Micosoft Windows Server 2008

Windows 2008 R2 ADPrep Problem

I was working on a Windows 2008 DC and getting it ready to Prep the domain for a Windows 2008 R2 DC. I wasn’t on-site so I had no access to the a DVD Drive but I had the iso downloaded. I extracted the files and copied the Adprep folder over to my Windows 2008 32bit DC well when I ran adprep /forestprep I got the warning wrong version of OS 32bit versus 64 bit. OK now what to do as there is no 32bit version of Windows 2008 R2 RTM. I went over my possibilities and went back and looked at the apdrep folder a little closer and what I found as there is a adprep32.exe in the folder so I ran this on my Windows 2008 32bit DC and away Prepping the forest and domain went. I now could bring in my Windows 2008 R2 DC to the domain.

Til Later just Roger

Windows 2008 R2

Have you checked out Server 2008 R2 Beta yet? I downloaded it today and have been working on getting it installed. There are 2 things that I am interested in with this build and that is the new features for HyperV and the new features available for the Terminal Services or as MS now calls it Remote Desktop Services. It looks like they have tied some of the TS Stuff in with the new Windows 7 client OS so this will be cool to see where that goes as I have clients now using the TS gateway and the TS Remote Apps.

Also I am intrested in the Live Migration in hyperV as we are moving into this heavily with some of our customers should be interesting to see where this all goes for sure. Back to some more playing with the Public Beta I downloaded and will let you know what I think.

Til later just Roger

2008 Hyperv and LPT1 Port on the 2003 Virtual Servers

Have you had Virtual Servers running on a 2008 HyperV Server and needed to add a LPT port to the Virtual Server? If you was like me you searched the web and MS high and low and you found that it is a non supported deal and no one had a way to make it work. Well we had created a couple of Terminal Servers running on our HyperV Servers and some of the software needed the LPT1 port to be there. Well when HyperV was in Beta I monkeyed around and got LPT1 defined and working.  Well you know what they tell you about documentation I ignored it and did not write down anything I had done to make it work. No problem here that settling will come over when I move them to new hardware. Wrong answer the settings did not.

Okay now what do I do well I messed with it some but run out of time so Randy our network admin took this and figured out what I did and this is the steps to create a LPT1 Port on your Virtual Server running on a 2008 HyperV Server. I am going to add to this that this is not a supported MS deal this is just what we came up with the make this work for us.

So I looked at the registry keys on the old machines and on the Registry Key on the new ones

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Parport

 I changed the DWORD Value of Start from 4 to 3

 I did the same on CurrentControSet001 and CurrentControSet002 as well

 On the registry Key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP

 I added the missing key PARALLEL PORTS

Then I added a string  \Device\Parallel0 with a value of \DosDevices\LPT1

  Next I went into the services and disabled the services HP Port Resolver and HP Status Server

 I’m not real sure if this actually had an impact but it seemed like a good idea when I ran across certain problems associated with these two services

 Lastly if the LPT1 did not exist in the Device Manager I went to add Hardware and manually added a Printer Port.

 Under the Printer port settings I changed it from LPT3 to LPT1

 Checked the Option “Never Use an Interrupt”  and checked “Enable Legacy Plus and Play Detection”

After I completed these steps on one of the terminal servers the error flag cleared immediately on the port in device manager. On the other I had to restart the server but when it came back up the error was cleared and it is working fine.

HP BL 480c Memory Problem

I was setting up our BL 480c Blade servers in our c3000 Enclosure and I had installed 64 Gig of RAM in the systems. When it booted to POST it would only show 48 Gig but within the BIOS and Server Manager on the 2008 Server it would show the 64 Gig like it was suppose to have. I checked the slots the RAM was in and those was correct as you really need to pay attention when adding RAM to these servers or you will get the wrong slots and have this problem. I also verified in BIOS that the server was Advanced ECC Support and not in Mirrored memory Mode or online Spare Mode.

What I ended up doing was having to put the server into maintenance mode and having all but 2 pairs removed from the server. Setting the NVRAM dip switch number 6 to on starting the blade and letting it come to post then shutting it down and then turning Dip switch number 6 to the off position and then adding the rest of the RAM to the system and life was good. So steps was

Shutdown Server
Remove extra RAM
Set the Dip Switch number 6 to on
Power on the server to Post
Shut server down
Add the rest of the RAM
Start Server life was good.

Til later just Roger