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This blog is purely the personal opinions of David Overton. If you can't find the information you were looking for e-mail me at admin@davidoverton.com. If you want to narrow down the content consider these links:

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Random Musings of an SME IT Consultant.......

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  • HMRC CD

    If any of you are struggling to get this paragon of brilliantly written software to run on your PC, just unplug the network cable. Seriously. You couldn’t make it up.....
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  • Possible issue with Outlook 2007 SP2 and access to GAL with RPC/HTTP

    Sandy Donald has recently reported on the UKSBSG Yahoo! group that he has seen an issue with Outlook 2007 connecting to the GAL over RPC/HTTP (or Outlook Anywhere if you prefer). He reports the following in his post: "I did some more digging and testing. My conclusions are that after the application of Office 2007 SP2, Outlook cannot reconnect to directories over http. It can reconnect to mailbox and public folders but not directories. So, GAL is not available and the offline message appears. I have restored...

  • Testing connectivity to Exchange Server

    We have just being doing some work for a new client who's SBS box was in a real mess. We took advantage of Business Critical Support as part of our Microsoft Partner benefits and one of the sites the MS Engineer pointed us to was https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/ It's in beta at the moment, but looks as if it could be a useful resource.
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  • Adding a Windows 2008 Server Core box as a Domain Controller into an SBS2003 domain

    We've installed a Server Core box into our network here so we can run Hyper-V as well as VMware ESX. We have also set it up as a DC and DNS server so that of our SBS box is offline things might continue to work a bit better than they have up until now :-) Instructions on how to do this are a bit sparse and my Technician got this information from the SBSC Newsgroups: From your description, I know that you want to add Windows Server 2008 Server Core to SBS domain. If that's not correct, please don't...

  • Puzzle of the week......

    Why does it take so long to prepare the desktop on a Windows 2008 Core server when you RDP to it? I mean it's only a command prompt.....

  • VMware Consolidated Backup and Backup Exec

    We've implemented a VMware ESX farm in our offices (and we do have a Hyper-V server as well) and I have been looking at using VMware Consolidated Backup along with our NFR copy of Backup Exec to take snapshots of the VMs. I'm cheap see :-) I have got the VCB command line utilities working fine with the given documentation but whan I set BE up it failed with invalid username or password. This has been doing my head in. However looking around I discovered one post where someone had improved the JavaScript...

  • Problem with PureMessage can cause Exchange to be unresponsive

    We have had problems both with our own Exchange server and with another client’s this morning. Sophos released a Support Advisory last night and the KB article is here: http://www.sophos.com/support/knowledgebase/article/42245.html To resolve the problem we tried restarting the PureMessage services, the Sophos Services and the Exchange Services but the only thing that really seems to have solved it is rebooting the SBS box...... Hope that might help someone else.....
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  • SVCHOST.EXE taking 100% CPU - Windows Update Service

    We've just had an issue at one of our non-mmanaged clients where they have had a number of machines running at 100% CPU due to the Windows Update Service going bonkers. The solution we have used on all machines is as follows: On the machine in question carry out the following: Log in as administrator. Download updates from step 1 and 2 from KB927891 into C:\ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927891 Go to Start>Run, type net stop wuauserv. Kill the process ‘svchost.exe’ using 100% CPU if service fails to...

  • Proliant Support Pack 8.0 is a bit broken.....

    We have one HP ML350 G4p server that we have just started providing full Managed Service for. As a matter of course we install the HP Proliant Support Pack. The latest version is 8.0, but there appears to be a problem with it where it breaks the System Management Home Page . Only solution according to HP Support is to downgrade PSP to previous version 7.91 which does not require a server reboot. According to HP there is a fix due RSN, but I'm not holding my breath :-) Hope that helps someone avoid the same...

  • APC Powerchute

    After an exchange with an APC Support person a while back I discovered that you can get lots more information about your UPS by using a web browser. If you go :3052/">http://<servername>:3052 you get a login page to your attached UPSes. This gives a shedload more information about the UPS then you get from the PowerChute software. Well worth investigating.
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  • Ping a remote host then if it times out run a TRACERT and send an email

    Recently I needed to find out why a connection to a server was failing every so often. I knocked this script up from a few pieces of old wood and a couple of tin cans I had lying around to do just that. It was nicely indented until I pasted it into here :-) Run it using the following command line: cscript <filename.vbs> Setup a scheduled task to run it when you need to. ' Created by Ian Watkins - Oxbridge Technology Ltd - May 2007 On Error Resume Next Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript...

  • Enabling Log on as a Service for a local user

    I came across a situation on our network where we needed to give a local user the right to "Log on as a Service" on one of our servers. This was to support a LOB application that we run on a server here in our office. The problem I had was that for both the "Log on as a service" and the "Log on as a Batch job" the "Add User or Group" button was greyed out. This is because our SBS 2003 box has a Domain Group Policy which sets the rights to these services at a Domain level and stops any changes being made elsewhere...

  • HP Laser Printer support in Windows Vista

    Vlad Mazek ( www.vladville.com ) just posted on the SBS2K Yahoo! Group a link outlining support for HP printers in Windows Vista. http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00808536#N1011C Knowing how easy the HP site is to navigate :-) I thought it would be useful to post this up here for posterity and so I can find it again :-)

  • London SMB IT Pro Group meeting Monday 13th November - EVO

    The next meeting of the London Small Business IT Pro Group will take place on Monday, 13th November. If you can let me know you're coming that'll be great (just so I've got some idea of numbers) otherwise just turn up. This month we welcome Matt McSpirit, Partner Technology Specialist for Vista who is coming to talk about all things Exchange 2007, Vista and Office 2007. In fact he would like us to tell him what we'd like to hear about so he can tailor some of his talk to our requirements, so...

  • London SMB IT Pro Group meeting Monday 9th October

    The next meeting of the London Small Business IT Pro Group will take place next Monday, 9th October. We have a slightly different emphasis this month. After a few months of technical input we are going to concentrate this month on some of the business aspects of running a consultancy. Susanne Dansey from the Kent group will be talking about the community and how to use the resources there to help you, "Utilising the Community for fun and for Profit" and also give us a run-down on last month's SMB...
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