Windows

MD3220i MPIO driver install on Hyper-V

December 21, 2010December 21, 2010 Jeff Miles 7 Comments

We just finished setting up our Hyper-V failover cluster with a Dell MD3220i, and in the process I had a hard time finding information about the specific MPIO driver to use from Dell. Its actually very simple.

Here’s what you need to do:

Install the MD Storage Manager software somewhere if you haven’t already
On the server you installed it on, look in C:\Program Files (x86)\DSMDrivers. Copy the md3dsm folder to your Hyper-V host.
On the Hyper-V host, enter the mpio control panel by typing mpiocpl:
Click on the “DSM Install” tab, and then browse to the md3dsm folder.
Use the md3dsm.inf file, and then click “install”.
Restart your Hyper-V host, and after going back into the mpiocpl, you should see additional providers listed:

PeerLock Review

December 13, 2010December 13, 2010 Jeff Miles 9 Comments

A short review of PeerLock and how it has worked (and hasn’t) for us.

We use DFS through Windows Server to replicate our files to each branch office. This is preferable to having really slow access from the branch offices, or not having a consolidated file structure from which to work from.

One of the disadvantages of DFS is the lack of File Locking. If you have a file open on any member server, and someone opens the same file on a different member server, you will receive no notification that the file is in use.

This is explained in more detail here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2009/02/20/understanding-the-lack-of-distributed-file-locking-in-dfsr.aspx

This review is mostly a grouping of my comments on that blog post.

What is it?

PeerLock (http://www.peersoftware.com/products/peerlock/peerlock.aspx) is software used to facilitate locking of files between servers.

It is installed (and licensed for) each member server that contains a copy of the files you want to lock. In our case, we have one hub DFSR member, and 3 spoke DFSR members. We set up the PeerLock program to watch each of our DFSR shares, with the target being the same DFSR share on the spoke servers.

How is it?

Well, for us, it didn’t work out. We are still using PeerLock, but in a much reduced role.

Note: this is based on version 2.02. We haven’t budgeted for an upgrade to the latest version, so performance may be improved.

Since we are replicating about 900 GB of data, with 100`s of files open at once, across business ADSL connections, PeerLock ended up causing many replication issues, conflicts and sharing violations.

At times, by 8:30AM we would have over 1000 files in the backlog, and they wouldn`t clear because DFSR had too many sharing violations. Through experimentation we found this was directly caused by PeerLock.

Because of this we have begun using it only for high-collaboration folders, instead of our entire DFSR shares.

On a smaller scale, it has been working great, and other than the steep price I would recommend it. Our files and folders that are commonly shared between offices are protected, while the majority of our files which are used by only one office are just monitored for conflicts.

Here are some considerations when using PeerLock:

Peerlock can run as a GUI, or a service, but not both. This means to run on a server that is logged off, you need to use the service, but to make configuration changes, you have to stop the service, start the GUI, make changes, close the GUI, start the service.
CPU usage is very high with a large amount of files protected. The program was using about 35% CPU constantly, on a 2009 PowerEdge 2900 server with a single Quad Core CPU.
Price – it was somewhere around $990 CAD per license, and you need one for each server.

If you are using PeerLock, here`s a knowledgebase article that really helped reduce some of the issues:

http://www.peersoftware.com/support/kb/kbarticleprintpreview.aspx?id=KBA-01128

Adobe Flash GPO Deploy error “InstallAx.exe”

December 6, 2010October 21, 2011 Jeff Miles 28 Comments

Update: An updated script has been posted with some improvements, here.

“The file ‘installax.exe’ is not marked for installation”

This post details how to fix this issue, when Flash won’t uninstall correctly from a GPO deployment.

The Problem

I deploy the latest Flash versions through Group Policy, because it’s quick and simple. Some time ago, there was a version of Adobe Flash Player (10.1.5xx I think) that began causing problems with later versions.

What would happen is upon upgrades to Flash being pushed out, when updating the previous version an error would be logged. The GPO would successfully update the player, however it would continue to try updating every day, every time the computer started.

This occurred for both Windows 7 and Windows XP, and got to be quite annoying for my users.

When trying to update manually, the error that appeared was:

"The file 'installax.exe' is not marked for installation"

Here’s how I resolved it:

Based on various forum reports (http://forums.adobe.com/message/3124297) it seemed to be a problem with Flash leftovers.

On a test machine, I uninstalled all Flash versions, and then did a registry search, and removed these items:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\4E867BFF724E3554CB631AF1E5269AD4]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\6D98A6046E9005543B07D873D6BD65EB]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\4E867BFF724E3554CB631AF1E5269AD4]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\6D98A6046E9005543B07D873D6BD65EB]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\00B86459180C72B4CA69A0A21353E906]
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\00B86459180C72B4CA69A0A21353E906]

These keys are a mix between Windows 7 x64 and Windows XP.

After that I manually installed the latest version, and it was successful. Now I needed to write a script that would remove these values and install the latest version.

The Script

I wanted to run this as a Shutdown script through group policy, rather than trying to push it out to all our clients through a scheduled task or something. This way it would eventually get applied to everyone. I think I’ll wait a period of time, and then disable this script and go back to a GPO msi install.

I made extensive use of echo and pause statements to ensure it was being applied correctly. Because I didn’t want a script for Windows 7 x64 and a separate one for Windows XP, there’s a bit of logic thrown in to check for version.

Here’s the script:

:: Adobe flash giving "installax" errors when updating from GPO :: This batch file will remove those errors and install 10.1.102.64
:: This batch file should be run from a shutdown or startup script

:: Check if Windows 7 or Windows XP, and goes to the proper section IF EXIST "C:\Program Files (x86)" goto :Win7Check
goto :WinXPCheck

:Win7Check
:: Check if the latest version is installed already in Windows 7. If so, exit. Otherwise install Set "AdobeVersion=" & setlocal & Set "$V="
:: Look in the Uninstall area of registry, where the installed version of Flash player is listed Set "RegKey=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Adobe Flash Player ActiveX"
Set "RegItem=DisplayVersion"
:: Take the output of a REG QUERY to the location above, and put it into the AdobeVersion variable
For /f "tokens=3*" %%! in (
   '2^>nul Reg.exe QUERY "%RegKey%" /v "%RegItem%" ^|(
   Findstr.exe /ri "\<%RegItem%\>"^)') Do Set "$V=%%!"
endlocal & call Set "AdobeVersion=%$V%"

:: If what is currently installed matches latest version, exit. Otherwise, go to install section
if "%AdobeVersion%" == "10.1.102.64" goto :exit
goto :Install

:WinXPCheck
:: Check if the latest version is installed already in Windows XP. If so, exit. Otherwise install Set "AdobeVersionXP=" & setlocal & Set "$T="
:: Look in the Uninstall area of registry, where the installed version of Flash player is listed Set "RegKeyXP=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Adobe Flash Player ActiveX"
Set "RegItemXP=DisplayVersion"
:: Take the output of a REG QUERY to the location above, and put it into the AdobeVersion variable For /f "tokens=3*" %%! in (
   '2^>nul Reg.exe QUERY "%RegKeyXP%" /v "%RegItemXP%" ^|(
   Findstr.exe /ri "\<%RegItemXP%\>"^)') Do Set "$T=%%!"
endlocal & call Set "AdobeVersionXP=%$T%"

:: If what is currently installed matches latest version, exit. Otherwise, go to install section
if "%AdobeVersionXP%" == "10.1.102.64" goto :exit
goto :Install

:Install ::Uninstall current versions of Flash from DFS share start /wait \\domain.com\apps\Public\General\adobeflash\uninstall_flash_player.exe -uninstall

:: Remove offending registry entries causing the error (mentioned below) regedit /s \\domain.com\apps\Public\General\adobeflash\flash_remove_fix.reg

:: Install latest version of Flash start /wait \\domain.com\apps\Public\General\adobeflash\install_flash_player_10.1.102.64.exe -install
goto :exit


:exit

The registry file mentioned contains this (what is at the top of this post, with the removal switch):

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\4E867BFF724E3554CB631AF1E5269AD4]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\6D98A6046E9005543B07D873D6BD65EB]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\4E867BFF724E3554CB631AF1E5269AD4]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\6D98A6046E9005543B07D873D6BD65EB]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Features\00B86459180C72B4CA69A0A21353E906]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\00B86459180C72B4CA69A0A21353E906]

This script successfully runs on Windows 7 and Windows XP, and merely exits when the latest version is already done.

Helpful Links

Check what version of Adobe Flash Player you have, and what is current:

http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/

Uninstall Utility used to remove Flash Player

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html

Windows 7 Jumplist empty or slow to respond

November 15, 2010November 16, 2010 Jeff Miles 5 Comments

Another post that is slightly related to our Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) testing; on our Windows 7 machines, we’ve found that with SEP installed and enabled, the jumplists for all programs are drastically slower to appear.

As soon as the antivirus auto-protect is disabled, performance returns to immediate. This slowdown was most notable on Windows Explorer jumplists, however it also affected Microsoft Office and other programs.

I eventually found a solution, related to an obscure location for the jump list cache.

%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations

This folder contains a cache of the Jumplist entries. To fix the issue for Windows Explorer, find the entry that begins with:

1b4dd67f29cb1962

And delete it.

Then navigate here:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations

And do the same thing; delete the file that starts with:

1b4dd67f29cb1962

After this you will need to re-pin any items you previously had pinned for that application.

This will only resolve the problem for Windows Explorer; you may have to do some trial and error to find the appropriate cache to delete for any other programs.

Run Windows Explorer as Administrator

November 6, 2010June 22, 2011 Jeff Miles Leave a comment

Sometimes you need to get admin credentials within a user account without them, without logging off that user. Here’s how:

Windows 2000/XP

Click Start > Run (or hit Winkey+R) and type:

runas /user:domain\administrator "explorer /separate

Enter the password for the account you specified:
Now you’ve got full access to that system

Windows Vista/7

With the UAC changes in Windows Vista and Windows 7, you can’t open a Windows Explorer window similar to above. However you do have a couple alternative options:

If Windows 7, use the “Switch User” functionality from the Start Menu

In the start menu search box, type:
```
runas /user:domain\administrator "notepad.exe
```
When Notepad opens, you can click File > Open, and from that window access any file on the computer or the network that requires admin rights. This isn’t as effective for accessing Control Panel or other system functions, however with Windows 7 UAC this isn’t as much of an issue.