Test Layout

I just completed a new install of DPM for a client on a new server. The number of servers is fairly small. So, it wasn't worthwhile to migrate the existing backups to the new server. Instead, I just did a new install of DPM and reinstalled the DPM client software to point them at the new server. After doing the initial backups, all looked good except for a generation 2 virtual machine running Windows Server 2012 R2. This server has the error Replica is inconsistent for Bare Metal Recovery and System State . All other data backed up fine. Most of the problems I've ever had with DPM were due to Windows Backup not being installed on the server being backed up. Usually, installing that feature fixes any issues. However, in this case it was already installed. Which makes sense because the servers were being backed up successfully by the other DPM server. The application event log gave me: Event ID: 517, Error The backup operation that started at DateAndTime has failed with the fo...

Had an interesting issue on a new Dell server this week. Normally we are installing Windows Server 2012 R2 but a client had a requirement for Windows 2008 R2 on this particular server to run DPM 2010. Did our usual installation route, but the install hung at the first screen where you select language and keyboard settings. Initially I thought this might be occurring because I had the ISO mounted remotely through the iDRAC, but the same error occured on site too. It turns out that the problem was due to USB 3.0 drivers. The newest Dell servers have only USB 3.0 ports and Windows Server 2008 R2 does not include USB 3.0 drivers, only USB 2.0 drivers. For the higher end R430/T430 servers you can change the USB support to 2.0 in the BIOS for installing older operating systems. For the R330/T330 and lower, it isn't possible to turn off USB 3.0 in the BIOS. Ultimately the solution was to inject USB 3.0 drivers into the Windows Server 2008 R2 install media. Which sounds like a giant pain b...

Spam with attached malware has been going crazy lately. It's a complaint that all of our clients are dealing with. Antispam software doesn't seem to be able to keep up with new variants that are showing up each day. Many of the spam messages spoof your domain in the sender address. For example, I might receive a spam message from admin@conexion.ca when my email address is in the conexion.ca domain. Fortunately, in Exchange Server, we can modify the Internet receive connector to block messages from your accepted domains. This means that emails with your domains as the From address will not be accepted from the Internet. To block inbound messages from our own domain, we remove the extended AD permission ms-exch-smtp-accept-authoritative-domain-sender for the anonymous user on the Internet receive connector. Assuming that have already identified that connector, the following command removes the permission: Get-ReceiveConnector "Internet" | Get-ADPermission -User "NT...

Normally when you create a user account in Windows 10, the first thing asked is How will this person sign in?" This identifies whether  the account is a local account or a Microsoft account. Today as I was developing some course material for user accounts in Windows 10, this screen was missing from my laptop. Instead, it went directly in to asking for account information for a local user account. After much searching around, I finally figured out that my laptop had no network connectivity. I had just installed a Windows Insider build and the new build killed WiFi on my laptop. Once the WiFi connectivity was restored the new account wizard behaved as expected. I expect you would see the same behaviour in Windows 8.1 when disconnected from the network.

I got a comment back from a technical editor today that I didn't need quotes around the path in a CD command at the command prompt. I was surprised because the path included spaces. However, after testing, it's true! In the past I would have done: cd "folder1\foldername with spaces" However, this version (without quotes) works just as well: cd folder1\foldername with spaces Since it worked in Windows 10, I tried out Windows 8.1. It works in Windows 8.1 too. It's funny the little things you learn sometimes.

Ran into an odd issue with Outlook running slow when in online mode and accessing a mailbox on Exchange Server 2013. Not actually my client, but trying to help out a colleague. Also, not actually my fix, my colleague Patrick figured it out. The scenario: Outlook 2007 clients with minimum updates to work with Exchange 2013 Exchange 2013 CU4 (SP1) Legacy software that makes upgrading client and server problematic Exchange 2013 running on physical server works fine. Migrated mailboxes to DAG and CAS running as VMWare VMs and Outlook is slow. As there was a lot of legacy stuff in this environment, every good computer geek likes to blame old stuff. However, that didn't change the fact it all worked fine on the physical server, but not the virtual ones. So, the overall configuration while not optimal, should have been functional. We looked at standard stuff like misconfigured URLs, certificate configuration, antivirus configuration, resources allocated to the VMs. None of it seemed to be...

After doing some experimenting, I have determined the following about secure time in Windows 10: Secure time is updated when the computer goes to sleep or is shut down. This makes sense and I believe it is used to ensure that Windows has a reasonable time change and protect against irrational time sources. So, you want to compare time on startup against when it was last shut down. The registry keys use UTC time. When I read the time in SecureTimeEstimated and apply the correct time zone, then it matches the time the computer was put to sleep or shut down. SecureTimeEstimated seems to be the time of shutdown or going to sleep. SecureTimeHigh is one hour later than SecureTimeEstimated. SecureTimeLow is one hour earlier than SecureTimeEstimated. To view these values yourself you can use the following PowerShell code: [datetime]$(Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\SecureTimeLimits).SecureTimeEstimated [datetime]$(Get-ItemProperty HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet...

Windows 10 has a new feature for time synchronization called secure time. The problem is that I haven't been able to find any documentation on it. What secure time seems to do is prevent significant time changes that are considered unreasonable. I believe it's new because there is no documentation at this time and because the registry keys for it don't exist in Windows 8.1, but do in Windows 10. Here is the problem I ran into with secure time..... As part of course development, we have a base image of Windows 10 with Office 2016 installed. We use this base as a starting point for differencing drives in course VMs, but this would also apply to an image you deploy to new workstations. This issue occurred even with just the base drive deployed. When I had a VM using the base drive, it would run fine for about half an hour and then the time would reset back to December 3rd. This is approximately when the base drive was created. Time in the VM would then bounce back and forth be...