Remote Desktop Services in 2012

Problem:
In a customer environment they wanted to install RDS and DC on the same server. A nice cheap solution, which have worked perfectly fine in the past. Not so anymore. In Server 2012, RDS requires by default that

1. A domain controller is present, aka server is member of a domain
2. the RDS role cannot be installed on the DC

Which means, you need at least two servers for a working installation?
Well no, there is apparently a official workaround from microsoft. It was not easy to find so im posting it here for future reference or until I’ve had time to try it out.
Edit:  A colleague actually tried this out on several machines and it seemed to work as expected.
Solution:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2833839/en-us?sd=rss - Guidelines for installing the Remote Desktop Session Host role service on a computer running Windows Server 2012 without the Remote Desktop Connection Broker role service
References:
http://www.wackytechtips.com/installing-and-configuring-remote-desktop-services-rds-on-windows-server-2012/
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2013/07/09/what-s-new-in-remote-desktop-services-for-windows-server-2012-r2.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831447.aspx - specs about rds 2012.
http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh831568.aspx - deprecated
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2013/03/14/what-s-new-in-windows-server-2012-remote-desktop-gateway.aspx - changes
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2012/10/30/windows-8-windows-server-2012-remote-desktop-management-server.aspx - new ways of managing rds
http://www.urtech.ca/2013/02/solved-1-hour-to-install-and-configure-a-single-server-remote-desktop-services-on-server-2012/
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/cbffb2d4-ff9d-49ee-a9ce-a60db2262422/managing-server-2012-rds-in-a-workgroup- -
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2833839/en-us?sd=rss&spid=16526&wa=wsignin1.0 – ms article regarding standalone rds
http://microsoftplatform.blogspot.nl/

Previous Version stopped working on network share

Environment: Server 2003 R2

Symptoms:

No previous versions of files are found when looking from client computer on network share. Seems to be set up ok, but when looking at Task Scheduler the job shows error “Could not Start”

Event Viewer shows no related errors at the latest runtime.

Solution:

1. Disable shadow copy and delete all scheduled jobs.
2. Delete or move files starting with “d42” from folder “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\S-1-5-18”
3. Enable shadow copy on disks and verify that task now can be started manually.

Cause:

Might be the account originally used to create the job doesn’t exist anymore.

References:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822904 - 0x800700d data is invalid.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/jhoward/archive/2006/06/22/shadow-copy-failures-scheduled-task-fails-with-general-page-initialization-failed-error-0x8007000d.aspx -

http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2007/03/windows-server-2003-attempt-to-retrieve.html

 

 

 

Bulk creating and removing mailboxes

To create users in Exchange 2013, when they already exist in AD this script is useful.

foreach ($user in get-content users.txt)
{
Enable-mailbox –identity mydomain\$user –database mailboxdatabase1
write-host "$user is processed."
}

Users are stored in users.txt

To only remove mailbox, but not the AD-user from exchange. This is useful when needing to redo import if something didn’t land where it should.

foreach ($user in get-content DeleteUsers.txt)
{
disable-mailbox –identity mydomain\$user -confirm:$false
write-host "$user is processed."
}

Users are stored in DeleteUsers.txt

Each line contains one username.

References:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj863434%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx

Searching for readers

Since 1 july no more google reader. This is very sad but then hunt for a worthy replacement goes on. Unfortunately no real contender as of now, but they are starting to pop up lots of new ones. Hopefully one of these will carry the torch onwards.

I have tried and commented the following:

http://reader.digg.com – looks nice from the desktop browser. But sadly lacking a nice mobile interface. They’re working on apps for android and ios but sadly im using winphone.

http://www.goread.io – overall buggy, but have potential. No limitations to number of sites. Sucky mobile interface here aswell.

https://ww.reedah.com – had potential, but not very smooth and buggy. Also no real mobile interface.

http://www.newsblur.com/ - cost money for following more than 12 sites. Sucks! Max 65feeds sucks!

http://theoldreader.com/ - looks good, but very non-responsive design. Feels static.

http://www.netvibes.com/en - too much dirt. Looks like igoogle, don’t like it.

http://flipboard.com/ - sucks newspapers through the nose.

https://www.pulse.me/ - looks like apple in a bottle

My goto reader is now Digg Reader. it’s a very googlesq experience sans mobile interface.

Exchange 2013 powershell issues

newly installed exchange 2013 environment. Clean install. When running exchange-powershell gets error “connecting to remote server : access denied … fully qualified errorid : accessdenied, pssessionopenfailed.

Solution:

One of these…

• Time on DC was off by 7 minutes. Corrected this
• Applied the Cumalative Update 1 for Exchange 2013

Tried quite a few other fixes before this that didn’t work for me.

Among the most popular

• Run "aspnet_regiis -ir" from C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework(64)\v4.0.30319 to register ASP.NET 4.0. – didn’t work for Server 2012
• Added powershell 2.0 and dotnet 3.5 frameowork features
• Activated wsman module from powershell virtuel catalogue in iis
• ran proxy reset > netsh winhttp reset proxy
• ran set-user administrator –remotepowershellenabled

See links below.

References:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38176 – cumulative update 1 for exchange 2013

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/09def496-1998-4b56-bae4-8d3675d18a30/exchange-2013-powershell-error

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/aa3c936f-bec1-4e24-b38f-81685df718c7/exchange-management-shell-fails-to-connect-to-exchange-server-2013 - .

http://dbanda.blogspot.se/2013/05/problem-with-exchange-2013-management.html

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2010/02/04/3409289.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351136.aspx - Troubleshooting the Exchange Management Shell

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/d50f27d0-9395-40af-94bb-a7320f7e8ef0/unable-to-connect-to-local-exchange-2013-server-when-opening-exchange-management-shell - .

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2013/04/02/released-exchange-server-2013-rtm-cumulative-update-1.aspx - cu1 update.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12411046/error-connecting-to-exchange-server-remotely-via-powershell

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd335083%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx – what needs to run powershell remote.

http://blog.subvertallmedia.com/2013/01/30/cant-open-exchange-shell-or-console-because-of-kerberos-authentication-error/ - very promising solution.

Removing a vm from hyper, forcefully

When moving around vhdx-files for Hyper-V machines the machine might get in a disconnected mode. Words like catastrophic failure and disconnected state where thrown around.

Well, Ive removed the files. I know nothing important is missing and I just want the vm gone from my HyperV Manager Console.

Didn’t work with powershell, remove-vm –name “bloodymachine” , gets error about state. This worked though:

1. Stop Hyper-V services from HyperV Manager
2. Go to : C:\Programdata\microsoft\windows\hyper-v\virtual machines and delete the GUID that is associated with the machine. If you don’t know find the GUID, just check created date. Really only recommended in a lab-environment.
3. Start Hyper-V services and the menacing machine is vanquished

For really finding out GUID check out references

References:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/m2/archive/2008/07/04/how-to-get-the-bios-guid-from-a-hyper-v-vm.aspx?ppud=4&wa=wsignin1.0 – finding out GUID HyperV

http://www.petri.co.il/get-hyper-v-virtual-machine-process-id-and-guid.htm – more GUID exploration guides.

http://ashwaniashwin.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/hyper-v-error-while-deleting-virtual-machine-the-operation-cannot-be-performed-while-the-object-is-in-its-current-state/

Cancel juniper reboot

To remove scheduled reboot from a screenOS Juniper/Netcreen device

/>Get timer (take not of ID of task that is to be cancelled)

/> Unset timer 0 (where 0 is the id from above)

References:

http://kb.juniper.net/InfoCenter/index?page=content&id=KB5750