Techno Button Master

I recently went to Japan, To my surprise you need to buy the Japan Rail Pass before you leave your home country!

So I ended up spending much more seeing much less. SO MAKE SURE YOU GET IT BEFORE YOU LEAVE!!!!!!!!!

www.japanrailpass.net/eng/en003.html

I had a real problem getting good information on the ports required for the servers.

Here is what I have (you can confirm)

All 2008 R2 X64 fully patched (IPv6 Disabled)

MBX Server
TCP    0.0.0.0:6001           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
TCP    [::]:6001              [::]:0                 LISTENING

CAS Server
TCP    0.0.0.0:6001           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
TCP    0.0.0.0:6002           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
TCP    0.0.0.0:6004           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
TCP    0.0.0.0:6005           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
TCP    0.0.0.0:6006           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
TCP    0.0.0.0:6007           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
TCP    0.0.0.0:6008           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING

TCP    [::]:6001              [::]:0                 LISTENING
TCP    [::]:6002              [::]:0                 LISTENING
TCP    [::]:6004              [::]:0                 LISTENING
TCP    [::]:6005              [::]:0                 LISTENING
TCP    [::]:6006              [::]:0                 LISTENING
TCP    [::]:6007              [::]:0                 LISTENING
TCP    [::]:6008              [::]:0                 LISTENING

Active Directory Domain Controller

TCP    0.0.0.0:6004           0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
TCP    [::]:6004              [::]:0                 LISTENING

Basically you need to disable the activesync policy sync the phone and then re-enable it.

see this : http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=11177#c56 ( I only did part 2)

1) Remove the Android mobile devces affected from each users mailboxes.

2) Remove the Default (and any other ActiveSync) policy using EMC  -- Remove-ActiveSyncMailboxPolicy -id <Default>

         Note: this will set all user to no activesync policy (this is what we want temporarily)....

3) Setup the Andriod phones to sync and let them get past the initial syncronization.

4) Recreated the ActiveSync Policy and set it back to default - (this will reapply the policy to all mailboxes).

I was checking out the Forefront console ( I have been deploying many virtual servers/clients) for my studying, I came across alot of old stale computer records (see image1), I wanted to quickly remove old records that have not made contact for a few days, as they are messing with the reports etc. (see link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2272146 )
Basically run the tool on the FCS Server, you can choose the date/time to delete from, I would check the log before actually applying the /doremove switch.

Get the tool here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2272146 (you need to request it to be sent)

I recently bought the New Sony Z. I ended up getting the model without DVD/BD mainly because I really never use DVDs anymore and I dont even use blueray on a laptop.

So dropping blueray saves me around £500.00 on the total price, but I also lose SSD as an option.I did wonder why but as you will see there is a reason for this (DVD+SSD or NODVD+SATA)

My specs are:

• Description : Laptop VPC-Z12V
  Configurable Price : £1.500~
  Optical Drive : No DVD disc drive
  Hard drive : 320 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm) (upgraded to SSD now)
  Wireless LAN : Wireless LAN + Bluetooth®
  Processor : Intel® CoreTM i7-620M, 2.66GHz
  Ports : 3 USB Ports
  Display : 33.3 cm LCD, 1920×1080, webcam
  Graphics : NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M 1GB
  Finishes : Black
  Memory : 8 GB 1066MHz DDR3
  Connectivity : Wireless WAN
  Security features : Security features

So a question is, why do all this? What do you really gain?

Ok, so you lose about 200GB of space, also you have to buy a SSD and then risk breaking your warranty, the benifits are huge but I will put it all here.

• Pros
  • Much faster HDD speed (think 200MB/s)
  • Quieter operation – no spinning up/down etc
  • Better battery – (?)
  • Shock Proof
• Cons
  • Expensive
  • Warranty issues
  • loss of storage space
  • lifetime

For me, I prefer a fast laptop why get i7 and 8gb ram and then use a 5400RPM hdd? I dont understand the logic here. Why not install a 7200RPM by default (sony?) so here is my rough guide to upgrading the HDD.

What you will need.

1. Small screwdriver
2. (128GB) SSD drive 2.5″ standard sata style
3. 1 hour of time
4. Balls to kill your warranty (not that I can tell how they can tell)

Firstly, Sorry for the image quality, I used a phone with no light.

• Disassembly& Reassembly
• Please note, there is nothing hard about this. Just go slow and double check what you are doing. Nothing really to say as its easy.
  • remove the battery and all removable parts (pcmcia blank etc)
  • unscrew the screws, I usually would bunch them based on where they came from, front middle back etc. What is good on this one is that the screws are only 2 lengths and they cannot cross, so no mixing up.
  • Remove the old HDD and install the SSD, reassemble and you are done.
  • Windows 7 U installed in 20 minutes. Really its so fast. Much better.
    

Here you can see the bottom of the laptop

gently pull apart the laptop, remember to unhock the keyboard cable inside gently (dont just pull it apart all the way)

Lift the keyboard off and you can see the internals. notice the SATA drive is in the DVD bay? there is still space for a small SSD front and center (next time, raid!)

Unscrew the bracket holding the HDD in. then just remove and unplug, remember do all this carefully as SONY connectors are weak sometimes. replace with the SSD and then put all back together

As you can see, installed nicely!

All good, now install windows

How is it? Installed windows in < 20 minutes.. nice ! (also around 200MB/s xfer!)

Ok After a lot of searching, I have finallay found how to capture Windows 7 & The custom profile settings. Its not as intuitive as Windows XP.

You need to read this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2101557 but essentially its a process of:

• logging in as local\Administrator
• Customising Windows (start menu, desktop etc)
• Creating an “unattended.xml” using WAIK (for windows 7) and placing in the sysprep folder
• Running the “Capture Media”
• Deploying Windows 7 using the xml created before.

I rough guide here.

1. Install Windows 7
2. Choose any default username & login
3. Goto Computer Management & User Accounts
4. Enable the local\administator account
5. Delete the user accounts except local\Administator
6. Reboot
7. Apply all the customisations
8. Save the Unattended.xml to %windir%\system32\sysprep\unattended.xml
9. Insert SCCM Capture media & capture
10. When deploying, Make sure you apply the XML as part of the TS
    

Links:

http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/2224-how-to-copy-default-profile-during-sccm-sysprep/

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2101557http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/configmgrosd/thread/8869ebaa-15ec-4e6d-a0f2-e476d1ae66dc#cd98f098-b397-4be6-9637-f0e848d3693a

http://www.leinss.com/vistadeploy.html

This will restore the NTFS persmission for Windows XP (Pro)

Run CMD

secedit /configure /db secedit.sdb /cfg %SystemRoot%\inf\defltwk.inf /overwrite /verbose

I know there are many guides around, The only difference here is that I want to do the quicker (alot infact) format, instead of the normal slow one.

To do this, you need an existing Vista/7 Machine and a USB Stick.

1. Insert USB stick
2. Open Command (cmd.exe) as administrator
3. type (followed by enter)
   1. diskpart
   2. list disk
      1. You should note the disk that is your USB drive (disk 1 or 2 etc, not usually disk 0)
   3. Select disk 1
      1. If disk 1 is the correct one for your USB drive
   4. Clean
      1. This will WIPE the disk drive completly
   5. Create partition primary
      1. this will create a new partition that will use 100% of the space on the USB drive
   6. Select partition 1
      1. selecting the newly created partition
   7. Active
      1. activates the partition
   8. Format fs=fat32 quick
      1. this will format the partition in fat32 quickly
   9. assign
      1. assign drive letter
   10. exit
4. Now you can just copy all the files on the CD/DVD/ISO to the newly created partition on the USB Drive.

Some notes: FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB, meaning you cannot copy any single file that is larger than this. Many DVD ISO are larger than 4GB and you might forget the filesystem type in the months to come

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32

notes taken from http://www.techmixer.com/install-windows-vista-from-bootable-usb-flash-memory-drive/

its here, took me a while to track it down.

ccmcertfix

Usage is pretty easy, run as an administrator on the local machine you want to fix.

To deploy to the network I use psexec and do the following.

psexec -u domain\administrator -p passwordofadmin \\* \\someserver\path\to\ccmcerfix.exe

note that the \\* will do all computers on the network.

I have been using DPM 2007 for a few months now and here are a collection of thoughts and annoyances.

Automaticly resolve alerts

Basically, when you get an alert such as “Replica Inconsistant” due to any number of issues you will be sent an alert and also one is logged in the Alerts tab, This is fine and very useful although if the issue is fixed (server back online, service running again etc) the alert will just sit there, gathering dust. Should it not just go away into some other (closed/repaired) area or filter? I mean its getting silly. (see image)

Windows 2003 System States

This has been the biggest problem for me, I have yet to workout what is going on (fully) but it seems that if for any reason you get an error/warning related to the backup of system_state (in event log) it will cause a failed backup. In my case the error is related to Certificate Services, its a warning and using NTbackup it will backup fine, but with DPM all I get is errors and failures. I will it would just do a Competed backup (dirty mabey)

Agent Installation

The agent installation is seamless and quick, but it would be good if it enabled firewall exceptions on install.

On a good note, It is miles better than anything else. I feel very confident with the backups and so far have had no issues that require a large recovery or a loss of critical data. I highly recommend this for admins that do not have endless time to manage backups and monitor for issues. It is a simple but very effective solution to a nessicary requirement.

J