Khurram's Blog

Outlook Troubleshooting

2009-05-04T11:40:00.001+03:00

Most of the time we face lot of complains that users are not able to access their emails on outlook or exchange is not responding, in most of the cases client's outlook has some problem and users don't realize it. Following are some of the steps which will be handy in troubleshooting these types of issues and also narrow downing the problem scope;

Test 1 : Testing OWA:

1. Get the troubled user user id and password and test from OWA or ask him to open his mailbox via OWA.

2 . or create a test Mail account and Access OWA from it to verify that Exchange is working fine and user is able to access their emails.

If OWA is working fine then we have to concentrate on Client side troubleshooting else we have to look at the server side and check CAS servers and ISA severs (If reverse proxy is in use) (i will discuss server side troubleshooting in my next blog).

Test 2: Deleting Addins Registry Keys:

1. Logon to a troubled user machine.

2. Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Extensions (If it exists)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Extensions (If it exists)

3. Export the keys (for backup purpose), right click each subkey and click Delete.

Test 3: Configure Selected Startup:

1. Go to Run and type msconfig.

2. Select Selective Startup in General Tab.

3. Click to clear Process SYSTEM.INI file, Process WIN.INI File and Load Startup Items.

4. Click tab Services and select option Hide All Microsoft Services, and click button Disable All and click OK

5. Restart computer.

Test 4: Check if issue is occurring in Cached Mode:

Create a Outlook profile with Exchange cached mode and then test.

Test 5 : Check if issue is occurring in Online Mode:

Change Outlook profile in online mode, and open Outlook again and then test.

Test 6: Configure outlook profile for using RPC over HTTP:

1. Open outlook profile configuration and select Connections Tab

2. In the outlook Anywhere selection check connect to Ms exchange using HTTP.

3. Enter OWA address in exchange URL text box.

4. Assuming that user is sitting in a LAN environment, select “On Slow networks, Connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP.

5. Select Proxy server authentication settings based on your exchange server configuration.

6. Click OK.

7. Close Outlook completely. verify that there is no outlook.exe process visible in task manager.

8. Launch outlook again.

9. Hold control and press right click on outlook icon in system tray.

10. Click on connection status and verify that all connections are established by using HTTPS protocol not TCP/IP protocol.

Test outlook by sending and receiving emails. If this works then it means there might be some TCP/IP (RPC) communication problem between your client and server. You have to involve your network team and verify that if there is any network device causing issue or playing with the TCP/IP settings or TCP/IP packets.

Citrix Protocol Driver Error

2009-05-04T00:14:00.001+03:00

Today i faced a very complex problem. My Clients were complaining that they are are getting Citrix Protocol Driver Error. After initial troubleshooting i found that there were some http errors on my web interface servers. I restarted IIS on WIS but no luck. I restarted IMA service on Presentations servers but issue still remained same. It was strange that i am getting this error for all Applications published on different servers this means that this error is not server dependent. i have tried Citrix article http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX106531 published on same issue and also tried disabling Session reliability http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX108439 but no luck. My Citrix environment consists of 2 Access gateway servers, 2 Web interface servers, 4 presentation servers and 1 license servers and we are using Netscaler device for load balancing. For narrowing issue i have disabled one web interface server from Load balancer and configured application to use only one presentation server but it didn’t solved the problem. I also restarted whole farm but no luck. Then i focused on Access gateway appliance and removed 1 appliance from Load balancing but issue remained same after that i enabled 1st device in Load balancing and removed second device from load balancing then after test i found that the issue is not occurring again and it is solved. I then logged on to the the troubled access gateway and found that this sever is not able to connect to the license server also this server is not configured to accept connections on port 80 only https. i am not sure why the sessions are not going to the other Access gateway which have correct configuration. I have to still fixed the licensing server connection issue but till now i haven't got any complain from the user.

My Wordpress Blog

2009-04-30T02:05:00.001+03:00

I am now very annoyed with blogger and now decided to setup my wordpress tech blog also. Wordpress has more features and have awesome templates. From now onwards i will publish all my tech blogs on both wordpress and blogger. following is my wordpress tech blog address

http://khurramullah.wordpress.com

Powershell Command for public folder permissions

2009-04-30T01:55:00.001+03:00

If you want to replicate all permissions which parent public folder have to all child PFs, then you need to run following powershell script

adduserstopfrecursive.ps1 -toppublicfolder "<Parent Public Folder Name" -user "<User or group name>" -permissions –<permissions>

for example:

adduserstopfrecursive.ps1 -toppublicfolder "\SALES" -user "PFOwners" -permissions owner

BlackBerry Permissions Configuration on Exchange 2007

2009-04-12T23:45:00.002+03:00

If you are planning to install Blackberry services in your environment then you have to consider permissions required by BB on Exchange setup.

BB required following set of rights in order to perform operations on user mailboxes;

1. Send-As permissions on user mailboxes.

2. Receive-As permissions on mailboxes.

3. Ms-Exch-Store-Admin permissions.

You have to provide the above permissions to blackberry service accounts; following is the method for doing this;

Step one:

Provide View only Admin rights to BlackBerry Service Account

get-mailboxserver <mail_server_name> | add-exchangeadministrator BESAdmin –role ViewOnlyAdmin

Step Two:

Provide Send-As, Receive-As and MS-Exch-Store-Admin to BlackBerry service Account.

get-mailboxserver <mail_server_name> | add-adpermission –user BESAdmin –accessrights ExtendedRight –extendedrights Send-As, Receive-As, ms-Exch-Store-Admin

Microsoft Exchange Server Build numbers and release dates

2009-04-08T00:17:00.002+03:00

Following is the list of all exchange server versions released by Microsoft with their build numbers and release dates for reference,

Version	Build Number	Release Date
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0	4.0.837	Apr-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 (a)	4.0.993	Aug-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP1	4.0.838	May-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP2	4.0.993	Aug-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP3	4.0.994	Nov-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP4	4.0.995	Apr-97
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP5	4.0.996	May-98

Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0	5.0.1457	Mar-97
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 SP1	5.0.1458	Jun-97
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 SP2	5.0.1460	Feb-98

Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5	5.5.1960	Nov-97
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP1	5.5.2232	Jul-98
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP2	5.5.2448	Dec-98
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP3	5.5.2650	Sep-99
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP4	5.5.2653	Nov-00

Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server	6.0.4417	Oct-00
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server (a)	6.0.4417	Jan-01
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP1	6.0.4712	Jul-01
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP2	6.0.5762	Dec-01
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP3	6.0.6249	Aug-02
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3	6.0.6487	Sep-03
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3	6.0.6556	Apr-04
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3	6.0.6603	Aug-04

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003	6.5.6944	Oct-03
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP1	6.5.7226	May-04
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2	6.5.7638	Oct-05

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007	8.0.685.24 or 8.0.685.25	Dec-06
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1	8.1.0240.006	Nov-07

*Source Microsoft TechNet

Shrinking SQL 2000, 2005 Databases

2009-04-08T00:11:00.002+03:00

If you ever run in a situation like you have only MBs of space left on production SQL servers and your transaction logs are growing bigger and bigger and you want to claim disk space immediately then you might need to run following command

Backup log <Database name> with no_log

This command is not recommended to run in normal circumstances and after this you are not able to recover your database point in time. if you have proper backups configured then you don't need to run this command because after each full backup the transaction logs are automatically truncated. Also in case you have log shipping configured then this command will break your log shipping sequences. Only use if you don't have any space left on physical disk and you don't have any other alternatives available.

if you don't required point in time recovery then change your database recovery model to ‘Simple’ doing this will ensure that your transaction log will not get bigger.

The above command will not reclaim disk space, you have to run DBCC shrink statement or go to the SQL management studio and manually shrink log file.

Granting Permissions on Mailboxes using Power shell

2009-03-04T01:41:00.002+03:00

If you have some accounts which needs to have full access permission on lots of mailboxes then following power shell command is for you. In order to use this command you have to perform below steps;

1. Create one csv file name it users.csv and save it to C:\ drive.

2. Type text name in first line. Please make sure that there is no space or any other special character after text name otherwise the command will not run.

3. Copy all user ids on which you want to add permissions after text name in same column.

4. Open Exchange Management Shell and type following command and press enter;

Import-CSV "C:\users.csv" | ForEach{Add-MailboxPermission –ID $_.name –AccessRights FullAccess –User [Account id]}

Replace [Account id] with the account id which you want to grant full access permissions on mailboxes.

for verifying that the permissions has been granted, Run following command;

Import-CSV "C:\users.csv" | ForEach{Get-MailboxPermission –ID $_.name –User [Account id}

You can add more columns in you text file if you want by using comma ‘,’ and can reference it in the command as same as you are referencing the first column.

If you don’t have aliases or Ids and have only display names and these display names are in last name first name format such as smith, john then you have to add your names in your .csv file like this “smith, john”

if you want to do opposite and wants to add full access permission for lots users on one mailbox then following will be your command

Import-Csv c:\users.csv | foreach {Add-MailboxPermission –Identity [Account Id] -User $_.users -Accessright Fullaccess -InheritanceType all}

Replace [Account Id] with the mailbox alias or name.

Exchange 2007 Basics

2009-02-14T00:11:00.002+03:00

Exchange 2007 environment consists of following basic components;

1. CAS (Client Access Servers).

2. HUB servers.

3. Mail Box servers.

4. Edge Servers.

5. Unified Messaging servers

I will Explain basic functions of each server role in my upcoming blogs so stay tuned ;).

MOSS RSS Feed Reader

2008-11-11T00:43:00.001+03:00

If you are planning for using MOSS RSS feed reader for getting feeds from internal MOSS sites then you have to change your MOSS authentication settings from NTLM to Kerberos or set your site to run in Anonymous mode or have to use some third party RSS feeds solutions integrated with MOSS such as smiling goat otherwise you will get authentication error message in your RSS feed reader webpart. You can find steps for changing MOSS authentication from NTLM to Kerberos in following article http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=832769

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Removing Disconnected Mailboxes in Exchange 2007

2008-11-02T21:58:00.003+03:00

Whenever we disable ore remove any mailbox, by default it goes in disconnected state and can be viewed in disconnected mailboxes view in EMC.

For disabling any account you can run following command
Disable-mailbox user@domain.com

You can also remove any account without providing confirm parameter. Confirm parameter will permanently delete the account and this account will not be visible in disconnected mailboxes view
Remove-Mailbox -Database <Database-Name>

If your account is not visible in disconnected mailboxes view you can confirm it by running following command

Clean-mailboxdatabase -identity "<server name>\<storage group name>\<mailbox database name>"

If you want to permanently delete your account then you have to run this command Remove-Mailbox -Database <Database-Name> -StoreMailboxIdentity <MailboxGuid> -confirm:$false

For finding GUID you have to run this command

Get-MailboxStatistics -server <server name> | where-object { $_.DisconnectDate -ne $null } | Select DisplayName,MailboxGuid

You have to copy the GUID and then paste in the above command for permanently deleting any account

If you want to remove all disconnected mailboxes then you have to first run following command

$users = Get-MailboxStatistics | where-object { $_.DisconnectDate -ne $null } | Select DisplayName,MailboxGuid

Now you have all users in Variable users, you can run following command

$users | ForEach { Remove-Mailbox -Database "Mailbox Database" -StoreMailboxIdentity $_.MailboxGuid -confirm:$false }

Gmail for mobile 2.0

2008-10-26T17:21:00.001+03:00

Google has launched its Gmail 2.0 application for mobile devices, i have tried it on my Nokia N82 and found it very robust and interactive you can download this App by entering http://m.google.com/mail in your mobile device

for more information click on following link http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2008/10/introducing-gmail-for-mobile-20.html

"IT Evolution"- IT Event arranged by Microsoft

2008-10-22T10:24:00.003+03:00

There is an IT event arranged by Microsoft coming in Gulf region named a "IT Evolution ". Following is the Agenda of this event;

09:00-10:00

Registration & Refreshments

10:00-10:45

Keynote: Are You Ready to Move On?

10:00-16:00

Partner Showcase and Exhibition

10:45-11:45

Server Virtualization-Get Virtual Now!

Sliverlight 2.0-Light up the Web

11:45-12:00

Break

12:00-13:00

Hardware Virtualization Visual Studio Team System 2008

13:00-14:00

Lunch

14:00-15:00

App-V - Next Generation Client with Application Virtualization

Windows Presentation Foundation

15:00-15:15

Break

15:15-16:15

SQL Server 2008 - Your Data, Any Place, Any Time

SQL Server 2008 Database Development

16:15-16:30

Closing

Any IT professional working on Microsoft Technologies should attend this session. For more details check out below link.

http://www.microsoft.com/middleeast/gulf/ITEvolution/IT_Times/default.htm

2008-08-07T18:35:00.006+03:00

If you are unable to start certificate services on your CA server and receiving following errors in your CA event viewer

Event Type: Error

Event Source: CertSvc

Event Category: None

Event ID: 100

Date: 8/7/2008

Time: 4:44:20 PM

User: N/A

Computer: XXXXXXXX

Description:

Certificate Services did not start: Could not load or verify the current CA certificate. XXXX Issuing CA The revocation function was unable to check revocation because the revocation server was offline. 0x80092013 (-2146885613).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type: Warning

Event Source: CertSvc

Event Category: None

Event ID: 48

Date: 8/7/2008

Time: 4:44:20 PM

User: N/A

Computer: XXXXXX

Description:

Revocation status for a certificate in the chain for CA certificate 0 for XXXX Issuing CA could not be verified because a server is currently unavailable. The revocation function was unable to check revocation because the revocation server was offline. 0x80092013 (-2146885613).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

This issue should be occurring because CA is not able to find the CRL. For fixing this issue try to run following command on CA server

certutil –setreg ca\CRLFlags +CRLF_REVCHECK_IGNORE_OFFLINE

After this command restart the Certificate service again and the service should run without any issues.

IIS 6.0 thread access Issue

2008-04-29T20:51:00.004+03:00

Three weeks earlier i faced an issue in my MOSS environment.I have an enterprise MOSS farm environment consists of 6 Front-end servers and 5 Application servers. During installation of portal AV solution on these servers, i found that IIS on 5 of these servers were not responding. I opened IIS administration console but nothing was showing. I restarted IIS on all servers but no luck, then i did some research on it and found following MS KB on the same issue

"You may be unable to manage IIS 6.0 by using Server Manager if two threads access IIS 6.0 at the same time"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946517

As per this KB this issue is because "two threads access IIS 6.0 at the same time. In this scenario, you may be unable to manage IIS 6.0 by using Server Manager."
Also regarding SharePoint as per this KB "This problem is likely to occur for the SharePoint Timer service (OWSTimer.exe) in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. When this problem occurs for the SharePoint Timer service, you may experience the following symptoms:

In SharePoint Server 2007, tasks that are scheduled do not run.
When you try to manage IIS 6.0 by using Server Manager, you receive a blank page, or you receive the following error message: The path specified cannot be used at this time"

There is an hot-fix mentioned in this KB but it is not publicly available, one has to request Microsoft support for acquiring this. I got this hot-fix from my Microsoft account manager within an hour (because of our good relationship with them ;)) and had applied it instantaneously. The issue was fixed after this patch and haven't occurred yet.

I think that this hot-fix will be included in new windows 2003 service pack(SP3) and also might addressed in IIS 6.0 successor i.e IIS 7.0.

Using SharePoint designer 2007 for backup and restore SharePoint 2003 sites

2008-04-13T15:12:00.020+03:00

Before release of SharePoint designer, SharePoint sites can be backed-up and restore by using “smigrate” or “stsadm” tool. Both of these tools are command line and required some background SharePoint knowledge. SharePoint designer is a new tool in this breed; one can easily backup and restore SharePoint sites by using SharePoint designer GUI and performing some basic steps. Following are the simple steps which can be followed for backing up and restoring any SharePoint site.

Site Backup:

Step 1: Open Sharepoint site in Designer

Step 2: Go to Site->Administration->Backup website

Step 3: Click OK

Step 4: Give Name and location of backup file and click Save.

Site Restore:

Step1: Create new SharePoint site for restore (Do not apply template on newly created site, Stop on Template selection screen and don’t click ok)

Step 2: Copy the URL from the Template selection screen (Don’t click ok)

Step 3: Paste this URL in Open site dialog box.

Step 4: Go to Site->Administration->Restore website

Step 5: Select backup file for restore.

Step 6: Click OK for restore.

You will get success message after successful restore

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Use Google Maps to find Google data centers

2008-04-13T01:07:00.003+03:00

Pingdom, using information from Data Center Knowledge, has put together an online map showing where Google has build 36 data centers.

View Original Article

Blogged with the Flock Browser