leedesmond’s blog

- Risk and Health Assessment Program for Active Directory - Scoping Tool v1.3
- Infrastructure Planning and Design v1.0
- Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) 2010 Evaluation Version
- Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) Documentation
- Getting to Know Hyper-V: A Walkthrough from Initial Setup to Common Scenarios v1.0
- Code Name Dublin Tutorials (November 2009)

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008 R2, Forefront, Security, Hyper-V R2

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On many Microsoft download sites, it it likely that you have to use the Microsoft File Transfer Manager in order to transfer large files, typically over 2GB in size, with Internet Explorer. First time users will see the gold information bar prompting:

This website wants to install the following add-on: ‘Microsoft File Transfer Manager (Build 5.0.0.32)’ from ‘Microsoft Corporation’. If you trust the website and the add-on and want to install it, click here…

Clicking on the gold bar and selecting “Install This Add-on for All Users on This Computer…” will cause the User Account Control (UAC) security prompt to appear. Once you acknowledge it, you may encounter the error message:

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VBScript: Microsoft File Transfer Manager
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There was an error launching File Transfer Manager.

If you are running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, this installation may have been blocked.  If the gold IE Information Bar is present above, please click the bar and select the option to ‘Install ActiveX’.

For additional assistance, please visit the web site https://transfers.ds.microsoft.com, or contact your help provider.
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OK
—————————

To resolve this, make sure that you are running the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer 8 and not the 64-bit Edition that is separately available as part of the Windows Seven or Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 operating system.

Technorati tags: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2

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Update: OCS 2007 R2 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (31.03.2010)

—
A very commonly asked question in the OCS TechNet Forums is the deployment of Windows Server 2008 R2 with Office Communications Server 2007 R2. This latest operating system is NOT yet supported as a domain controller, global catalog or base operating system to run OCS itself. Additionally, the supported domain and forest functional levels (DFL, FFL) are Windows Server 2003 / 2008 only.

Similarly, support of Exchange Server 2007 running on Windows Server 2008 R2 is planned for the next release of Exchange service pack (SP3). Note that Exchange 2007 SP2 is already compatible in an environment with Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controllers today.

See also:
- Supported Active Directory Environments by Office Communications Server Version
- Microsoft Server Applications Supported on Windows Server 2008 R2
- Exchange Server 2007 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008 R2, LCS/OCS, OCS 2007 R2, Exchange Server

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Windows Server 2008 R2 has a revamped Windows Server Backup Feature that improves on the version delivered in RTM. In particular, it is now possible to run customized backup targeting volumes, files or folders. The Backup Once / “Custom” backup configuration enables backup in the following categories:

- Bare metal recovery
- System state
- individual files or folders on local drives

Unlike the good old NT Backup application, no network drives (UNC or networked mapped ones) is available for backup using the Custom option via the Wizard. You can define backup exclusions as well as VSS Settings - Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) full Backup or VSS copy Backup where the latter is the default.

As a backup destination, you have a choice of “Local drives” or “Remote shared folder”. Local drives include direct attached storage (DAS), externally attached disk, iSCSI Targets or optical media. You must explicitly exclude any of these volumes if they are selected as the backup destination; else:

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Windows Server Backup
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The selected volume is also included in the list of items to back up.

Do you want to exclude this volume from the backup items?
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OK   Cancel
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Only full volume recovery is supported if the backup destination is stored on a DVD i.e. restoration of individual files, folders or application data is not possible with Windows Server Backup.

On the other hand, if the destination type is “Remote shared folder”, you have to specify a UNC path pointing to an existing NT share, else:

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Windows Server Backup
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Windows Server Backup is unable to access the remote shared folder.
The backup destination specified by the remote shared folder does not exist.
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OK
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A new folder “WindowsImageBackup” will be automatically created on the remote shared folder to save the backup data. You can control access to the backup by choosing “Do not inherit” instead of the pre-selected “Inherit” access control option. The former will mark the backup with the credentials you need to specify when prompted by the Wizard.

If you start off with the “Full server (recommended)” backup option instead, your experience will be almost the same. The exception is that you are not asked to pick any files or folders as source for backup with the advanced option already set to VSS Copy Backup (not configurable in the GUI). The backup items automatically selected include bare metal recovery, system state and all local disk drives.

See also:
Windows Server Backup Overview (R2)
New Backup Features in Windows Server 2008 R2 (TechNet Edge)
Backup and Recovery

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008 R2, Security

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When you attempt Setp 6: Start Services at deploying an OCS 2007 R2 Standard or Enterprise Edition Server, one or more of the following errors appear and details are captured in the logs:

Failure
[0×80070533] Logon failure: account currently disabled.

and/or

Action Warning: Failed to bind to object on GC. It’s because either the object hasn’t replicated to GC or no forest GC is available.

and/or

Failure
[0xC3EC7A3E] There are still conference directories associated with this pool when attempting to remove pool. Please move the conferences before removing the pool.

and/or

Failure
[0xC3EC796C] One or more errors occurred during execution of the wizard; the wizard was unable to complete successfully. Please check the log file for more information.

This can be attributed to replication or latency issues affecting the newly created RTCService or RTCComponent accounts in your AD environment, or password synchronization may not yet have completed. Once sufficient time is given for replication to propagate to domain controllers and Global Catalog servers in AD, you can rerun this step and expect no more of the failure logs as noted.

Technorati tags: LCS/OCS, OCS 2007 R2

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Group Chat Database Sizing Tool
- Straightforward spreadsheet to determine database size growth metric for OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat base on key factors such as usage, message size, time. This should be used with the Group Chat Capacity Planning.

Office Communications Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer (beta)
- Ideal tool to test, troubleshoot and diagnose OCS 2007 RTM / R2 Edge Server deployment and connectivity issues.

Technorati tags: LCS/OCS, OCS 2007 R2

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Running Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in a Virtualized Topology:
Best Practices and Performance Considerations (link)

This is an update of the Microsoft white paper describing the virtualization support policy for Office Communications Server 2007 R2. In a nutshell, the supported workloads remain unchanged i.e. Instant Messaging, Presence and Group Chat. The product is not designed to support virtualized real-time traffic as there is no guarantee of stable performance and scalability for production use nor consistent, acceptable user experience at this point in time.

To quote …

Enterprise Voice, Remote Call Control (RCC), Response Group Service, dial-In conferencing, audio/video conferencing, Web conferencing, and Communicator Web Access desktop sharing workloads are not supported in a virtualized Office Communications Server 2007 R2 deployment. This occurs because of several factors, including packet loss, delay, jitter, and clock skew.

Further …

Desktop virtualization is not supported. The client should be installed on physical client computers.

Depending on your strategic goals, environment and user base, this may not necessarily be of any relevance, importance or concern from a usability or (official Microsoft) supportability perspective. Obviously your mileage may vary and the risks associated with deploying a virtualized topology may be tolerable for a limited number of concurrent users running any form of time sensitive traffic.

Technorati tags: LCS/OCS, OCS 2007, Virtualization

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Unified Communications and Live Meeting Training Rollout Plan
- Get hold of this reference to help plan for your UC/Live Meeting training using the content included in the UC Adoption and Training Kit.

Getting Started with the Microsoft Office Live Meeting Client for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2
- invest time and learn how to setup/configure/join meetings, run presentations and share information as well as new LM clients features, and video and voice enhancements here.

Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 Service Administrator’s Guide
- Administrators who subscribe to the Office Live Meeting (online) service should find this guide useful in managing, configuring and deploying the Live Meeting clients in their organizations.

And in case you missed it …

Update: MOC 2007 R2 (Oct 2009)*
This cumulative** hotfix brings the MOC 2007 R2 client up to v6907.56 and is described in KB972884.

* update #5 for MOC R2 and replaces KB971083 (May 2009)
** 976045, 976046, 976048, 976050, 976051, 976052, 976054

Keywords: patch, hotfix, update, rollup package, moc, ocs, 2007, r2

Technorati tags: LCS/OCS, OCS 2007 R2

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In case you did not know, Windows PowerShell v2 gets mainstream with the release of Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2; that is to say, it is shipped right in the box. From managing Windows, Exchange Server, Office Communications Server, Active Directory, Hyper-V to System Center Virtual Machine Manager, it is even more important to have a good grasp of PowerShell now.

Take a look at this - SAPIEN Technologies has released their popular Windows PowerShell v.1 TFM as a free eBook download. You can still apply the skills and knowledge learnt in this book and use most of it in PowerShell v2.0. For that, you should definitely check out the updated Windows PowerShell v.2 TFM. This well-regarded book is written by the same script gurus Don Jones and Jeff Hicks.

Technorati tags: PowerShell

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Understanding key technologies in Windows Server 2008 R2 is made simpler with this visual reference. This poster focuses on Active Directory Domain Services, Hyper-V, Internet Information Services, Remote Desktop Services*, BranchCache and DirectAccess technologies. Illustrations are also updated to include core file services and server management. The poster can be used as a companion with the previously published Windows Server 2008 Component Posters. Download it here today.

From Charlie Russel and Craig Zucker, “Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2″ is now available as a downloadable free e-book from Microsoft Press. Do not forget to get your own copy!

* including Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008 R2

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