GenivNET

For those that are newbies in the Windows environment, here is how to renew an IP address in Windows.

1. Open the Command Prompt

Click Start -> Run -> type CMD

2. In the Command Prompt, type “ipconfig /release” and hit enter.  This will release your current IP address.

3. Next, type in “ipconfig /renew” and hit enter.  This will renew your IP address from the DHCP server.

4. Type, “ipconfig /all” to see if a new IP address has been assigned to you or not.  If your network connection is setup correctly, a new IP address will be assigned to your machine.

Below are some useful links on how to increase the Windows disk partition in VMWare.

• Increasing the size of the disk partition: Link

• Extending partitions in Windows using Diskpart: Link

* Watch the YouTube video on the second link.

• How to extend a data volume in Windows Server 2003, in Windows XP, in Windows 2000, and in Windows Server 2008 :  Link

The Diskpart command can only extend data disk partition.  It can not extend system or boot partition.  If you tried extending the system or boot partition, you will get an error message.  There are third party tools which can extend the disk partition for you, but we found that there is an easier way in doing this.  Watch the YouTube video on the second link for step by step instruction on doing this.  Basically, the video shows that you will need to use another VM to add an addition disk into it.  And, this disk is the system partition disk from the VM that you wanted to extend.

When you are trying to DCPROMO a domain controller as a secondary DC, you received the following error message:

“Failed to modify the necessary properties for the machine account. Access is denied”

Follow the microsoft link below for resolution instructions:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/232070

If you are getting the following Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) when booting up your machine.

Dynamic Linked Library winsrv could not be found in the specified path. Default load Path

This is most likely that your system is having a problem reading the winsrv.dll file or the registry.

You can follow the Microsoft fix to solve this. 

Microsoft

Recently, I’ve tested the VM Converter on a Windows 2003 Server.  The VM converter was installed on another station for client and server installation.  We was trying to convert a Windows 2003 server from physical to virtual (p2v).  The conversion went fine up to 95% and then it failed and gave an “Reconfiguration Failed” error message.

Troubleshooting the error logs, I was able to find out why it was failing.  Like the error message said, it failed on the reconfiguration step.  It seems that the VM converter was having a problem reconfiguring.  In our case, it was the D drive on this server. The D drive wasn’t a system drive.  So it was okay to manually copy the data on it after the system conversion.  Once we removed the D drive from the conversion, VM converter was able to convert this server to a virtual machine.

How to remove Exchange Server transaction log files?

There are several ways where you can have you Exchange server to remove the transaction logs.

1- Running Full Backup on the Exchange server

2- Running an Incremental Backup on the Exchange server (* A full backup will still be needed for the first time so that there are references for the incremental backup to use)

3- Enable your Exchange to use Circular Logs

4- Manually moving / deleting your logs
The best transaction log strategy is to run a weekly Full backup and a daily Incremental backup on your exchange server.  Manually removing transaction logs are to be done when backup jobs have failed.  Otherwise, avoid doing this because it might cause the Exchange database stores to be at a dirty stage (consistency problem).

Recently, we ran into this problem where access to our VM was unavailable.  We are getting the “Unable to access a file since it is locked” error message with one of our VM that got converted from physical to Virtual (P2V) with the VM Converter.

Searching the web, we found this site that has a solution to fix the problem.

How to unlock locked files on your ESX host

http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=82

There are several companies that provide software to do this.  Our favorite is VMWare.  This is because it is easy and simple.

1. You will need to download the VMWare Converter from the VMWare site (http://www.vmware.com).  This is free.

2. Once downloaded you will need to install it.  We choose the Client/Server installation.  This give you the option to select what and where to install it.

3. Simply enter in the Source and Destination machine name or IP address.

4. Review the settings and start converting.

In order to run multiple IE versions in Windows, you will need to download a program called “Multiple IE”.

Download Link

This package is bundled with different versions of IE in it.

• IE 3.0
• IE 4.01
• IE 5.01
• IE 5.5
• IE 6.0

This is a great tool for developers that need to test their codes against different versions of the IE browser.

You can pretty much disable any services in Windows with Group Policy.  Below is an example for a Windows 2008 AD environment.

1. Open the “Group Policy Manager” under the Administrator Tools  (You might need to do this in a domain controller)

2. Create a new GPO or edit your default one.

3. Edit the GPO by right clicking the policy for the “Edit” option

4. Expand the “Computer Configuration” -> “Policies”-> “Windows Components” -> “Windows Updates”

5. Here you will find all the settings for the Windows Updates service, look for the “Configure Automatic Update” and disable it.

6. Exit out and now you have a policy that will disable the Windows Update feature in Windows.