David Murdoch's questions

I have a client with a self-hosted 2010 Exchange Server. They want to have Auto Reply automatically turn on only between 5:00 PM and 8:00 AM. During these hours they do not want any notifications of any new emails to appear on their devices, but would like to still be able to check their email.

Is exchange configurable to do any of this or is there some software that can do this out of the box? Or will I need to have a custom solution developed?

We've got a Windows Server Standard 2008 server that needs to run QuickBooks Sync Manager, which is an application that only works properly from one user account (the account that configured it). The QuickBooks Sync Manager will only run if the user is currently logged in.

The problem is that we only use this server as a file server, no one ever has any reason to log in to it.

Is there some way to get this application to run under a specific user without that user actually having to log in?

Alternatively, is there any way to schedule a task to automatically log in a specific user?

I have read countless articles on setting up a domain on WAMP to listen on a port other than 80; none of them are working.

I've got Windows Server 2008 (Standard) with IIS 7 installed and running on port 80 (and 443).

I've got WAMP installed with the following configuration.

Listen 81
ServerName sub.example.com:81
DocumentRoot "C:/Path/To/www"
<Directory "C:/Path/To/www">

    Options All MultiViews

    AllowOverride All

#   onlineoffline tag - don't remove
    Order Allow,Deny
    Allow from all

</Directory>

localhost:81 works with the above configuration but sub.example.com:81 does not.

Just to make sure my firewall wasn't getting in the way I have disabled it completely.

My sub.example.com domain is already pointing to my server and works on IIS on port 80.

Also, if I disable IIS and change the Apache port from 81 to 80 it works.

Yes, I am restarting Apache after each httpd.conf change. :-)

I don't need any other domain (or sub domains [I don't even care about localhost]) configured which is why I'm not using a VirtualHost.

Any ideas what is going on here? What could I be doing wrong?

Update

Changing Listen to 80 but keeping ServerName as sub.example.com:81 causes navigation to sub.example.com:80 to work; this just doesn't seem right to me. Could ServerName be ignoring the :port part somehow?

netstat -a -n | find "TCP":

>netstat -a -n | find "TCP"
  TCP    0.0.0.0:81             0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
  TCP    0.0.0.0:135            0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
  TCP    0.0.0.0:445            0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
  TCP    0.0.0.0:912            0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING
  ...
  TCP    127.0.0.1:81           127.0.0.1:49709        TIME_WAIT
  ...

Some background info:

We recently relocated our main server from one office (office1) to another office (office2) (more people worked at the office2 than office1 so it made sense). We didn't have VPN set up before (remote users just used RDP) so before the move I set it up (office2 VPN to office1) just to make sure it would work....and it did. However, we had a WRT56G router at office1 and I didn't need to change anything in the router's config. Now that the machine has been relocated it doesn't work.

So, I need to set up a VPN from a Windows XP Pro (SP3) machine to access a network with a Linksys RV042 router and Windows Server 2000 (using active directory) behind it.

I've been at it for about 5 hours now with no luck.

I've:

• updated the RV042 router to the latest firmware.
• forwarded both TCP and UDP port 1723 to my Windows 2000 Server's internal IP
• enabled "PPTP Server" and added a User (with the same Username and password as a domain account on the server)
• enabled "PPTP Pass Through"
• disabled DHCP on the router (and tried it with DHCP enabled)
• disabled the router's firewall completely.

I don't know if these settings cause problems:

• DMZ is set up to point to some other system (security cameras, I think)
• The server's subnet used to be 192.168.100.* now it is 192.168.4.*

What else do I need to do?

FYI: OS is SQL Server 2008 (NOT R2).

Yesterday, when I was trying to get Visual Studio 2010 on a remote Win XP machine to be able to debug ASP.NET over the network, I installed Active Directory (and DNS) on my server.

Well, I gave up that.

So, I un-installed Active Directory and now I can't log on to my local SQL Server instance, MSSQLSERVER2008 (aka (local) or SERVERNAME) via Windows Authentication. I get this error message:

Cannot connect to (local). Additional information: Login failed for user 'SERVERNAME\Administrator'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 18456)

Some possibly relevant info:

• I can connect with SQL Server Authentication (but I can only administer a single database with each log in this way...and there are like 20 of em).

• I can also still connect via asp.net user SQL Server Authentication (IIS is running on the same machine).

• I can also still connect remotely via Visual Studio's "Server Explorer" using SQL Server Authentication.

• Also, My Administrator Account's C:/users directory is now Administrator.SERVERNAME

• Start > run > services.msc > SQL Server (MSQSERVER2008) properties > "Log On" = "Local System account" and "Allow service to interact with desktop" is checked.

• Start > All Programs > MS Sql Server 2008 > Configuration Tools > SQL Server Configuration Manager > SQL Server Properties > "Log on as:" = Built-in account: (Local System) ("Network Service" doesn't work {Error: The parameter is incorrect, [0x80070057]})

• I've tried making a new administrator account and logging on that way but it still doesn't work (same error as with the other account).

My thought is that SQL Server is only allowing connections from users from the domain I had set up temporarily with Active Directory. Maybe when I un-installed active Directory it couldn't revert SQL server back correctly? But I have no idea how to fix this or if that is what happened.

Any tips or suggestions are welcome...I've tried just about everything I can think of (which isn't much)...so now I'm looking to the professionals. :-)

Thanks!

I have windows server 2008 with IIS7.

I was having problems getting a new website to work in today...I've been troublshooting for about 2 hours now and haven't come up with anything.

Heres what is weird:

I have a working website running on IIS named "TI." It points to the directory "C:\Websites\TI\web". This website works perfectly!!!

If I:

• copy this directory then paste it as "C:\Websites\TI\web - Copy"
• go to IIS Manager
• "Add Web Site"
• then select the "web - copy" directory
• point a new domain to it
• fireup my browser to point to the site
• I get: "500 - Internal server error. There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed."

Any ideas as to what the problem could be?

Imma 'bout gunna break this here darned keyboard over my face outta frustration.

UPDATE

If I change the original site ("TI") to point to the new copy of itself ("web - Copy") the website will work fine! WTF?

We just had one of our many 5-port network switches die on us and it took over a day to figure out what was causing our network problems. So now I have $200 to "fix" our network.

Our goal is a network that is less of a hassle to administer and that will operate more efficiently/faster that our current setup.

In the image below, from top to bottom we have:

• Intellinet - 5-Port 10/100 Switch.
• Netgear - 5-Port 10/100 Fast Switch (Model: FS605 v3).
• D-Link - 5-Port 10/100 Fast Switch (Model: DSS-5+).
• Linksys Wireless Broadband-G Router - 4 10/100 Ethernet Ports, 1 10/100 Internet Port. (Model: WRT54Gv6 w/ lastest firmware [v1.02.8]).
• Comcast cable modem: 4 10/100 BASE-TX RJ45 ports (Model: SMC8014-BIZ).

We have will Cat-5e cables running throughout (switches, walls, computers/printers, etc).

One upgrade we are considering is a D-Link DGS-1024D Unmanaged 24xRJ45 port 10/100/1000Mbps Unmanaged Rackmountable Switch. It will cost about $140 USD. My idea for the network configuration is outlined in the following image:

We have 1 file-server, 1 web-server (port 80), 10+ machines with windows XP pro, a few with vista home, 1 with windows 7, and 5 or so networked printers.

Will replacing our current setup with my proposed setup make any significant difference?

Let me know if you need more information.

If you want to suggest other ways to spend my $200 budget feel free to share.

But I don't believe it.

The machine is a Dell PowerEdge 2600 server running Windows Server 2008 trial 32bit (yah, its not supposed to...but it works! [well, it used to]).

For the sake of confusion: the drives are numbered 0, 1 and 2.

I was coding away as usual when I noticed the Dell logo on the front of the case was orange. So I opened the case door and saw that the HD vents were completely covered with dust (I know its not related to the orange light...but I hate dust). Since the drives are hot-swappable I yanked drive 2 out and cleaned off the dust and put it back in. I then yanked drive 1 out and cleaned the dust off that one and put it back in. Someone asked be to help set up a printer on their machine so I got up and 20 minutes later came back to see 'No boot device available - strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility` displayed on the server's monitor. I look down at the drives and drives 1 and 2 have orange lights instead of the green ones!

Since then here is what I have tried:

• Installed drives into a Dell PowerEdge 2500. Drives were detected fine. Got a message stating Missing operating system.
• Reset the bios on the original PowerEdge 2600 (pulled the bios battery out). All drives appear fine. Get the Missing operating system message when booting. A drive lights are green.
• Booted Ubuntu from a CD to inspect the drives. 2 of the drives are displayed in Computer. Since the data is striped the files/folders in the drives are gibberish.
• Booted Ubuntu and opened Terminal and executed sudo fdisk -l which listed the 3 drives. On the 3rd drive listed it states Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Do you think the drives ARE actually toast?
Could it be SCSI or other hardware failure?
Could it be incorrect System Settings? Is there any way to create a virtual RAID in Ubuntu on the 2 drives that are "valid" so I can copy the data to a network share?
Should I try reinstalling the Windows Server OS(eek!)? Do you have any suggestions that I can try?

UPDATE

After doing lots of googling I came across Raid Reconstructor. I tried this program using my Dell PowerEdge 2600 using a bootable windows XP CD but it did not work (no drives detected). I then installed two of the drives into the PowerEdge 2500 alongside the 2500's existing single-drive RAID 0 running Microsoft Server 2003. I then installed and activated Raid Reconstructor which created a virtual image of the RAID-5 array, opened the image with Captain Nemo, and backed up my C:/Websites directory to another computer...with ALL files intact (so far)!!!

I will hopefully be able to restore the drives 100%

Lessons learned:

• I don't care if the server can "hot-swap" drives. DON'T FREAKING DO IT!
• Back up your data, dummy!

Thanks for all your help, answers, and comments (and for being wrong about the data loss. haha)!

I am upgrading the memory on a Dell PowerEdge 1800 Server running Windows Server 2000 (32 bit). My Computer -> Properties currently reports 2,096,432 KB RAM (4 modules @ 512MB each).

Crucial.com scan reports:
"Each memory slot can hold DDR2 PC2-5300 with a maximum of 2GB per slot.

Maximum Memory Capacity:  12288MB
Currently Installed Memory:  2GB
Available Memory Slots:  2
Total Memory Slots:  6
Dual Channel Support:   No
CPU Manufacturer:  GenuineIntel
CPU Family:  Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz Model 4, Stepping 1
CPU Speed:  2793 MHz
Installed in pairs of modules."

We will be completely replacing the old 512 MB modules.
Will there be any performance difference between installing 4 modules @ 1GB vs. 2 modules @ 2GB?

I'm using wkhtmltopdf to convert HTML web pages to PDFs. This works perfectly on my 32-bit dev server [unfortunately, I can't ship my machine :-p ]. However, when I deploy to the web application's 64-bit server the following errors are displayed: (running from cmd.exe)

C:\>wkhtmltopdf http://www.google.com google.pdf
Loading pages (1/5)
QFontEngine::loadEngine: GetTextMetrics failed ()            ] 10%
QFontEngineWin: GetTextMetrics failed ()
QFontEngineWin: GetTextMetrics failed ()
QFontEngine::loadEngine: GetTextMetrics failed ()
QFontEngineWin: GetTextMetrics failed ()
QFontEngineWin: GetTextMetrics failed ()
QFontEngineWin: GetTextMetrics failed ()
QFontEngine::loadEngine: GetTextMetrics failed ()            ] 36%
QFontEngineWin: GetTextMetrics failed ()
QFontEngineWin: GetTextMetrics failed ()
// ...etc....

and the PDF is created and saved... just WITHOUT text. All form-fields, images, borders, tables, divs, spans, ps, etc are rendered accurately...just void of any text at all.

Server information:

    Windows edition: Windows Server Standard Service Pack 2
    Processor: Intel Xeon    E5410 @ 2.33GHz 2.33 GHz
    Memory: 8.00 GB
    System type: 64-bit Operating System

Can anyone give me a clue as to what is happening and how I can fix this?

Also, I wasn't sure what to tag/title this question with...so if you can think of better tags/title comment them or edit the question. :-)