There is an issue with using “previous versions” (shadow copies) in Windows 7 when using it on folders stored on a Small Business Server 2003. The issue is that you cannot get to the previous versions. Read more about the solution at the SBS blog.
Tag: small business server
Problem logging into computers using SBS 2008 RWW?
A few months ago I did some troubleshooting on Remote Web Workplace in Small Business Server 2008. The problem was with users being able to login to the RWW portal but when they tried to authenticate to their computer or Terminal Server via the Remote Web Workplace they just couldn’t login to the machines.
The simple solution to this problem was to activate Windows Authentication on the RPC virtual site of SBS Applications in the Internet Information Services Manager console.
The reason I am writing this is that some time ago I helped another user which experiences the same problem and if you ever encounter it you now know what to do to solve it.
HOW TO: Clean out Windows\Installer folder correctly
May 16, 2009
SBS 2003, SBS 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP
8 Comments
When disk space is running out on a system disk, may it be on a server or a client, there are certain things to clean out. One of them being the %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Windows\Installer folder. You cannot under any circumstances delete files from this folder manually as this not only may but most likely will break software that is installed using MSI files, or Windows Installer files.
The %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Windows\Installer folder is a cache for installation files and patches (MSP files) and removing those will cause you to not being able to repair or uninstall applications, and in some cases not removing patches or applying new patches to software. In the event when you actually did delete this cache you can rebuild the files you need manually by extracting the files from original installation media, from patch packages etc but this is a time consuming and not that easy task to accomplish.
But let me get to the point. If you do want to free disk space you can clean out the %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Windows\Installer folder by downloading Windows Installer Cleanup Utility (NOTE: This tool has been retired and is no longer available from Microsoft) and then running the command
msizap.exe G!
When running this, the installer and patch packages are enumerated and unreferenced packages are considered to be safe to delete and are thereby also deleted. Depending on the age of the system and the number of applications installed, this action can free a significant amount of disk space.
Run companyweb on port 443 in SBS 2008
In Small Business Server 2003 the standard port for companyweb was 444 but for Small Business Server 2008 this changed to port 987. A major problem in some cases is the fact that many companies are very restrictive when it comes to having ports open in their firewalls. This makes companyweb useless for many users. The solution is to put companyweb on the same port as the site SBS Web Applications, port 443 which is open in almost all firewalls out there.
This is achieved by running the below command from the directory \inetpub\adminscripts. Note though that you have to put in the ID of the SBS SharePoint site which can be found by marking “Sites” in IIS Manager.
cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set /w3svc/<IDFORSBSSHAREPOINT>/SecureBindings ":443:companyweb.contoso.com"
After running this command and restarting the web service the companyweb can be reached by browsing to the address https://companyweb.contoso.com. There might be some problems with for example page not displaying without adding default.aspx or browsing document libraries so do not forget to also change the alternate access mappings. This is done in SharePoint Central Administration > Operations > Global configuration > Alternate access mappings. Change the entry which points to the site with port 987 and instead enter the name as you did for companyweb.contosoe.com in the above command.
Mysterious error/warning in SBS 2008 BPA
When running the Best Practice Analyzer on a Small Business Server 2008 some time ago I received a critical error:
DNS A resource record points to incorrect IP address
The host (A) resource record points to the incorrect IP address 192.168.0.10192.168.0.17. The record should point to 192.168.0.10.
As we can see the two IP addresses have mysteriously become one. The first being the IP address of the SBS 2008 server and the second one being the RAS IP address. The BPA team gave the following answer:
That is an issue we are looking into, and it appears to be a possible issue with how the object processor is doing the DNS check. At this point, a possible workaround (if you are having this show up in the Other Alerts of the SBS Console) would be to schedule a task to run at say 2:04am to do a “net stop remoteaccess ” then another task that runs at say 2:07 am to do a net start remoteaccess. The SBS 2008 BPA by default should be scheduled to run at 2:05am when it is integrating in with the SBS console. If the second IP address listed is the IP address of the dial-in interface of RRAS then you should be able to ignore that error.
Gain access to Operations and Application Management in SharePoint in SBS2008
Some time ago I migrated a client’s Small Business Server 2003 to a Small Business Server 2008. When migrating their WSS 2.0 SharePoint from the old server to the new one I ran into some problems. I just could not get access to the Operations or Application management in SharePoint Central Administration, with the below event logged.
Log Name: Application Source: ASP.NET 2.0.50727.0 Date: 2009-02-26 13:23:42 Event ID: 1314 Task Category: Web Event Level: Information Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: CONTOSOSRV02.Contoso.local Description: Event code: 4007 Event message: URL authorization failed for the request. Event time: 2009-02-26 16:21:50 Event time (UTC): 2009-02-26 15:21:50 Event ID: 0087e3fc2a3440178e6a801602c514f7 Event sequence: 113 Event occurrence: 6 Event detail code: 0 Application information: Application domain: /LM/W3SVC/1899589246/ROOT-1-128801351457937683 Trust level: WSS_Minimal Application Virtual Path: / Application Path: C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\4721\ Machine name: CONTOSOSRV02 Process information: Process ID: 7888 Process name: w3wp.exe Account name: CONTOSO\Administrator Request information: Request URL: http://contososrv02:4721/_admin/operations.aspx Request path: /_admin/operations.aspx User host address: ::1 User: CONTOSO\tempadmin Is authenticated: True Authentication Type: Negotiate Thread account name: CONTOSO\tempadmin
After doing som troubleshooting I got everything working by editing the web.config file of the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\ADMIN directory. I simply added the line below to the file, saved it and then I could access the Operations and Application Management of SharePoint Central Administration.
<allow roles="CONTOSO\WSS_ADMIN_WPG" />
Case closed!