Author Archives: Geneva Sibanda

About Geneva Sibanda

I assist companies in the Areas of Network Infrastructure Design and Implementation: (from Windows Active Directory Security, networking, etc.).

Assigning IP Address to a Dummy Terminal or Dumb Terminal?

I went onsite to setup a couple of HP Thin Clients. I really embarrassed myself right in front of the customer as I battled for about 20 min trying to figure out how to statically assign an IP address to a Dummy terminal.

The lesson learned was that when dealing with Dummy Terminals explore the product settings as much as possible. Normally on windows to assign a static IP address you would right click on Local Area Connection – go properties – select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) etc…

For some strange technical reasons on my Dummy Terminal, when I tried to right click on Local Area Connection nothing happened.
 

Resolution: 
 
To work around this problem, follow these steps.

Open Network Connections – highlight Local Area Connection – on the left pane under Network Tasks go click – change settings of this connection you should be able to select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and Assign Static IP Address etc…

If for some strange reasons the above steps doesn’t resolve your problem. Please feel free to contact us for further technical assist.

Top 10 reasons to use SBS2003 R2.

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 (SBS 2003 R2) is an advanced solution for productivity and security, designed to help you keep businesses like yours up and running, so you can do more with less and connect with customers more effectively. SBS 2003 R2 provides many of the features used by large companies, all in one affordable, integrated solution.

Top 10 reasons to use SBS2003 R2.

Brightstor ARCserve Backup 11.5.:

CA has made significant improvements in the ‘Brightstor’ product line.

eSG NETWORKS has became quite an expert in helping companies to roll-out CA Backup Solutions…Take control of data protection to improve performance, tighten security and extend disaster recovery — while reducing costs.

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Problems Encountered: Lab Test
Currently, Brightsor ARCserve Backup 11.5 sp3 has one minor disadvantage when using it as a backup solution, the software is not intelligent enough to remove delete folders from the selection automatically.

What we did was that we deleted a folder called Acrobat reader from the file server and ran the backup job.

Backup Operation Incompleted with the following error:

“AE0005 Directory D:\Acrobat reader does not exist.”

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Overall satisfying experience: When the software is working, it works very well.

The majority of the backup was successful including exchange data.

Also what we came across was that If a user has left\been deleted you need to remove them from the backup selection manually.

You would have to check the backup selection for individual mailboxes.

You should find mailboxes in the backup selection which no longer exist in AD\exchange. 

Resolution:

To work around this problem, follow these steps.

It would be nice if CA software design team may look into introducing an auto discovery technique to give this great backup solution the intelligence it deserves. To remove delete folders from the selection automatically.

Please feel free to contact us for further technical assist, with the installation of CA Backup Solutions.

Exchange 2003 OWA Certificate Expired

The certificate for the MS Exchange Outlook Web Access has expired. Can you please assist.

This is the message: Certificate information

This certificate cannot be verified up to a trusted certificate authority:

Issued to: CustomOWA
Issued by: CustomCA
valid from 11/02/2006 – 11/07/2008
Resolution:

To work around this problem, follow these steps.

On the Exchange or Certificate Authority Server: Open IIS – Expand (Local Computer) – WebSites – Right Click – Exchange Virtual Server –  and go to the properties of Exchange Virtual Server  –  Directory Services Tab – Server Certificate – To Continue Click NEXT – Select “Renew the current Certificate – delay and Immediate Request – Select the option to “Send the request immediately to an online certificate authority” – hit NEXT all the way out.

The NEXT STEP is that you need to export the current certificate to a .pfx –  copy this file to c:\*.pfx.  We doing this becoz we are going to need this file to renew the certificate on ISA box as well.

Copy a .pfx file to your ISA Server – on ISA Server – click start – run MMC – on Console Root – hit Ctrl+M – Click Add – Select Certificates – Computer Account Option – Next – Finish – Close – OK.

Left Pane – Expand – Certificate (Local Computer) – Personal – Certificates – Delete an old expired Certificate and Replace it with new .pfx.

If for some strange reasons the above steps doesn’t resolve your problem. Please feel free to Contact US for further technical assist, with the Remote Support:- Minimum 30 Minutes.

Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Merge Program

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ExMerge can be used to import to and export from PSTs.
Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Merge Program, v6.5.7529.0
Start Logging:Novemebr 01, 2008   10:53:47
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Trying to run exMerge for the first time, and the following:

Error. File ‘D:\EXMRECOVER\eSGTEST.PST’ not found. Cannot merge data into mailbox for user ‘dwtest’ (’eSGTEST’).
[10:54:57] Errors encountered. Copy process aborted for mailbox ‘dwtest’ (’eSGTEST’).
[10:54:57] Number of items copied from the source store for all mailboxes processed: 0
[10:54:57] Total number of folders processed in the source store: 0
[10:54:57] 0 mailboxes successfully processed. 1 mailboxes were not successfully processed. 0 non-fatal errors encountered.
[10:54:57] Process completion time: 00:00:00

Resolution: 
 
To work around this problem, follow these steps.

RDP  to your exchange box – open Exchange System Manager – expand  Servers – ServerName – First Storage Group – right click on Mailbox Store (ServerName) –  go to properties – click on Security  Tab –  make sure that the account you are using to run exmerge has

If for some strange reasons the above steps doesn’t resolve your problem. Please feel free to contact us for further technical assist, we will Remote Support:- Minimum 30 Minutes.

SMTP Communication Problem…

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
Subject: Proposal: SBServer (Centurion)
Sent: 11/01/2008 08:38 PM

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

  sales@******.co.za on 2008/03/15 10:39 PM
  There was a SMTP communication problem with the recipient’s email server. Please contact your system administrator.  <***.co.za #5.5.0 smtp;550-MWEB-RBL: *.*.*.* [dsl-*-*-*.telkomadsl.co.za] is listed in>

    * [If your company is currently running SBS 2003 on telkom dsl-wire, and your users are  encountering the above error. This could mean that your SBS 2003 is not configured properly]

Solution:

Open Exchange System Manager – Servers – Servername – Protocols – Click/highlight SMTP –  on the right plane – Right click  and go to the properties of default SMTP Virtual Server – delivery – at the bottom click [advance]  – under smart host: type the following smtp.dsl.telkomsa.net
ok – apply – ok

This exercise should resolve the above SMTP Communication Problem.

If for some strange reasons the above steps doesn’t work??? You can also try the following: Open Exchange System Manager – Expande Connectors – Right Flip – SmallBusiness SMTP connector – Go Properties –  General Tab – Select: Forward All 

Apply – Ok!

NB: When on Vodacom 3G Network, the problem is totally solved by using smtp.vodacom.co.za.

Failed to receive data from the client agent.:

CA has made significant improvements in the ‘Brightstor’ product line.

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Running ArcServe 11.5 Agent on the Exchange Cluster Server environment and encountering the following:

dbaexchis Version 11.5 Build 4402 3-1-2007 Microsoft Exchange Server 2K/up
N8653
Converting connection protocol to named pipes due to connection error.
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Technical:

By default, BB11.5 exchange agent uses the TCP/IP as tranfer protocol but the Brightstor server cannot connect to exchange agent through TCP/IP protocol so it tries to connect through Remote pipes protocol and it succeeds.

 

Resolution:
 

To work around this problem, follow these steps. 
Change the remote protocol directly in the job – modify job, Microsoft Exchange server … – Right on Exchange Server – Database level(IS) – Remote protocol.  Select Named Pipes.

Please feel free to Contact Me for further technical assist, with the installation of CA Backup Solutions.

Error Code 10061: Connection refused

The page cannot be displayed  when trying to access OWA
Explanation: The Web server refused the connection, possibly because a service on the upstream server is inactive.

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Try the following:

Refresh page: Search for the page again by clicking the Refresh button. The timeout may have occurred due to Internet congestion.
Check spelling: Check that you typed the Web page address correctly. The address may have been mistyped.
Access from a link: If there is a link to the page you are looking for, try accessing the page from that link.
Contact website: You may want to contact the website administrator to make sure the Web page still exists. You can do this by using the e-mail address or phone number listed on the website home page.

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Technical Information (for support personnel)

Error Code 10061: Connection refused
Background: When the gateway or proxy server contacted the upstream (Web) server, the connection was refused. This usually results from trying to connect to a service that is inactive on the upstream server.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Microsoft ISA Server Web Proxy
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    14200
Date:        2008/06/23
Time:        08:22:06 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    ****
Description:
ISA Server was unable to establish an SSL connection with. No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 4d 27 00 00      

Resolution: 
To work around this problem, follow these steps.

RDP  to your MS Exchange box – go start – administrative tools – Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager – expand  Web sites – right click  Default Web Site –  go to properties of Default Web Site – click Directory Security –  click on Server Certificate – Next – on IIS Certificate Wizard – Select ‘Renew the current certificate’ – Next – Select “Send the request immediately to an online certificate authority” – next all the way to finish.

If for some strange reasons the above steps doesn’t resolve your problem. Please feel free to Contact Me for further technical assist, we will Remote Support:- Minimum 30 Minutes.

WSUS Console Cannot Open.

After installing WSUS3, you get the error below:

MMC cannot open c:\***\wsus.msc. This maybe the file does not exist, is not an mmc console or was created by a later version of mmc. Or may not have sufficient access rights to the file.

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Microsoft Management Console 3.0 for Windows Server 2003 (KB907265) 

Brief Description
Microsoft Management Console 3.0 (MMC 3.0) is a framework that unifies and simplifies day-to-day system management tasks on Windows by providing common navigation, menus, toolbars, and workflow across diverse tools.
Resolution:

To work around this problem, follow these steps.

Windows Server 2003/SBS2003 R2

The following software is required for running WSUS on Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2:

Please feel free to contact me for further technical assist, with the installation of WSUS.

OWA Red-X

When you access Microsoft Outlook Web Access by using Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 version of Internet Explorer, you experience one of the following symptoms.

On a computer that is running Microsoft Windows Vista, you cannot perform any editing tasks that you typically expect to perform. For example, you cannot perform the following tasks:

• Compose a new e-mail message
• Reply to an e-mail message

Additionally, you may receive a red X error. 

Resolution: 

To work around this problem, follow these steps.

The following Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 patch is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center and you need to run this patch on your exchange server.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5BC06E8A-08EB-4976-BC68-A03EBE3A2552&amp;amp;displaylang=en

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