Comments for Lessons Learned

Comment on SBS 2008 and Companyweb Offline by Anandamira

Anandamira — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:30:46 +0000

I ran into a very similar problem with the Internal Database and the SBS Console. When trying to add a user to a group, the SBS Console would crash and a Windows Event error would be generated with the following information:

SQL Database ‘ShareWebDb’ on SQL Server instance ‘np:\\.\pipe\MSSQL$Microsoft##SSEE\sql\query’ not found. Additional error information from SQL Server is included below.

Cannot open database “ShareWebDb” requested by the login. The login failed.
Login failed for user ‘MyDomain\myuser’.

After a fair bit of frustrating Googling, I ran across your blog entry and tried just restarting the Internal Database service. The problem went away with no further action necessary.

Comment on Connecting iPhone 2.0 to an Exchange Server by Fernando Torres, MSc

Fernando Torres, MSc — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:38:39 +0000

Worked like a charm, the domain/username may havedone it! Thanks a lot!

Comment on Recovering “Hidden” Disk Space Used on SBS 2008 C: partitions by Andy Helsby

Andy Helsby — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:11:48 +0000

100gb here too – With Symantec endpoint protection Manager 11.0.4 and a 10mb internet connection you can kiss about 73gb of disk space goodbye. Upgrading to 11.0.5 and then manually deleting the temp definition files it downloaded at the beginning of the month will get it all back.

We actually (used to) use windirstat as it was quick and portable, but I found that it was not reporting files such as the csc and volume shadow copy data (although this could also be a runas administrator issue).
Other issues I’ve had in the past have also been powerchute and backupexec logs – both applications have had bugs where the log file does not get truncated.
Last but not least – filling up disk space on the data protection is the itunes synched “my music” folders in everyone’s my documents. Well worth turning off the my music (and photos) redirection and leaving that back on the local hard disk.

Comment on Recovering “Hidden” Disk Space Used on SBS 2008 C: partitions by Q

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:37:32 +0000

Yes, the WSS transaction log DB is another major contributor to unexpected disk space usage. Kevin Weilbacher has what I consider the definitive post on shrinking those logs: http://msmvps.com/blogs/kwsupport/archive/2008/12/10/sbs-2008-and-sharepoint-log-file.aspx. Useful for the periodic cleansing of those files...

Comment on Recovering “Hidden” Disk Space Used on SBS 2008 C: partitions by Brian Jones

Brian Jones — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:14:49 +0000

I had the exact some issue on my install of SBS 2008. I learned from my experience with SBS 2003 that 60 GB is not enough for a C partition. I too went with 100 GB. Recently Exchange stopped mail delivery due to hitting a low disk space threshold. I too used TreeSize to find the problem. My issue was with the WSS database transaction logs. Even though the content and config databases were less than 100MB total, the 2 ldf files were about 9 GB each! I had to truncate them and shrink the files down to recover the room.

Comment on Profile Missing in SBS 2008 Connect Computer Tool by Jarda

Jarda — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:14:08 +0000

Mike,
Your “This user profile already exists” fix is perfect.

Thanks

Comment on Profile Missing in SBS 2008 Connect Computer Tool by Petr Wogurka

Petr Wogurka — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:49:32 +0000

Thanks Mike, your fix to “This user profile already exists” message works for me great.

Comment on Profile Missing in SBS 2008 Connect Computer Tool by John

John — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:49:08 +0000

Extremely helpful!!! Thanks Mr. Q.

Comment on Profile Missing in SBS 2008 Connect Computer Tool by Mike Robinson

Mike Robinson — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:54:33 +0000

I figured I would add this here since it’’s the only page I found while searching for an answer to this problem. When I was getting the “This user profile already exists” message, I was able to get rid of it by removing the profile key from HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionProfileList. Look in the various keys at the ProfileImagePath value to determine which one to delete.

Comment on Connecting iPhone 3.x to Exchange by Q

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:50:19 +0000

Hm. What version of Exchange? Running Exchange without an SSL certificate is generally regarded as a bad idea. The iPhone will connect with a self-signed SSL certificate, I honestly don”t know what it will do with a server that has no certificate as I”ve not tested that scenario.

If the calendar and contacts are syncing, then the connection is working. I”d actually come closer to suspecting that there’’s a corrupt message in your mailbox somewhere. The best test for this is to try to connect the iPhone to a test account on the Exchange server that has no e-mail in the mailbox and see if it will connect. If so, then there’’s a problem with the messages in your mailbox, and you”ll have to dig around to find the problem message and delete it or move it into a folder that the iPhone is not trying to sync.

The other thing you can do is go to http://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com and make sure there is not some other problem that might be interfering with the connection. You will want to run the Exchange ActiveSync test (without AutoDiscover) to test the connection the iPhone will use.

Comment on Connecting iPhone 3.x to Exchange by Kem

Kem — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:00:39 +0000

Okay, I followed the instructions however the iPhone still will not connect to my email. I can sync Calendar and Contacts but not email. My IT dept says this is because we do not have an SSL certificate on our mail server. Do you know if there is a workaround for that?

Comment on Connecting iPhone 2.0 to an Exchange Server by Connecting iPhone 3.x to Exchange :: Lessons Learned

Connecting iPhone 3.x to Exchange :: Lessons Learned — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:58:56 +0000

[...] originally posted instructions for configuring an iPhone 2.0 device to an Exchange server back when the iPhone 3G was originally released. While those instructions still hold for the most [...]

Comment on Allocated Memory Alerts by Riaz

Riaz — Thu, 21 May 2009 05:47:54 +0000

Thank you for this useful information. Have been receiving these for a little while.. and while knowing the specs of the machine are more than capable, and nothing has been tweaked outside of the regular SBS 2003 wizards etc….was a little curious why the warnings kept coming through.

This has resolved it.
Thanks agian.

Comment on MSExchangeOMA 1503 by Neil

Neil — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:14:20 +0000

THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I Would never have found that in a billion years! Happy customers! All users lost ability to sync their windows Mobile phones to exchange. After appplying this to all users and a restart of their phones, sanity was returned! THANKYOU!

Comment on Remotely Restarting an SBS Server When Remotely Restarting the Server Didn’t Work by Troubleshooting Tale: Remote Access Loss on Server :: Lessons Learned

Troubleshooting Tale: Remote Access Loss on Server :: Lessons Learned — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:33:06 +0000

[...] happening during Update Weekend. Sometimes a patch will yield unexpected results, sometimes you lose access to the server after initiating a restart (and yet the server doesn’t actually restart), and so on. Well, this past weekend was no [...]

Comment on Connecting a Macintosh running Mac OS 10.5 to an SBS 2003 Server by Q

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:44:31 +0000

Yes, you still need to disable SMB signing in SBS 2008. It’s still a Domain Controller, so by default it still has SMB signing enabled by default. I’ve had no issues with the Macs I have in my supported networks connecting to SBS 2008 boxes.

Comment on Connecting a Macintosh running Mac OS 10.5 to an SBS 2003 Server by Matt

Matt — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:23:10 +0000

Any feedback on whether this method is still fine for SBS 2008?
Do we still need to disable SMB signing???

Comment on MSExchangeOMA 1503 by Jim

Jim — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:18:25 +0000

Thank you very much for this. Been pulling my hair out for 24 hours. Your a legend!

Comment on Connecting iPhone 2.0 to an Exchange Server by Tim

Tim — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:26:37 +0000

The “https://mail.smallbizco.net/exchange, then enter mail.smallbizco.net in the Server field.” was the trick for me. I used the /exchange at the end and it would not connect. Great job and Thanks a lot!

Comment on Allocated Memory Alerts by David Allen

David Allen — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:33:34 +0000

Thanks, good clear information – Did the trick for me.