Robin – Page 5 – Fixing things

December 19, 2013March 27, 2015

Installing .NET 3.5 on Server 2012 and 2012 R2

.net 3.5 is still often required but the resources to install it are by default absent from the windows installation. If you have internet connectivity this isn’t such an issue as the files are simply pulled down from microsoft but if you are performing an offline build or are in a dev/secure environment with no connectivity or heavily filtered it can be problematic.

Personally I find the fastest method is to mount/insert the 2012 installation media and install the feature with DISM. Open an elevetates (run as admin) command window.

dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /all /Source:d:\sources\sxs /LimitAccess

Simply change “d” to match the drive letter your install media is available at.

If the GUI is more your sort of thing simply run the “Add roles and features” wizard and select the .NET 3.5

Click next and locate the “Specify and alternate source path” link at the bottom of the window. Click this.

In the window that loads type in the path to your side-by-side folder on the installation media.

Click on OK and on Install to start .NET 3.5 installing.

November 12, 2013

SharePoint Correlation error: system.invalidoperationexception: namespace prefix ‘xsd’ is not defined. When using the person picker.

This is an interesting problem which only occurs when the people picker is being run in IE9 mode. You may find older versions of IE work without issue and other browsers too. A quick server side fix can be implemented by opening the pickerdialog master file and editing the header. The file should be located here: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\pickerdialog.master

Simply add the following to the top of the file using your favorite text editor.

<head>
<meta name=”GENERATOR” content=”Microsoft SharePoint” />
<meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=EmulateIE8″ />

You should then perform an iisrest. Either use the IIS graphical tools to do this or in an eleveted command window run IISRESET /noforce

As always take a copy of the master file before editing and if possible test this change in your dev/test environment first. (You do have one right?)

November 7, 2013November 8, 2013

Upgrading System Center Configuration Manager to 2012 R2

First I would suggest you have a good read of http://technet.microsoft.com/library/gg682075.aspx as this details the compatibility between different versions of configuration manager. Things are a lot simpler if you are only running a single server but even so it is worth a read. It is only possible to upgrade your configuration manager hierarchy to 2012 R2 from 2012 so if you are running an earlier version you will need to upgrade to 2012 first.

There are also a number of pre-upgrade checks and tasks to complete which are detailed here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/jj822981.aspx#BKMK_PlanningR2Upgrade I would also strongly suggest you don’t attempt an upgrade unless all site servers are showing as healthy.

Hopefully you will already have an offline copy of the 8.1 ADK to install, but if not you can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=39982 I would suggest getting the offline download going ahead of the upgrade as it is a large file and could delay your upgrade if you have a slower internet connection.

Any default collections which have been customized will be overwritten with the default collection configuration. Either document their current custom configuration so you can re-apply it later or (my preferred method) is to create new custom collections and leave the default ones alone.

If you have a large Configuration Manager setup with a CAS you will need to do this server first and then work your way down the hierarchy and onto the primary sites.

It would also suggest that you check the connectivity between all of your system center servers, I’m sure you would notice quite quickly if you did have connectivity problems but it does surprise me how often this can be an issue. You can use Powershell to accomplish this e.g. Test-Connection -Source siteserver1, siteserver2, siteserver3 -Computername siteserver1, siteserver2, siteserver3

As documented on TechNet do backup your site SQL databases and do disable all maintenance tasks which may run while the upgrade is in progress. These steps will help you avoid a failed upgrade and assist you in recovering from one if it does fail. The list of maintenance tasks can be found in “Administration” > “Site Configuration” > “Sites” > Highlight your site > and click on “Site Maintenance” on the ribbon. You can click on edit to check the schedule of a task and determine if it is likely to run during your upgrade. I would suggest you document any changes made so that you can revert them after the upgrade.

1. Remove the Windows 8 ADK.

2. Install the Windows 8.1 ADK (See above for download link.) you will only need the Deployment tools, Windows Preinstallation Enviroment (Windows PE) and User State Migration Toolkit (USMT).

3. It is not required but I would suggest you restart the server after the ADK install to clear any pending actions as I have in the past seen upgrades fail due to this.

4. Now you are ready to run setup from the System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2 Disk. The steps within the wizard are reasonably straight forward. Simply select “Upgrade this Configuration Manager Site” and accept the various terms and conditions.

5. Next I would suggest downloading the required files to a UNC share so you can use them again for future upgrades.

6. Once the files complete downloading, select the required languages and then click next and review any warnings or errors from the pre-requisite checker. If you are performing this upgrade on lower specification machines in a lab you will likely get warnings about available memory. These can be ignored if it is not a production environment.

7. Once the pre-requisite checker is happy you can start the install. I would go and make yourself a cup of tea, go to lunch or carry on with other work as it will likely take some time to complete.

8. If the upgrade is successful you can move on to the post update configuration tasks or upgrading your other primary sites but if you encountered any errors or a failure click the View log button and take appropriate remedial action. I would suggest saving the setup log file even if you had a successful upgrade as it can prove useful later on in troubleshooting or to compare between successful and failed upgrade logs.

Post Upgrade Tasks

1. Upgrade any stand-alone consoles you have installed, for example on management servers or workstations. Don’t worry about the Configuration Manager server itself, this will already be updated.

2. Either let the Automatic Client upgrade process do its stuff and keep a watchful eye on it over the next few days or manually push out the updated client from System Center.

3. Test that some of the core functionality is still working, try deploying some content and check that you are still able to PXE boot and deploy operating systems. Sometimes it is necessary to re-create task sequences.

4. Check the boot images are 6.3.9600.16384 (or later if using a later version of the ADK) as this is required to support 2012 R2 and 8.1 deployments. If not just create and import new boot images.

5. All your remote sites should have been upgraded as well, check that they are still working correctly and if not check your sitecomp.log file.

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013

Upgrading System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 to R2

The upgrade process is reasonably smooth but requires you to uninstall the SCVMM 2012 SP1 and any Hotfixes or update rollups that are in place. You will also need to uninstall the 8.0 Microsoft ADK and install the latest 8.1 version before running setup from the Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 disk. The 8.1 ADK can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=39982

Before starting gather and record the details of the existing implementation if not already documented. For example the database server, instance name, database name and the details of the virtual machine manager service account. You can view the current database configuration from within the VMM console. While in the “Administration/Settings” view, click on “General” and then double click “Database Connection” While it is possible to use the local system service I would recommend creating a domain user for the service to run as with a local system service account baremetal hyper-v host deployments are not possible and you may have trouble logging in from other machines.

I would also make sure at least 10GB of free space is available on the VMM server as the 8.1 ADK is quite large.

Uninstall both the VMM 2012 condole and management features. Make sure you select the option to retain the database.
Take a backup of your SCVMM database.
Uninstall the 8.0 ADK
Install the 8.1 ADK – If you are using the online installer a large amount of data will need to be downloaded. If this is not possible consider running the installer ahead of the upgrade and download the full install for later offline installation.
Run setup from the VMM 2012 R2 disk
Simply follow the wizard entering the database and service account details you recorded earlier
Once setup is complete there are a few tasks left to complete: Any driver packs will need to be removed and re-added or they may not be discovered correctly. Virtual Machine templates may need to be re-pointed to the correct operating system containing VHD. You will also of course need to update the agents on all of your VMM managed hosts.

October 28, 2013October 28, 2013

Configuration Manager 2012 Inventoried software: No items found

It seems to be a fairly common occurrenc: SCCM 2012 is up and running, you have even pushed the client out to all your computers but for some reason the “Inventoried Software” page is empty and stays empty despite waiting long enough for the schedule to have completed several times over.

First make sure that software inventory is enabled in your client policies, it should be by default. Next mare sure that inside “Hardware inventory” you have ticked the various software classes:

Once this has been added it is simply a case of waiting for the policy to apply and for the inventory schedule to collect the necessary information. I find the default 7 day cycle absolutely fine for every day use, but a pain if you have just made a change and want to see quick results. It is possible to force an inventory cycle for an individual client/computer by running ccmsetup.exe /uninstall and then re-installing the client. If this works and the installed software is displayed for this one machine then you should be OK to simply wait and let the other clients roll in as scheduled. If you want/need more instant gratification and features give this tool a go https://sccmclictr.codeplex.com/ If you have checked the Agent policy as above but you still aren’t getting results, it is also worth checking the InventoryAgent.log for SMS_InstalledSoftware and related errors.

September 27, 2013September 27, 2013

System Center Operations Manager 2012 SP1 Failes on Data warehouse step and setup log shows “Create File” error

When installing SCOM setup fails during the Data warehouse step and the setup log file contains an error similar to the following: EXEC(@sql);: Threw Exception.Type: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException, Exception Error Code: 0x80131904, Exception.Message: CREATE FILE encountered operating system error 5(Access is denied.) while attempting to open or create the physical file ‘E:\SystemCenterData.mdf’.

There is a bug in the Operations Manager SP1 installer which causes the file to be created in the wrong location. During setup the location was configured to use “E:\SystemCenterData” for the Data path and “F:\SystemCenterLogs” for the logs however setup attempts to create the file as “E:\SystemCenterData.mdf”

One way to work around this issue is to amend the configured path for the data warehouse data and log files during setup. Simply append the name of the database to the end of each path. (The main operations manager database and logs do not need this change.) for example using the locations E:\SystemCenterData\OperationsManagerDW for data and F:\SystemCenterData\OperationsManagerDW for logs will result in the files being created as E:\SystemCenterData\OperationsManagerDW.mdf and F:\SystemCenterData\OperationsManagerDW.ldf and setup can continue as expected.

September 4, 2013September 14, 2013

Message tracking in Exchange 2010 Error: “String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.”

When attempting to run message tracking on an Exchange 2010 server you get an error similar to this: Cannot process argument transformation on parameter ‘Start’. Cannot convert value to type “System.DateTime”. Error: “String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.”

Can you spot the difference? Even if the server has a non US regional setting you have to specify the date in US format. e.g. 08/22/2013 instead of 22/08/2013.

June 24, 2013June 24, 2013

When entering details on the Lync and Skype Provisioning site an error occurs

When entering the access edge service FQDN and SIP Domain names on the Lync and Skype Provisioning site https://pic.lync.com you get an error on the top of the screen which says “You must specify all data using the western European character set.”

This is a strange one and seems to occur in all browsers, the only way I was able to resolve the situation was to navigate to the site in Internet Explorer 10 and use compatibility mode.

May 13, 2013June 3, 2013

10 tips for a Happy Hyper-V or VMWare Network

Make sure your external out of bound access is working. (if you are lucky enough to have it that is) There is nothing worse than having to trek to a remote site or drag someone out of bed just to go and press F1 on a keyboard. So test your iLO or IP KVM now and make sure It works over your remote access solution as well.
Keep an eye on those disks. (or better yet have an automated solution to monitor them for you) Not just on the guest machines but on your cluster shared volumes. It is a lot better to forecast a growth trend and plan for disk growth than it is to run out unexpected and suffer an outage or worse, corruption.
Test those backups. Virtualization makes it easier than ever to take portable backups of all your servers but have you ever tested them? It is much better to find out there is a problem in your business continuity plan in a test when everything is working than after a disaster so go plan a test now.
How many hosts can you lose? It is tempting to use all the available CPU and RAM on all your hosts but what happens when you have a failure? Even keeping at least enough spare capacity for the loss of one host can be a risky situation. This is especially true with Hyper-v; if you want to upgrade to the latest 2012 Hyper visor you will need to start again with a new cluster and move hosts over one at a time, so if you only have N+1 spare hosts during a migration you may well have no spare capacity to cope with loss of a host at all.
So where will we restore all these backups to? For all but the largest and most cash rich organizations an off-site backup datacentre is likely to be a dream. Get an agreement in place now for new hardware in the event of a DR situation or have an account ready with Azure/Amazon/Rackspace etc. to host all your guest machines. Once again, test it as the devil is in the details and have as much as possible pre-configured, there is nothing worse than battling firewall rules when a configuration could have been prepared and tested earlier.
Updates, plan ahead how you are going to deploy updates and when. Are you going to have them install automatically or will you need to test them in a dev environment now and deploy them to production later? Either way think about it now and plan accordingly, no one likes downtime and its always a good idea to keep all of your hosts on the same patch level.
Document everything. Something which during the initial build you know like the back of your hand will be quickly forgotten in a few months when you need to re-visit it for a change. What happens when you leave for a new job or fall under a bus? Your current employer will still need to keep things running and its never nice for the newcomer to walk into an undocumented environment where everything has to be worked out from scratch.
Log changes. If you have an official change control procedure then use it, but even if your organization doesn’t have any official change control, write down any changes you are making, in a helpdesk call, email or anywhere you can refer to if required. Better yet try to make changes in a pair. If both you and a colleague agree on a change it is less likely that you have forgotten something crucial and when you leave for your 3 week jungle adventure holiday there is someone else in the team who knows what was done.
Licensing. Make sure your windows hosts are all activated and any VMware hosts have the required license keys installed. You don’t want to have your grace period run out and leave you in the lurch. You have bought licenses haven’t you?
Security, access and auditing. You should know exactly who has access to what and have auditing enabled for all changes. Not so that you can apportion blame but so you know who to talk to about a particular change or can easily spot unauthorised or unexpected changes should they occur. Also “have a go” at your hosts and guests, check what services they have available and if necessary get a professional in to check your security. It is a lot nicer when a penetration tester finds a hole than a malicious hacker.

May 11, 2013May 21, 2013

System Center 2012 – Inside the Private Cloud

My three favorite parts of the System Center suite are Configuration Manager, Data protection Manager and Endpoint Protection. These three products work well at making most of the chores of running an IT environment lighter

Configuration Manager & Endpoint Protection

This is, in my opinion, the flagship product of the System Center Suite. Management of servers, workstations and even mobile devices is completed here and with Service Pack 1 an impressive list of operating systems and devices are supported including Linux and Mac OS. The mobile device manager has now been brought into Configuration manager as well. It is also within Configuration manager that you should deploy and manage Endpoint Protection. Endpoint Protection was formally known as Forefront Protection, and I really hope this product continues being supported and isn’t eventually dropped like other forefront products have been, such as TMG. If you are lucky enough to have the standard or Enterprise CAL already (and you really should if you are looking at System Center) then it might be that you can save a fair bit of money by ditching your current Antivirus vendor and moving to Endpoint.

Typically in the past I would have used standard windows deployment from a share or USB volume or another vendor’s solution such as Ghost as the configuration manager effort wasn’t always worth the reward. Deployments are now a lot easier and when tied with a decent collection of drivers and task sequences it is simple to quickly cater for a new situation or model of desktop or server.

Data Protection Manager

In my experience no backup solution is perfect and generally each has its strength and weaknesses. With the 2012 iteration of Data protection manager the Microsoft offering is looking to be more of the former and less of the latter.

DPM is great at backing up Microsoft own products and applications and I have been using it to back up nearly 2TB of Exchange data and a large SharePoint Farm as well.

DPM offers many of the features an enterprise backup solution should, such as continuous protection, differential and incremental backups as well as Disk to disk and Disk to Tape backups. I feel that it is only in the scheduling and retention options that DPM starts to fall down. Typically I like to keep daily data for a month, weekly data for 2-6 months, month end for 2 years and year end data for even longer but unfortunately the retention a scheduling options don’t really cater for this approach, you simply have a hard limit on how long you can retain backup data with disk to disk used for short term and a second schedule for long term tape backups. This leads to me using a different product to perform end of month backups simply so that I can keep them for longer than the other tape backups.

Generally DPM performs very well and can perform backups in shockingly fast order but it can have a tendency to occasionally mark replicas as bad or fail a snapshot only for it to succeed later without issue. Quite possibly a quirk of the environment I have evaluated it in but something which seems to happen with other solutions a lot less often. Also on upgrading on to sp1 be prepared to check the consistency of every replica and build the time taken for this into your upgrade plan.

Service pack 1 is definitely worth the upgrade as it sees a number of feature improvements such as support for deduplicated volumes and is the final piece in the puzzle to getting dedupe working on cheap hardware. With Windows Server 2012 and Data Protection Manager you can use deduped volumes without the need to buy expensive storage solutions and licenses. The useful extra features don’t end there, Cluster shared volumes can now be backed up as well as continuous protection of Hyper-V guest machines even while they are being live migrated.

Virtual Machine Manager

Virtual Machine Manager is to Hyper-V as vCentre server is to VMware. VMM is the only real additional software cost you will have to bare if you want to use a full Hyper-V clustered solution. (God help anyone who wants to manage a large cluster of Hyper-V hosts as individual servers) The thought obviously being that if Microsoft gives you the Hyper visor for free you won’t balk at paying for the management tools and I expect a good number of people will buy the System Center Suite simply to be able to run Virtual Machine Manager. If this sounds like you I hope you at least try the other parts of the System Center suite as they are worth a good look.

Orchestrator

Orchestrator is the centre point of the System Center suite and ties all of the other products together to make an intelligent workflow based automation solution. It is based on software Microsoft acquired when it purchased Opalis back in 2009.

Orchestrator makes sense in the larger environments or when a requirement for automation is present such as in managed hosting. It will likely be less use in smaller environments as the time taken to configure and automate tasks won’t have quite the same payback.

With Orchestrator it is possible to automate almost anything from deploying VMs through to recovering from an error condition in a service. You can even find Integration packs from various vendors which lets you control and automate them from Orchestrator.

Operations Manager

Operations Manager is Microsoft monitoring and alerting system and in the latest version it does a lot more than peer into event logs and give you a huge list of errors. As with the rest of the System Center Suite Service Pack 1 introduces support for Linux which enhances the appeal of Operations manager a little and the list of supported applications and devices seems to be constantly growing as well. No doubt pure Linux environments will be running Nagios or something similar but for mixed or pure Microsoft environments Operations manager is definitely one of the best out there.

Service Manager

Service Manager is the System Center component I have spent the least time looking at. It is hard to get excited about help desk solutions, especially when so many spend so long logged into them. Possibly the best feature of Service Manager is the auditing and reporting. If correctly configured with orchestrator Service Manager can help you to identify why problems are occurring or when changed were made which could have contributed to an issue. Service Manager doesn’t feel like the kind of product people would buy on its own, but if you have already paid for the full System Center suite you would have to be silly not to at least try it and as with all of the other solutions mentioned here, generally the longer you use them, the more you come to realise how powerful and they are.

Unified installer

There is a unified installer which is great for quickly deploying the whole System Center Suite and you can read all about my experience here I also urge you to click through some of the categories above for more System Center related posts.