Blog entries tagged tips and tricks

Unable to activate Windows after virtualization

Tom Finnis — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:39:37 +0100

I've been migrating a client to vSphere 4 this weekend and have encountered this problem with all their servers, and its not the first time either so I thought I should share the solution.

This is most common with Dell servers and their so called "OEM" licensing, and its another one of their sly cost-saving measures that you dont notice until they really cause you a hassle. To elaborate a bit more, you may or may not be aware that OEM stands for Original Equipment ManufactureRead More...

How to access the local console on ESXi 4.0

Tom Finnis — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:00:00 +0100

We've just acquired a pair of HP DL380 G6s for our vSphere 4 test lab, they have the new Intel Nehalem Xeon CPUs and chipset with all the latest virtualisation features. Plenty more to come on all that but first of all here's something you won't find in the documentation. Having just installed the ESXi 4.0 hypervisor on the servers the classic question came up from one of the junior technicians - "what's the difference between ESX and ESXi?". Someone else then answered that ESXi doesn't have Read More...

IE7 and IE8 - self signed SSL certificate not trusted?

Tom Finnis — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Although proper SSL certificates from providers such as Digicert and Verisign have become much cheaper nowadays there are still many occasions when you might prefer to just use a self signed certificate. One of the most common occurences of this is with SBS server, to provide SSL secured web services such as OWA and RPC over HTTP. However the certificate warning you get everytime you open the web site is annoying and maybe confusing for less experienced users. In older versions of IE you coulRead More...

Checking Internet Bandwidth Usage on a Cisco PIX or Router

Tom Finnis — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:00:00 +0100

One complaint our helpdesk hears quite often from clients is that "our Internet access seems really slow today", which is a particularly vague and subjective problem. Once the technician has established that this condition is affecting all users and isnt just a temporary period of high demand what can he do to establish the cause of the problem?

Usually the lack of Internet bandwidth becomes apparent when the technician opens a remote session on theRead More...

SLAs You get what you pay for

Mustafa Suleman — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Since it's launch into the mainstream in the 1990's ADSL has become a very cost effective ways for small businesses to perform large amounts of Internet activity without having to pay for expensive corporate level T1 connections. However as with most things in life "you get what you pay for". The fundamental problem with low cost ADSL connections is the service level agreement. We get many calls to our support desk with reports of ADSL downtime, most of which arRead More...

Standardised email signatures in Microsoft Exchange

Mustafa Suleman — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0100

Being one for detail I'm amazed every time I receive emails from different users from the same organisation but with differing signatures. Most of these emails come from small to medium businesses with some really slick marketing in general, in fact one could relate it to somebody wearing a very sharp evening suit with a pair of white sport socks!

Microsoft seem to have omitted this essential feature which has prompted a host of third party applications available in the market plaRead More...

Setting up a LAN Extension Service (LES) WAN connection

Tom Finnis — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

LES circuits have become increasingly common in recent years for providing high speed WAN links between two sites, usually either between two company offices or between a client site and an ISP PoP (Point of Presence), where it is used to provide Internet connectivity. The limiting factor is usually distance to the nearest PoP as the LES circuit cannot cover more than about 15km so they tend to be limited to city environments. It is based on fibre optic technology but the end connections are Read More...

SBS Backup Email Notification Trick!

Meraj Khalid — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Now you can configure SBS email notification without enabling the SBS health monitoring feature in few simple steps.

Before starting this procedure you need to know why you are doing this:

If you configure default notifications in the Health Monitor of your SBS management console, every time you open or reboot the server, the successful alert will be sent too. So to avoid this situation you need to follow these few steps