). PC has a sign on his head saying .. Mojave.

“... and I’m a PC”..

Apple Man: “Why naked PC?”

Naked PC Man: “It’s my new operating system Mac... it’s called “Mojave”.

Apple Man: “Oooh, nice”

Naked PC Man: “Yeah, we stripped Vista down, made it really quick, did not install any applications and pretended it was another OS.”

Apple Man: “OK...”

Pause..

Apple Man: “You know... you look really great”

Mojave Experiment - hope for Vista yet....

NickWhittome — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:54:24 GMT

In line with my last blogpost, Vista has another problem….     the media and the excellent advertising from competitors slamming Microsoft's desktop OS. (Notably Apple)

Well, a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft Marketing came up with a new operating system - Microsoft Codename “Mojave”.    This operating system was shown to XP users who were skeptical of Vista and the general feedback from these users was positive.   The kick…    they were actually using Microsoft Vista!

Microsoft have put up a holding site which says that it will have more content on the 29^th…    worth keeping an eye on!

Vista, 2 weeks on......

NickWhittome — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:46:40 GMT

My rant a couple of weeks ago got some attention from some clever people in Microsoft. A few uploaded crashdumps later and the problem has 90% certain been found. It turned out that a simple sidebar gadget that monitored my Axis security camera was bringing Vista to its knees. Essentially, the handle count was way waaaay up….

Anyway, as I mentioned in my previous rant, I suspected a third party product problem. But that IS the problem with Vista right? The general consensus from users I come across is that Vista crashes, Vista is slow, Outlook on Vista is slow…. etc. But, simply put, in almost every case of Vista issues, I have found a third party product to be causing problems.

Microsoft really need to come up with is a “click this button to find my problem” system. Easier said than done, but there has to be a way! Not everyone would be as quick to get top level support like I did, to essentially find a simple Sidebar gadget be the problem.

I don’t have the answers… but I certainly can see the problem!

HP Mediasmart Server 1.3 Update driving me crazy - Manual Installation

NickWhittome — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:24:45 GMT

I know that Microsoft spent ages making sure that Power Pack 1 for Windows Home Server would be rock solid. (Especially when it came to the data corruption bug).

All it takes is a vendor to really screw things up! HP’s own MediaSmart server website is really terrible at getting you to the right information about the update. It simply mentions that an update is coming for the server, but does not point you to a place to get help on the updates.

For two days now I have been telling the HP MediaSmart server to install its updates, but it simply flicks up a box and does nothing (not even showing you that there are no updates available).   I initialy thought this might have been related to HP releasing the update, then pulling it… but that did not seem to be the case.   it simply seems to be that the server does not download or do anything.

There are people on some of the forums saying they have a bad version of the HP update installed, this is not the case for me.   I simply have nothing installed from HP updating me to the new version.

So… as a workaround   if you have a server showing you the network critical message tick that damn box so that all your home network users are not seeing red!

Tick enlarged for effect

Then, do this:

RDP to your server.
Download the HP patch from here manually.
Install said patch
Reboot
Rejoice!

Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 Released

NickWhittome — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:57:13 GMT

Via the WHS Blog:

The team is pleased to announce that Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 has been released to manufacturing (RTM) and is now available on the Microsoft Download Center!

The English version is available now and German, Spanish and French versions will be available on the Download Center soon. Windows Home Server customers who don’t download it on their own will receive Power Pack 1 via Windows Update in August, and the new Chinese and Japanese versions will RTM in August, too.

As many know, Power Pack 1 provides a range of new enhancements, including support for home computers running Windows Vista x64 editions, backup of home server Shared Folders, improvements to remote access, more efficient power consumption and better performance. And, of course, it delivers a fix for the data corruption bug. Documentation for Power Pack 1 (Build #1800, to those who have been part of the beta testing) is available here.

Our OEM partners will be updating their systems with Power Pack 1 and HP will release a software update for the HP MediaSmart Server, delivering enhanced media streaming capabilities from PacketVideo, server-side anti-virus from McAfee and compatibility with 64-bit home PCs.

Windows Home Server can now be purchased in 50 countries worldwide and a growing ecosystem of third-party software developers has released approximately 60 Add-in programs extending Windows Home Server’s capabilities. To help fuel this development we have updated the Windows Home Server software development kit for Power Pack 1, including new support for the client PC side, i.e. notifications to/from home computers.

We continue to hear fantastic feedback from our customers about how Home Server is helping them protect and organize their digital media, access it away from home, and share it with friends and family. Thank you to our beta testers and partners for helping us ship Power Pack 1, and to the Home Server community as a whole, for its ongoing support and enthusiasm.

The Windows Home Server Team

SBS Services failing after MS08-037 - KB951746 and 951748

NickWhittome — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:27:50 GMT

Direct copy from the SBS Blogpost here. One important comment to note is that the MaxUserPort registry key should NOT be removed.

From the Official SBS Blog:

[Today's post comes to us courtesy of John Bay, Damian Leibaschoff, Justin Crosby and Chris Puckett]

Some customers have reported seeing random problems with services after installing MS08-037. In one case, Exchange Always Up To Date notifications for activesync were failing and in other cases the IPSEC or the IAS services were failing to start.

In the case of the AUTD issue, you will see events similar to the following in the application event log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Server ActiveSync
Event Category: None
Event ID: 3015
Date: 7/12/2008
Time: 6:38:34 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description: IP-based AUTD failed to initialize because the processing of notifications could not be setup. Error code [0x80004005]. Verify that no other applications are currently bound to UDP port [2883], or try specifying a different port number.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Server ActiveSync
Event Category: None
Event ID: 3024
Date: 7/12/2008
Time: 6:38:37 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description: IP-based AUTD failed to initialize. Error code: [0x80004005].

In the case of the IPSEC Service failing you start, you will see the following events logged in the system event log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Service Control Manager
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7023
Date: 7/12/2008
Time: 6:38:37 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description: The IPSEC Services Service terminated with the following error: Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: IPSec
Event Category: None
Event ID: 4292
Date: 7/15/2008
Time: 2:53:14 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description: The IPSec driver has entered Block mode. IPSec will discard all inbound and outbound TCP/IP network traffic that is not permitted by boot-time IPSec Policy exemptions. User Action: To restore full unsecured TCP/IP connectivity, disable the IPSec services, and then restart the computer. For detailed troubleshooting information, review the events in the Security event log.

If the IPSEC service fails to start, the server will be running in Block mode and it will block all network connectivity to the server.

In the case of the IAS Service failing to start, you will see the following event logged in the system event log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Service Control Manager
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7023
Date: 7/12/2008
Time: 6:38:37 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description: The Internet Authentication Service Service terminated with the following error: Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted.

MS08-037 is a security update designed to prevent DNS spoofing. The update is described by article 953230 MS08-037: Vulnerabilities in DNS could allow spoofing: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;953230

The update changes the way the DNS server allocates the UDP source port for DNS queries. On an SBS server by default we set the MaxUserPort value in the registry to 60000 or 65536 depending on the version of SBS. The MaxUserPort value causes the DNS server to pick UDP source ports in the range of 1024 to 60000, or 65536. The MaxUserPort is set on the SBS server by Exchange and ISA server. DNS by default will randomly pick 2500 ports when the service starts up, a port conflict will occur if the DNS server allocates a port that is required by another service and that service will fail once it requests that static UDP port. So far we have seen issues with AUTD, IPSEC, and IAS but there may be other services that will have a conflict.

The ReservedPorts registry key can be used to exclude ports from the pool the DNS server uses. The reservedports registry key is described in 812873 How to reserve a range of ephemeral ports on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Server

Here is the list of ports that we have seen conflicts with services on the machine.

1645-1646 - Used by IAS
1701-1701 - Used by L2TP
1812-1813 - Used by IAS
2883-2883 - Used by AUTD
4500-4500 - Used by IPSEC

For now we are suggesting customers be proactive and modify the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\ReservedPorts

We suggest you add these port numbers to the current values set in the ReservedPorts registry key. Do not replace the values currently there with these values but simply add these additional values.

When you click OK you may get the following warning message:

This warning is OK and you can click OK on it.

Once you modify the ReservedPorts key you will have to reboot the server to make the change effective.

If you are using any third party applications on your SBS server that might require the use of a static UDP port higher than port 1024, you should also add it to the list of reserved ports.

If you have any other issue after installing 951746 and 951748 that is resolved by uninstalling these updates, try setting the ReservedPorts registry value and rebooting the server. Then reinstall the 951746 and 951748 updates.

Regardless of any other issues you might encounter with these updates (see below), once the updates are installed, you should have the ReservedPorts updated to prevent unexpected failures on server reboot.

Remember that the 951748 and 951746 updates may also cause a loss of Internet Connectivity in conjunction with 3rd party firewall products. For more information on that issue see: http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/07/11/loss-of-internet-connectivity-after-installing-951748-and-951746.aspx

Furthermore, a third type of issue has been seen where the DNS Server service fails to start with the following error:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Service Control Manager
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7023
Date: 7/15/2008
Time: 5:12:05 PM
User: N/A
Computer: Server
Description:
The DNS Server service terminated with the following error:
Not enough storage is available to complete this operation.

On the servers that we have this problem on we have seen signs of incomplete installations of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2. Uninstall both updates (951748 and 951746) and verify that Service Pack 2 is properly installed (You will most likely need to re-install it, check the following link for Best Practices <http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2007/06/30/new-best-practices-for-sp2-kb.aspx>).

The Dell Partner Program

NickWhittome — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:27:46 GMT

Today I have been a guest of Dell Ireland at the Limerick offices.

For years my company, NTES, have been selling Dell computers, servers and services. Finally Dell have made the decision to implement a Partner program and I can tell you that they are really serious about it.

I cannot tell you how impressed I have been with the Dell team we met today, I am seeing a real change in the way Dell operate with us as a company. I am certain that this move by Dell will be a real benefit to us and our customers.

It has been an interesting visit, the factory operations are simply incredible and the quality bar is really high.

So… my advice is if you are an I.T provider, I would be getting on the phone to a Dell account manager and seriously considering moving over to them, if you are not selling them already!

iPhone control of Netstreams.... not yet.

NickWhittome — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:28:28 GMT

I was just reading this blogpost on Automated home. It is a little misleading….

Whilst it is entirely possible that, one day, we may see Netstreams integrate iPhone / iTouch control of the system, that time is not now. Netstreams do not see the market value of adding control from Apple products. I am sure that one day that view will change, and the community now building motion around the Netstreams DigiLinX product will convince them that having Apple iPhone / iTouch integration is a huge “cherry on the cake” for the excellent DigiLinX system.

Anyway…. I can tell you for certain, that at this time unless something major has happened that I do not know about, iLoveControl will not integrate to Netstreams DigiLinX.

Tags: Netstreams+DigiLinX, Apple+iPhone, iLoveControl

Lenovo X300 and Vodafone Ireland

NickWhittome — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:51:41 GMT

Oh man! I have spent weeks fighting with Vodafone Mobile connect version 9.x on my X300 Laptop only to find out tonight that this was completely the wrong version.

For others with a Lenovo laptop, this is the link you need to get the correct software from Vodafone!

Tags: Lenovo, X300, 3G

Host off on Hotfix 948110 on SBS 2003 Servers

NickWhittome — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:35:18 GMT

The Official SBS Blog is reporting that Hotfix 948110 is causing issues on SBS2003 servers.

Hold off!

Tags: Hotfix+948110, SBS

O2 Ireland listened.... we now have business plans!

NickWhittome — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:46:11 GMT

Well good news for business iPhone users. O2 Ireland listened and we will have business plans, but not like everyone else…

No internal business plan calls So that means that if you have a company of 100 people that want the iPhone, you will be charged for those calls…. crazy, and a bad business decision by O2.

In the conversation I “overheard” (therefore subject to change until it is on the site)…. I got these figures:

175 Mins + 100 Texts + 1GB Download Limit = €36.90
350 mins + 150 texts + 1GB Download Limit = €53.90
600 Mins + 350 texts + 1GB Download Limit = €74.40

175 Mins + 100 Texts + 10GB Download Limit = €49.29
350 mins + 150 texts + 10GB Download Limit = €66.29
600 Mins + 350 texts + 10GB Download Limit = €86.79

16GB iPhone with 175 Min package – €299.00
16GB iPhone with 350 Min package – €199.00
16GB iPhone with 600 Min package – €169.00

Over gig price – 1.6 cent per meg.

18 month contract

Excluding VAT @ 21%

My conclusion… still a rip off, but better… O2 really need to copy the Vodafone wireless office package routine!

Apple release MobileMe

NickWhittome — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:12:00 GMT

Today, Apple replaced .Mac with MobileMe.

I went to take a look and was greeted with this:

I wonder how true that really is… and how much is simply a slap in the face to Microsoft.

I am giving Vista 2 weeks.....

NickWhittome — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:59:07 GMT

then I am removing it on my XPS 730.    While I will probably keep it on my laptop, I am out of ideas on how and why the fastest machine on the market can become a Amstrad 386 for periods when running Vista SP1.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe that this is a third party issue.   The problem is that I don’t have the time, nor the people available to me to connect in and analyse this system to find what is causing the hangs.   The main problem is that Process Explorer does not really show anything using processor or RAM when the problem occurs.

The symptoms are strange.   Basically, windows on the screen become unresponsive.   Vista cannot even load it’s own task manager…    During this unresponsive time, process explorer does not even show a problem program.    The best I can figure is that dwm.exe and WUDFHost.exe in a svchost.exe process are quite busy….

I even went as far as removing the NOD32 Antivirus to see if that made a difference, it does not seem to have.

Anyone out there with ideas?   Microsoft….   want to analyse this thing?

With the news that Windows 7 is essentially built on top of Vista’s code base, I am concerned.   Vlad made a great post on that subject here, which I totally agree with.

In the mean time… if you think you can fix my Vista problem…   contact me!

Tags: Vista

They are holding me in a dark room

NickWhittome — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:52:30 GMT

30 Minutes after I posted this two men in dark suits arrived at my door. I have since been taken to a dark room and beaten severely.

Why? Well, it seems that one side of Microsoft are not quite talking enough to the other. I have been told by the men in dark suits (I have my suspicions)that I shall only trust them from now on… and that these people are not to be trusted when it comes to Flight Simulator

I have been given back my laptop to pass on this important information:

Both versions regardless of service pack installed are supported until 1/10/2012. Official support for Service Pack SP1 ends 12 months after SP2 was released, but all this would mean is that there would be no specific support available for SP1 issues or issues resolved in SP2 and instead customers will be encouraged to install SP2 from here.

Tags: Flight+Simulator, FSX

Flight Simulator X RTM support lifecycle over

NickWhittome — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:44:00 GMT

FYI. As of July 8^th 2008, Flight Simulator X RTM is no longer supported by Microsoft Product Support Services.

I guess that means that if you have to call PSS for support on the simulator, you should install SP2 (or purchase Acceleration)!

Not quite true... see here

Tags: FSX, Flight+Simulator