Scott's questions

I'm just getting started with HP Web Jetadmin 10.2 and I've set up e-mail notifications for errors. I'd also like to set up a monthly e-mail notification of the current page count, so that I can calculate the number of pages printed during the previous month and see if that number is increasing or decreasing. However, there doesn't appear to be a way to configure any sort of schedule. Am I missing something, or am I asking too much of this free utility?

EDIT: Thanks to RobW for pointing me towards a solution. I'm going to try and describe it here so that others can benefit. My solution uses snmptools and blat (links in the accepted answer).

I wrote a script called pagecount.bat which looks like this:

@ECHO OFF

@FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i IN ('C:\SNMPTools\snmptools.exe /v /query /h:192.168.1.12 /o:1.3.6.1.2.1.1.6.0') DO set deviceName=%%i
@FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i IN ('C:\SNMPTools\snmptools.exe /v /query /h:192.168.1.12 /o:1.3.6.1.2.1.43.10.2.1.4.1.1') DO set pageCount=%%i
ECHO %deviceName% %pageCount% > C:\SNMPTools\results.txt

@FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i IN ('C:\SNMPTools\snmptools.exe /v /query /h:192.168.1.13 /o:1.3.6.1.2.1.1.6.0') DO set deviceName=%%i
@FOR /F "tokens=*" %%i IN ('C:\SNMPTools\snmptools.exe /v /query /h:192.168.1.13 /o:1.3.6.1.2.1.43.10.2.1.4.1.1') DO set pageCount=%%i
ECHO %deviceName% %pageCount% >> C:\SNMPTools\results.txt

The first block uses the > operator to overwrite the file results.txt and subsequent blocks use the >> operator to append to the file. At the bottom of the file I have the following line:

C:\blat276\full\blat.exe C:\SNMPTools\results.txt -to [email protected] -subject "Printer page counts"

And the results are sent to the specified e-mail address.

Prior to running this script, I have configured blat on the server using the command

blat -install mail.example.com [email protected]

After some testing and being satisfied with the results, I set up a scheduled task to run the script at 12:05 AM on the first day of every month. Once I have two months-worth of data, the numbers can be subtracted from each other to determine the total pages printed during the month for each device. These results can then be multiplied by their respective cost per page and summed to get the total printing costs for the month.

We have a maintenance agreement on our photocopiers, so the cost per page is listed on the quarterly invoice. For our regular printers, the cost per page can be calculated by dividing the cost of a toner cartridge by the specified yield of that cartridge.

After you have your first set of monthly printing costs, the challenge is to try to reduce the costs next month. One possibility is to switch the locations of some printers so that the cheaper to operate printers are in the higher volume areas.

BTW: All this math is being done in an Excel spreadsheet.

Today we're migrating to a new file and print server, which made me wonder, is there a way to see which users are connected to a shared printer? It's possible to see connections to shared folders in Computer Management, but I'm not aware of anything similar for shared printers. I tried a few Google searches, but I can't seem to explain it in a way that returns any meaningful results.

We're in the process of replacing the shelving in our server room, and I found a piece of paper that had been covered over which lists various actions to take during/after a power outage:

1. ADSL modem power off and on
2. Start all servers
3. Start production order polling process
4. Check: E-mail services started
5. Check: SQL Agent service started
6. Check: Internet connection restored
7. Photocopiers: power off and on

Some of these steps make sense, but I'm not sure about powering things off and on. All our modems, routers, switches, and servers are on battery backup. PowerChute Business Edition is installed on the servers and they are configured to shutdown automatically at the last possible minute (because we get a lot of short outages). I know from past outages that auto shutdown is working, and the servers are being auto powered on again when the power is restored. The photocopiers are not on battery backup, and considering everybody wants them to die I'm not really interested in protecting them.

Checking that things are up and running again makes sense, and I've configured quite a few automatic e-mails to handle this (using a third-party monitoring service).

So what do I really need to be doing during the power outage itself? I figure that making a note of the time and calling the power company should be sufficient. I've read elsewhere on this site of people recommending to shut everything down manually, but we don't stay on site until the power comes back up so we prefer that things come back up on their own.

To give some context on the environment, our e-mail server is located in-house, as well as a web server which runs our on-line ordering system and zip locator service. These need to be up, though orders are not really lost when we're down; we're a manufacturing company with a distribution network, so we don't sell directly to the end consumer. Our distributors will enter their orders when the system comes back up.

We're in the process of replacing our SQL Server and have decided that renaming the server itself is going to be much easier than changing everything else to point to a new name. We found instructions on changing the SQL Server instance name to match the computer name which look like this:

sp_dropserver 'OLDSERVER'
sp_addserver 'NEWSERVER', local

Though SQL Enterprise Manager doesn't seem to like those together. I had to change it to the following to make it work together:

sp_dropserver 'OLDSERVER'; GO
sp_addserver 'NEWSERVER', 'local'; GO

Which is not bad, but I would prefer things to be more automated. Since @@ServerName returns the name of the instance, I figured out how to automate the first line:

sp_dropserver @@ServerName; GO

I also learned that SERVERPROPERTY('ServerName') is supposed to return the computer name, so I thought I could maybe use that to automate the second part, but this didn't work:

sp_addserver SERVERPROPERTY('ServerName'), 'local'; GO

I tried setting a variable, which I need to do anyway to update the SQL Agent jobs, but that didn't work either:

DECLARE @srv sysname;
SET @srv = CAST(SERVERPROPERTY('ServerName') AS sysname);
sp_addserver @srv, 'local'; GO

Incorrect syntax near 'sp_addserver'.

I would very much like to not have to hardcode the new server name into the script, to make this more easily reusable. Anybody got any ideas?

We have recently purchased a server which is running Hyper-V 2008 R2 bare metal. The server has two quad-core Intel Xeon processors with hyperthreading, so if I'm understanding correctly this gives us 16 cores. Within Hyper-V we have created a virtual machine running Windows Server 2008 R2 with 4 virtual processors. The processor settings screen is telling me that this represents 25% of the total system processing power. Does this mean that the remaining 75% can not be tapped into by the virtual OS? We will be running a few other virtual machines, but this one is for SQL Server and we'd like to throw as much horsepower at it as possible.

I've been trying to search for others having this same problem on Google, but I'm not sure how to describe it. We have a user who does not have access to a file even though she has permission on it. However, she does have access to other files which she doesn't have permission on. The commonality between all these other files is that another user has access to them. In short, the file server is treating User A as if she was actually User B. We tested this theory by giving User B permission to view the file for User A, and it worked, but the contents of the file are only for User A and the HR Department to see so we put it back the way it was.

I checked Effective Permissions and group memberships, but found no explanation there. Tried deleting permissions and recreating on an individual file, but there was no change in behavior. I'm stumped with no idea what to try next.

EDIT1: I did a bit more testing today.

The first test involved logging in as User A and creating a text file on the server. I then turned off permission inheritance and removed all inherited permissions. I gave User A and Administrator full control of the file. User A could not open the file. I went back in to Security and gave User B full control of the file. User A was then able to open the file. This gave no additional insight into the problem, but confirmed my suspicions.

I started to get suspicious of User A's computer itself and wondered what would happen if User A logged into a different computer. We tried this and discovered that User A no longer had access to User B's files, and did have access to User A's own files. Although I still don't know what is causing the problem, it appears to be specific to the computer, and the solution seems to be that I need to delete User A's profile and rebuild it. I'll report back later in the week.

EDIT2: The problem reoccurred a few days after I rebuilt the profile. I swapped the computer for a different one and waited a week. The problem did not occur on the loaner machine, so I am now reformatting the problematic computer.

We just got approval to purchase a new database server. My manager is worried that, after we deploy the new server, some users might not perceive the improvement in performance. I've been tasked to come up with some way to measure the improvement. But first, some details on the upgrade:

The old server has dual Intel Xeon 3.40GHz single-core processors and 4 GB of RAM. It's running Windows 2000 Server Standard 32-bit and SQL Server 2000.

The new server will have dual Intel Xeon 2.4GHz quad-core processors and 18 GB of RAM. It will be running Windows 2008 Hyper-V bare-metal. Initially, we'll be virtualizing Windows Server 2003 Premium (until we can upgrade our ERP software to the latest version) and SQL Server 2000 (not enough money in the budget to upgrade SQL Server yet).

Having never done this sort of thing before, my idea was to create a SQL query that hits some of the really large database tables such that the query takes a minute or two to run, and measure how long it takes to execute by setting two date/time variables, one before the big query and one after. I would then store these two date/time values in a table and schedule the job to run a night when activity is minimal and equivalent each day. This should factor out the load variability during the day.

By comparing the elapsed time in our current situation and the elapsed time after the upgrade, that should give an idea of time savings, so that we can say the upgrade resulted in an improvement of x%. Does my plan seem solid, or did I take a wrong turn at Albuquerque? Is there something I should be measuring additionally?

We have some users who work remotely and they access their e-mail in Outlook 2003 using RPC over HTTP. We just hired another sales guy and the laptop we bought for him came with Office 2010, so I decided to give it a whirl. I set it up the same as I normally would for Outlook 2003 and sent him on his merry way. Now he's back home several thousand miles away and can't get to his e-mail. He is able to access his e-mail using Outlook Web Access.

Searching around on Google, lots of people were pointing to https://testexchangeconnectivity.com/ so I gave that a try. Most of the steps are successful, but it fails on "Attempting to ping RPC endpoint 6001 (Exchange Information Store)". I'd like to fix this, though I suspect fixing it may not automatically fix the outlook 2010 issue.

I checked the registry setting for ValidPorts, and it's configured correctly. I have ports 80, 443, and 6001-6004 being forwarded on the router to the Exchange server.

If Outlook 2010 just won't work with Exchange 2003, I can accept that, though trying to rectify it will be interesting because I don't expect this guy will be back in the office for a long time. Has anybody got Outlook 2010 working with Exchange 2003 using RPC over HTTP?

If you have a solution, or something you want me to do to help investigate the problem, please give specific steps. Exchange Server is slightly outside my area of expertise.

Ever since the switch from Standard Time to Daylight Time, the time on our e-mail messages has been ahead by one hour. This symptom has me wondering if the cause is improper configuration of daylight savings settings.

Since we're in a client/server environment, the clients synchronize with the server, and the server synchronizes with Boulder, Colorado. If I set both the server and the clients to automatically switch to daylight savings, the clients seem to regard the server as being set to Standard Time and set themselves an hour ahead of it, which is really two hours ahead. Should the server switch to daylight savings and the clients follow along on their next synchronization, or should the server stay on Standard Time and the clients switch over?

The system clock on the Exchange Server is currently displaying the correct time. How do I get the e-mail messages to display the correct time in Outlook?

I finally convinced upper management that we need a computer replacement plan, and I've been tasked with making an inventory of what we have and determining what needs to be replaced this year, next year, the year after, etc. I had to use some sort of criteria to back up my recommendations, so I decided to try using the Windows Experience Index.

I've determined the CPU and Memory scores for all of our desktops and servers using community data. I also feel fairly successful in assigning a WEI score to each user based on their computing needs. I'm struggling with assigning a WEI score to the various servers that we have: file server, database server, Exchange server, backup server (for doing backups), web server. Suggestions would be appreciated.

I just recently transferred to the IT Department in my company and one of the tasks on my plate is to review their backup strategy and make sure it's "good". Although I have a lot of IT experience with previous employers, I've never really been involved with backup and restore much beyond the theory level.

They are performing nightly backups to a 400GB tape and a 1TB USB hard drive. The hard drive is backing up absolutely everything on all five servers. The tape is backing up just the essential stuff: web sites, databases, exchange, departmental shares, users' home folders. Both jobs start at 11:00 PM. The tape finishes around 8:30 AM; the hard drive finishes in the middle of the afternoon.

The selection lists were set up by a third-party company. The IT Manager is questioning whether it is really necessary to back up absolutely everything; for example, do we need to back up the WINNT folder? If a server dies, is the tape backup sufficient to bring it back to life, or do we need more?

As part of our regular preventative maintenance, we check the event logs on the workstations in our network for serious issues (e.g. diskperf errors). Some workstations commonly have a critical error where the explanation is "Fault bucket" followed by some number. Can anybody explain what this means? Does it really point to some critical problem that we should care about? Anything we can do about it so that it no longer shows up?