The IT ecosystem is rich with network monitoring systems (NMS). Each NMS has different capabilities, costs, and purposes in life. It is commonplace for me to come into a business that has invested in an NMS that doesn’t fit all their needs. You might ask, “What does this have to do with creating a Windows service?” [...]
Retrieving Password from Application Pool
I came across an undocumented app the other day. For a number of reasons, we needed to restore the password but it wasn’t documented anywhere. Luckily, the service account was setup in an app pool. In IIS 7.0 or 7.5, APPCMD can be used to recover the password. In 6.0, adsutil.vbs can be used. cscript.exe [...]
The Power of Scripting: Finding Morto.A
Here I go on another vbScript tutorial. You might ask why I’m not doing this in powershell yet and it is simple: I still run into 2003 and XP environments. Oh yeah, and this works. I don’t care what scripting language I’m writing in if it gets the job done; you shouldn’t either. My $0.02. [...]
Microsoft Releases Windows 8 Developer Preview
Microsoft has released the Windows 8 Developer Preview. This download is a full version of the pre-beta Windows 8 build and is chock full of disclaimers regarding its stability. Needless to say, I had to download it and give it a shot. The download (2.8GB to 4.8GB) can be found linked off the front page of [...]
Installing Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1 Fails At Mailbox Role: Database is mandatory on UserMailbox.
In a recent incident, an Exchange server had a complete volume failure during testing. Exchange 2010 was reinstalled but when installing Service Pack 1, it failed upgrading the Mailbox Role. Upon reviewing the log, I found the following line: Database is mandatory on UserMailbox. Property Name: Database The error doesn’t explain the problem very well [...]
Exchange 2007+: Aliases have invalid data
Twice in the past two weeks, I have come across Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 migrations which went uncompleted. In both cases, I received the following error(s) when trying to view the properties of a recipient with spaces in its alias or when viewing the properties of the offline address book: The properties on have [...]
Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner
Most people have a fear of taking their vehicle to the mechanic for even the simplest tasks just to find out they need their transfunctioner adjusted because of wear to the driver’s side steering widget. For many in the SMB market, that same fear can be found in their technology investments. “Did that last IT [...]
All Your VoIP Are Belong To Us
Looks like Microsoft is adding to its VoIP offerings. Skype should make a nice addition to their recent push with the combined services of OCS and Live Meeting in Lync. Should be an interesting day to watch the MSFT stock. The price tag keeps going up. First I heard $7 billion. Then $8.5 billion. Yikes! [...]
vbScript: Tweaking Power Settings (disabling hibernate and standby)
As is often the case in IT, when you need to push out that software package or migrate that computer to a new domain, it isn’t on the network. This has come up several times in the past year and I wanted to share my solution. Now, this isn’t the “greenest” solution because this will [...]
Webcast: Dell, Hyper-V and System Center Goodness
Removing Virtualization Barriers and Simplifying Management with A Frameless Storage Solution and Microsoft System Center Virtualization is no longer just an IT buzzword –your customers are asking for it, and you’re ready to deliver. But with the different types of storage hardware and protocol choices in the market, are you prepared to offer the best [...]
