[Today's tip comes to us from Damian Leibaschoff]

We've seen a few cases now where a server is in an activation loop (activation never completes successfully and you are continually prompted to activate on reboot) after either:

• Upgrading via the SBS Transition Pack
• Upgrading from Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition to SBS 2003 or
• From Evaluation Version SBS 2003 to Full Package Product (FPP) SBS 2003.

All of these scenarios have identical symptoms.  The behavior is as follows:

1. The Windows setup process completes and after the last reboot when you try to login
2. You receive a prompt requesting to activate the server to be able to continue.
3. You will get the following error:

When you click YES, nothing happens and you are thrown back to the Windows logon screen (press ctrl-alt-del to logon).

** This is very important to note, the activation wizard NEVER starts up. **

If you check the Application log of the server (from Safe Mode or from a remote machine) you will see an event similar to this one:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Error
Event Category: (100)
Event ID: 1000
Date: 1/24/2007
Time: 12:26:28 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description:
Faulting application msoobe.exe, version 5.2.3790.0, faulting module urlmon.dll,
version 6.0.3790.2612, fault address 0x0000618c.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 6d 73 6f ure mso
0018: 6f 62 65 2e 65 78 65 20 obe.exe
0020: 35 2e 32 2e 33 37 39 30 5.2.3790
0028: 2e 30 20 69 6e 20 75 72 .0 in ur
0030: 6c 6d 6f 6e 2e 64 6c 6c lmon.dll
0038: 20 36 2e 30 2e 33 37 39 6.0.379
0040: 30 2e 32 36 31 32 20 61 0.2612 a
0048: 74 20 6f 66 66 73 65 74 t offset
0050: 20 30 30 30 30 36 31 38 0000618
0058: 63 c

This issue can happen if the server has Internet Explorer 7 installed BEFORE installing the Transition Pack or before completing any of the other described scenarios.

The process is really completing correctly, but the activation wizard cannot start due to mismatched IE files.

If you are already having this problem, and In order to get out of this behavior and be able to start the activation wizard to properly activate the server you need to do the following:

1. Boot -up into Safe Mode

            a. While hard drive with SBS is booting up hold down F8

            b. Select first option “Safe Mode”

2. Logon as Administrator

3. Dismiss “Windows is running in Safe Mode” prompt

4. Click Start, Click Run , Type   

%systemdrive%\Windows\IE7\spuninst\spuninst.exe

5. You should see a wizard with “Windows Internet Explorer 7 Removal Wizard” in the

title

6. Click Next on wizard

7. Click Finish to reboot on wizard

8. Let SBS boot up normally and logon as administrator

9. On prompt saying that you must activate to continue to log on

1. Click “Yes”

2. Activation wizard will pop-up

10. Run Activation Wizard to activate the box

11. SBS Transition Pack Wizard will continue to run and let it reboot machine

12. Logon as administrator.

13. Click Finish on SBS Transition Pack Wizard

14. Re-Install IE7 from the Web (http://www.microsoft.com/ie)

Note:

If you encounter an issue where the server is in an activation loop but the activation wizard does start (it just fails to complete the activation), make sure the Transition Pack has actually completed or you might be seeing the behavior described in:

914990  Installation of the Windows SBS 2003 Transition Pack may silently fail on a Windows SBS 2003-based computer

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;914990

If you are planning to install the Transition Pack, make sure that IE7 is uninstalled prior to starting the process.

Also check the following post for other things to check prior to installation:

http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2006/01/12/417350.aspx

[Today's tip comes to us from Mark Stanfill.]

After selecting the option to install Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2, you get the following error displayed on the screen:

After accepting the error, you are then shown a window stating that setup.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close:

To review the error, at this point, click on "What data does this error report contain?" and then click on "View the contents of the error report" :

Note the path for the setup.crash file and open it with Notepad to view it.

 

Setup.crash:
[Crash Information]
ReportVersion=1
MainBinary=E:\CD6\sbs\setup.exe
MainBinaryVersion=5.2.3580.0
CrashTime=11/28/2006 4:13:28 PM UTC
Exception=System.InvalidOperationException
HResult=80131509
ExceptionMessage=Process performance counter is disabled, so the requested
operation cannot be performed.

[Stack Trace]
IP=0x7b2b31a8+1a5 System.Diagnostics.NtProcessManager.GetProcessInfos(System.Diagnos
tics.PerformanceCounterLib library)
IP=0x7b2b30e8+a4 System.Diagnostics.NtProcessManager.GetProcessInfos(System.String
machineName, System.Boolean isRemoteMachine)
IP=0x7b2b16c0+29 System.Diagnostics.ProcessManager.GetProcessInfos(System.String
machineName)
IP=0x7b2aed70+116 System.Diagnostics.Process.EnsureState(System.Diagnostics.Process+
State state)
IP=0x7b2ae240+11 System.Diagnostics.Process.get_ProcessName()
IP=0x02e307f8+1ce2 R2_SetupWizard.MainClass.Main(System.String[] args)

To resolve this issue you need to make sure that the PerfProc counters are enabled and working.  The most common issue is that the counter is disabled, to enabled them follow these steps:

1.From the Start menu, choose Run.

2.Type "regedit" then click OK. The Windows Registry Editor appears.

3.Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PerfProc\Performance (Make sure you have found the "PerfProc" key, not the "PerfOS" key.)

4.Right click on Disable Performance Counters, then choose Modify (The key is not there by default - if it's not there, you're seeing a different issue).

5.Enter a value of 0 (zero), then click OK.

6.  Restart R2 setup from the root of CD #6.

Astute readers of this blog will note that I've change the owership of this blog from my personal tagline to the "SBS Bloggers" alias.  Nothing else is changing, I just wanted to make this blog a little more inclusive of the team and not look so much like a personal blog.

---Mark 

[Today's tip comes to us from Damian Leibaschoff]

Routing an Inbound Fax to E-Mail fails (Event Id 32083 - 0x80040212). This is a very interesting symptom to an event that at first sight is pretty unrelated to faxing. Most people have started seeing this problem around 1/7/2007. Basically, inbound faxes are not routed to an email recipient.

The application log will show the following error:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Microsoft Fax
Event Category: Inbound
Event ID: 32083
Date: 1/11/2007
Time: 3:19:03 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER
Description:

Unable to route fax E:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application
Data\Microsoft\Windows NT\MSFax\Queue\1C735D6B62BDD.tif to the requested e-mail
address.

The following error occurred: 0x80040212

This issue is caused by a longer than usual timeout after the SMTP “RCPT TO”
command is received by the SMTP server and a response is returned.
This has been seen lately due to the configuration of RBLs (real time block lists),
that include the now defunct ORDB list. This is causing a delay in the response and
triggering the failure.

ORDB Shutting Down Announcement:

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=1950&isc=78341c2e69b06a57f934dc68b30f7069

You must re-configure your Real-Time Block Lists to remove the ORDB entry.
Check under ESM, Global settings, Message Delivery (Properties), Connection
Filtering tab. Remove the ORDB entry if found, then restart the SMTP virtual server and
re-test by receiving a new fax (re-routing of old faxes to e-mail will not work.  This is expected behavior).

Please note that this has also been seen when a third party solution running within SMTP/Exchange is the one doing the RBL check, so if you are running a third party application that is doing spam control and it is checking the RBLs, make sure that the ORDB RBL is no longer in use. If you have any doubts please contact the third party vendor.

Also remember that in the future this can happen again if another RBL provider goes offline temporarily or for good.

[Today's tip comes to us from Peter Gallagher.  Yes that Peter.]

If you have installed the Exchange 2003 ActiveSync Web Administration Tool (also known as MobileAdmin) you probably played with the Remote Wipe feature. You may have noticed that the user must click "OK" to wipe the device. Well, that may not fit your customer's needs. They may need to wipe the device NOW. You can do this however you have to be proactive about it. In order for Remote Wipe to hard reset the device without user input, the device has to have accepted *any* Exchange Server Security Policy. What this means is that you have to check the box for "Enforce password on device" and let that policy sync to the device.

When the device syncs, the user will get the following prompt:

If the user clicks "OK", a policy is then applied to the device. This policy requires a PIN to be entered on the device before the device can be used.

Notice the "Prompt if device is unused for" is enabled and grayed out (i.e. it can't be changed).

Now, since a policy is applied to the device, you can remotely wipe this device without user intervention.

The challenge is that now the user has to enter a PIN in the device to unlock (use) the device.

If you want to be really sneaky, you can then go back to Exchange and uncheck "Enforce password on device" and then have the user sync.

The new settings are pushed to the device and now "Prompt if device unused for" is able to be unchecked. Uncheck "Prompt if device is unused for" and now the user's phone is back to a default state and you can remotely wipe it without user intervention. Be careful here as now new devices cannot be wiped without user intervention, thus the "you have to be proactive" statement at the beginning of this post.

[Today's tip comes to us courtesy of Ed Walters.]

Administrators often need to extract a small number of files or even a single file from a SharePoint database, and may not necessarily want to go through the process of an entire disaster recovery to retrieve them.  SharePoint Database Explorer can be useful in cases where you have the database files, but it is inconvenient (or impossible) to restore them to a SharePoint site.  Common scenarios we've seen are:

• A customer has overwritten an important document in SharePoint and no local copy is available; document versioning has not been enabled for the library.  The customer does not want to force users to log off the server during normal business hours.  In this case, you would simply restore the database files from backup, mount them, and retrieve the documents.
• During disaster recovery, if no backups other than the database files exist, we may manually extract the files from the database as a "belt and suspenders" approach to disaster recovery.  This is also useful if there are any concerns about ACLs moving documents to a server in a new domain.  This method is not recommended for extensive disaster recovery procedures where a large number of document libraries must be exported, but we've found it to be sufficient for many SBS deployments.
• A critical change has been made to a document, and the author(s) is not sure of the date the document should be restored back to.  Again, no versioning is in place.  Multiple copies of the document must be recovered for comparison.  It's easier to restore 3 databases and extract the document than it is to restore, mount, and extend 3 SharePoint sites.

SharePoint Database Explorer can be used with either OSQL or SQL. This tool is not supported by Microsoft.

Program Download location: http://mindsharpblogs.com/james/archive/2005/01/20/189.aspx

Database Files needed: STS_Servername_1.mdf and the STS_Servername _1_log.ldf.

Using SharePoint Database Explorer with OSQL

1. Download the SharePoint Database Explorer files

2. Extract the the files to a folder on the desktop.

3. Copy the STS_Servername_1.mdf and the STS_Servername _1_log.ldf C:\Microsoft SQL
Server\MSSQL$SHAREPOINT\Data\.

4. Attach the databases using OSQL:

osql -S servername\sharepoint –E
EXEC sp_attach_db @dbname = 'STS_SERVERNAME_1', @filename1 = 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL
Server\MSSQL$SHAREPOINT\Data\STS_SERVERNAME_1.mdf', @filename2 = 'C:\Microsoft SQL
Server\MSSQL$SHAREPOINT\Data\STS_SERVERNAME_1_log.LDF'
Go

5. Open Database Explorer

6. Enter the server\instance name

For example, if you copied the database to the MSSQL$SHAREPOINT\data your instance name would be sharepoint:

7. Select the "+" sign

8. Select the library on the left

9. It will then show you documents on the right you can export.

10. Select the different libraries to view the documents available for restore.

11. Highlight the file you would like to restore - select the save button.

12. Save the file to a location on your Hard drive.

13. Send the users the files.

14. Once the new SharePoint site has been created they can then upload the files back to the site.

Using SharePoint Database Explorer with SQL Server

Installation

1. Download the SharePoint Database Explorer files

2. Extract the files to a folder on the desktop.

3. Copy the STS_Servername_1.mdf and the STS_Servername _1_log.ldf to a common location.

4. Open SQL Server Enterprise Manager

a. Start - All Programs - Microsoft SQL Server - SQL Server Enterprise Manager

5. Select Attach Database

6.

7. Browse to the .MDF you need to export files from

8.

9. Select the Database to attach.

10.

11. The database should now be attached.

a. You can check this by viewing the Databases Folder in SQL.

12.

13. Open SharePoint Database Explorer

a. Select File - Set Database Connection.

b. The Database should appear in the drop down list.

14.

15. Select the data base - Leave the permissions set to Windows Authentication - Select OK

16. You will now see a list of Libraries

17.

18. Select the different libraries to view the documents available for restore.

19. Highlight the file you would like to restore - select the save button.

20.

21. Save the file to a location on your Hard drive.

22. Send the users the files.

23. Once the new SharePoint site has been created they can then upload the files back to the site.

Thanks,

edwalt