Payson Welch's questions

Hi we have a Windows Server 2008 R2 server that has been having issues lately. Right at the same time as most of the issues started happening I noticed that there are lots of exceptions in the logs for KERNELBASE.dll - This doesn't look good, I'm wondering if anyone out there can help me interpret this event from the event log? Thanks.

Faulting application name: w3wp.exe, version: 7.5.7601.17514, time stamp: 0x4ce7afa2
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17651, time stamp: 0x4e21213c
Exception code: 0xe053534f
Fault offset: 0x000000000000cacd
Faulting process id: 0x%9
Faulting application start time: 0x%10
Faulting application path: %11
Faulting module path: %12
Report Id: %13

I have a handful of servers at home and I am wondering how feasible it is to network them together using fiber optic. Is it as simple as getting a fiber switch on ebay, and getting fiber NICs for each of the servers and hooking everything up? The servers only need to talk to eachother, I only have three of them so we aren't talking about anything too fancy.

I installed and then uninstalled Microsoft Security Essentials on Server 2008 R2 - after installation I noticed that there were 12 updates on a supposedly fully updated system. I did a little further comparison with another Server 2008 R2 server and noticed that after installing MSE I now have an extra option titled "Microsoft Update - Give me updates for Microsoft products and check for new optional Microsoft software when I update window". How can I enable this on regular Server 2008 R2 installation without installing MSE?

Hello I am trying to configure raid on a PERC 4 running in a PowerEdge 1850. When I go into the bios configuration for the raid controller the drives I have attached are not present. Specifically when I go to the easy configuration screen all I see is "Processor" and no drives. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong? These drives are Ultra 320 SCSI. Is there a jumper or something else that I need to set on the drives perhaps?

I have a PowerEdge 1850 running two SCSI Ultra 320 drives (10k 73gb). I am looking for recommendations on boot disks / methods to run a boot time surface scan. I would like to do this at boot time because I have lots of drives to test and don't want to install an OS on all of them.

I am also looking for a fairly generic solution that is not tied to a particular drive brand.

Would it be acceptable to install compatible RAM from a non Dell manufacturer? Specifically I am wondering if it is OK to install HP PC2-5300P ECC memory into a PowerEdge 1850? The part number for the memory I am thinking of purchasing is: 408853-B21.

Quick networking question. My main dev machine is a notebook and my source control and file server (two computers) are desktops which are not meant to connect to the internet. My Notebook connects to the internet via wifi - I do not have access to the router otherwise I would plug my servers in via cat5.

My question is if I purchase a switch and plug all three computers in will my laptop be able to access resources on my two servers, and still be able to access the internet?

I have a spare router and tried connecting all of them that way however my notebook tried to access the internet via that router instead of the wifi connection. I briefly looked into this however I did not see an option in Windows 7 networking to set a preferred / default connection.

I have a very simple, yes or no question, hopefully. I have a logical partition inside of an extended partition, along with some free space in the extended partition. On server 2008 r2 if I drop the logical partition inside of the extended partition will I be able to also drop the extended partition and then create a new primary partition?

In the Server 2008 R2 disk management snap-in I have Disk 0 which has these partitions:

1. boot partition - 71mb
2. a Recovery partition 3gb
3. OS (C:) 40gb
4. DATAPART1 (D:) 150gb
5. Free space 40gb

Disk 0 is a basic disk (instead of a dynamic disk).

So I would like to extend C: however when I right click on it I do not have the option to extend it is greyed out. The 40gb of free space was freed from DATAPART1, the two are bound by a dark green box which seems to signify that they are "together".

I am assuming that I cannot extend C: because it appears to the system as there is no excess free space because it is still being reserved by DATAPART1.

What is the green box around DATAPART1 and the free space, and how can I make changes to allow C: to extend?

So I have looked everywhere for the solution to this and have tried many things. There is one post on SE related to this and I tried the suggested answer but I am still having problems.

We have a server running Server 2008 R2 Standard x64. I need to increase the space of C: since the free space is running very low. However when I open Server Manager and try to go to the "Disk Management" snap-in it just hangs.

There is a status message on the bottom of the window that says "Connecting to Virtual Disk Service...".

Here are the steps I have taken:

1. Ran sfc /scannow
2. Set all of the drives to be dirty and rebooted so that they would be scanned
3. Executed chkdsk /f /r /b /v on all of the drives.
4. Checked for Windows updates (none).
5. Verified that the services "Virtual Disk", "RPC Procedures" and "Plug and Play" are all running.

One symptom is that the service "Virtual Disk" does not cleanly shut down. I receive a message about the process being unexpectedly terminated when I try to stop or restart it. Also I cannot find anything relevant in the event logs.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Can anyone recommend a good third party DNS provider for the cost? I have looked at DynDNS, UltraDNS and DNS Made Easy, however they have high price points.

Hi I am aware of several 'modes' that domain controllers can be setup as. Right now we only have a primary domain controller and I would like to setup a secondary. We also will need to have a tertiary or perhaps a read only domain controller in our data center. Any suggestions, or suggested reading on how to setup a secondary DC? Our primary is on Server 2008, the new DC will be installed on Server 2008 R2.

What is the easiest way to provision a Windows group on Server 2008 R2 that will allow me to add it to the list of authorized people that can RDP? Eg when I look at the object types allowed I have options for built-in security principals and users. How can I enable my group to be added to the RDP access list?

So it looks like for the most part Xeon motheboard sockets are fairly standardized. If I order a new server with a Xeon proc would I be able to expect to upgrade to any processor in the Xeon family or are there exceptions to this? Do I need to stay with an L seriies if I get an L series or can I upgrade from an L to an X etc?

Hi does anyone have any input on how a SAS 15k RPM drive would perform compared to a sata based SSD drive, assuming its using the latest verison of sata.

These drives would be in a 4 drive raid 10 configurtion and the sizes are around 70GB per drive.