Alexander John

Thoughts, notes & the occasional opinion.

Category: IT (Page 4 of 4)

Contains Everything IT Related

Toolkit: Virtual CloneDrive

15 March 2009 / / 0 Comments

As someone who uses ISO files on an almost daily basis, a tool like SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive is a brilliant utility that allows the easy mounting of any ISO file as local disk drive. I’ve used several similar utilities over the years, but this one is the best I’ve used yet. It has been installed on a variety of PCs including my venerable Thinkpad, and I have yet to experience any problems.

Virtual CloneDrive is a free download available through the SlySoft website at http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html.

As usual, you use Virtual CloneDrive at entirely your own risk.

SBS 2003 / Exchange 2003 Shutdown Script

11 February 2009 / / 0 Comments

Microsoft is quite clear about Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory being installed on the same server: don’t do it, it isn’t supported. The only exception to this rule is Small Business Server, where out of necessity you will find both running side by side.

Unfortunately, Microsoft didn’t feel the need to address one of the problems behind the bar in SBS: the shutdown hang. There is a good chance that if you go Start | Shutdown on an SBS server without any prior actions, the entire shut down process may take anything between 15 minutes and infinity to completed.

There is an easy to prevent this from happening is to shutdown all Exchange services prior to running Start | Shut Down. This is easy enough to do via a good old batch script, a copy of which is enclosed below.

To use, simply run the batch script prior to restarting or shutting down your SBS 2003 server.

ECHO Stopping Exchanging Services
net stop MSExchangeES
net stop IMAP4Svc
net stop POP3Svc
net stop RESvc
net stop MSExchangeSRS
net stop MSExchangeMGMT
net stop MSExchangeMTA
net stop MSExchangeIS   /Y
net stop MSExchangeSA   /Y
ECHO Services Stopped

Toolkit: Smart Defrag

4 February 2009 / / 0 Comments

Another near essential member of my IT Toolkit is the excellent free defragmenter tool, Smart Defrag. Available either separately or as part of the IOBit Advanced SystemCase Suite, this tool has supplanted all of the other defragmenters I have previously used, and not just because of its’ price. Over the years, I have been frustrated and equally annoyed by various defragmenter applications. Either they ran slowly, or consumed vast amounts of system resources, either way they never seemed to pass the elementary test of “just work”.

For more details, head over to http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html

Vista Update

11 December 2008 / / 0 Comments

A quick update on the Vista front. I wrote a while back about I succumbed to some of my earlier opinions on Vista and installed it on one of my principal laptops.

Well, since then I have fairly thrashing the computer on which Vista runs. I have used recently and a whole range of tasks from writing complex ASP.Net websites to building Virtual Machines and it has yet to crash on me. Thanks to some help found online, I have solved the NVidia graphics card issue – the performance rating was actually slower with the that latest NVidia drivers from Dell. A quick driver hack later and the graphics are now much better.

The only new annoyance so far is that Vista tends to be more hardware intensive which in turn increases the component temperature which in turn causes the laptop cooling fan to run more.

Crapware and a (potential) helpful little tool: PC DeCrapifier

8 December 2008 / / 0 Comments

Configuring a new PC can always be a headache, especially when it has to be done completely by hand (i.e. no Ghosting or imaging). As there are often a myriad of little changes that have to be done when configuring a PC manually, I have devised a checklist cum installation form that I follow. This ensures that not only is the PC delivered up and running, but I also have a record of just what was done.

However, when I originally drew up these checklists I missed out the step labelled <i>Now spend one or more hours removing undesired pre-installed software (aka Crapware)</i>. The chances are that if you get a new computer, it will come pre-loaded with a number of trial versions of software which you have to remove before you can install anything else. Common trials are those of Norton Antivirus, McAfee or Microsoft Office 2007. The latter can take a small ice age to remove.

I am pretty sure that I am not alone in my annoyance for the presumptiveness of the manufactures to install this software on new systems. When I buy a new PC, especially one that is touted as being for businesses, I expect it to be delivered working (this helps, nothing makes me move suppliers quicker is a PC straight out of a box that doesn’t work), with the operating system pretty much ready to go and that’s it. No trials, no please wait one hour while the OS installs all the required drivers. Ready to go.

I had this recently with a new laptop. It was supplied with Windows Vista, which was promptly downgraded to XP using the supplied media (manufacturers occasionally get something right). The laptop flawlessly booted after the Windows XP installation and then presented me with a whole suite of crapware to remove.

Needeless to say, this did take some time. What I could of done with then is a little tool I recently found whilst searching around for something completely different: The PC DeCrapifier. This handy, free little utility removes all unwanted crapware for you. Whilst I have not actually tested it yet, I have read a number of positive reports and it is definitely going into my IT Toolbox. Once I get the opportunity to test it, I will post my comments.

Succumbing to Vista

27 September 2008 / / 0 Comments

A few months ago, I wrote about my opinions of Windows Vista, and stated that I wasn’t planning to use it. Even now, none of the businesses I work with have running Vista machines – any computer supplied with Vista is quickly downgraded to XP.

Irrespective of my own opinions, Vista exists and simply cannot be ignored by someone whose bread and butter work is IT Support. Therefore, earlier this month I installed Vista Business on my principal home computer (a Dell Latitude D820). The completed installation isn’t perfect – I’m still hacking around with video drivers, although this is more a NVidia than Microsoft issue – but I am not as disappointed as I had expected to be.

Now, this isn’t my first experience of Vista. I participated in the original Beta programme, and back then I wasn’t overly impressed when it completely neutered my test computer. I have also played around with the original RTM versions of Vista, and I was certainly not thrilled by it. However, after using it for just over three weeks, I have to admit that I am beginning to warm to it. I don’t think I have suffered any particular life changing experience, I think Vista has thanks to Service Pack 1. SP1 seems to have addressed a whole range of annoyances that had served as ammunition to my anti-Vista viewpoints. Chief among these was its’ woeful performance when copying files to and from network drives and external devices.

Does this mean that I am a now a fully-fledged, paid up member of the I love Vista club? Well no. I now consider its’ positives outweight the negatives, but it is still not the all conquering product that Microsoft promised. Will I continue to use it? Yes, and for the foreseeable future. Am I giving up on XP? No, and in fact I am actually typing this post on my antique Thinkpad T30 running XP.

Repairing SBS Backups

12 July 2008 / / 0 Comments

In virtually all Small Business Server instances I have worked with, the chosen method of backup has invariably been that of the included SBS backup functionality. This isn’t a standalone backup system, but rather a control mechanism that utilises NTBackup to create the actual backups.

Invariably, this backup method does start to misbehave after time. Whilst some problems are easy to resolve (insufficient space on the backup media for example), there are some problems that do not appear to be easily resolved. When this happens, I fall back onto a approach where that rebuild the backup configuration from scratch.

The basic are as follows:

  1. Turn off SBS Backup through Server Management
  2. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\Backup and rename the backup script file Small Business Backup Script.bks
  3. Return to Server Management and re-configure the Backup

That’s it. The key part here is the renaming/removal of the Small Business Backup Script.bks file. This contains the configuration data for the SBS backup, and is not removed when the SBS backup is disabled.

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