Todd's Blog

OttawaSQL.net and OWSUG Presents Heroes Happen Here

posted on May 23, 2008

We are putting on a presentation next Thursday in Ottawa. Here is the ad for the event.

Free Evening Event @ Microsoft Ottawa

Thursday, May 29^th 5:30 – 8:30 PM

OttawaSQL.net and OWSUG Presents Heroes Happen Here:

1. High Availability with SQL Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008

2. Spatial Data with SQL Server 2008 & Microsoft Virtual Earth

Session 1: High Availability with SQL Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008, Dave and Todd

We will explore the range of SQL Server 2008 high availability solutions and see how enhancements to clustering support in Windows Server 2008, such as geographically dispersed clusters expands on the HA possibilities.

Session 2: Spatial Data with SQL Server 2008 & Microsoft Virtual Earth, Lynda and Steve

Spatial data types and the related functions are new to SQL Server 2008. We will demonstrate the use this new technology and show how it can be combined with Virtual Earth to visualize the spatial data.

Dave

David E. Myers (MCSE, MCITP, and MCT) is a DBA and Developer at the Upper Canada District School Board in Brockville. Dave really likes SQL Server but is increasingly interested in the next generation of data tools like SharePoint, SharePoint Business Data Catalog, and PerformancePoint. Recently he started the OttawaSQL.net PASS chapter to connect with people in the Ottawa area that share this interest.

Todd

Todd Lamothe (MCSA, MCITP, and MCT) is a Systems Administrator for the County of Lennox & Addington. Todd has over 10 years experience with Windows Server and has been using Windows Server 2008 in a production environment since it was released to manufacturing. He is an active member of the OWSUG and OttawaSQL.net PASS Chapter leadership teams and has played a key role in the OWSUG certification study groups.

Lynda

Lynda Rab (PASS Program Director) is an IT professional with over 15 years of technical experience. Lynda has been working with SQL Server since version 4.2. She started in a DBA role but is now focusing her efforts on Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence. As a member of both the local OttawaSQL.net PASS Chapter executive and the international PASS Board of Directors, Lynda has been instrumental in the implementation of many major PASS initiatives.

Steve

Steve Syfuhs (MCTS) is a Software Architect and Developer for Doublenatural ITS. He has primarily focused on .NET and SQL Server development for the last five years. Steve is currently on the executive team for OttawaSQL.net PASS chapter and is its first study group member to achieve the MCTS SQL Server 2005 certification.

REGISTRATION:

LOCATION:

RSVP: Event Registration

Registration: 5:30 PM to 5:45 PM

Refreshments: Pizza and Pop

Microsoft Ottawa, World Exchange Plaza

100 Queen Street, Suite 500, Ottawa

EVENT SPONSOR:

EVENT PARTNERS:

Removing Exchange 2007 SP1 Public Folders

posted on May 21, 2008

I’ve been busy the past little while which explains the lack of posts. My job lately has been to migrate my staff off a temporary Exchange 2007 server (been in production about a year) at the library and move them a new Microsoft Exchange 2007 Server and Blackberry Enterprise Server at the courthouse. Did the usual stuff you do when you create a new exchange server. Installed it adding it to the current organization. Started moving mailboxes once it was up and going starting with my own mailbox. Had to create the public folders on the new server to satisfy BES, moved the address book to the new server and then once I was happy it was working okay, I moved remaining mailboxes to the new server. When I tried to uninstall exchange off the old server, I kept getting an error message that the server had public folders that had to be removed first before I could uninstall. The server was no longer housing anything that was needed by the exchange organization but the uninstall would not work.

I got digging on the error and it looks to be a problem with Exchange SP1. I found the answer here http://searchexchange.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid43_gci1302366,00.html. I followed the steps I found in this article and was able to uninstall exchange off the old exchange server.

Group Policy Preferences

posted on May 14, 2008

I have upgraded two of three domain controllers to Windows Server 2008 over the last couple months. The install went smooth and I will admit, Windows Server 2008 does seem like a rather nice OS. One of the new features of having a Windows Sever 2008 domain controller is the group policy preferences. Preferences will let you do things like create desktop shortcuts, printer mappings and map network drives along with many other things.

I decided to use it to do two things, the first being map network printers and the second create desktop shortcuts. Group Policy in 2003 R2 had the option to push printers based on linking policies to OUs. Group Policy preferences had the benefit that I could create on Policy, and have printer maps based on the computer’s subnet. For example, machines with 42 in the third octet would be given printers local to that site, computers in 40 subnet would be given a different set of printers, but I wouldn’t need to have multiple policies, nor would I have to worry about moving the computer between OU’s. I could also push desktop icons to users who say belong to a certain group , relatively quick and painless. Basically, the new features match things I have seen in the past with Scriptlogic which is a product I was very pleased with when I used it at the City of Kingston, back when I worked there.

Once you create your settings, you need to ensure the patch to use group policy preferences is applied to the computer. You can download the patch from Microsoft’s site and is available for XP, 2003 and Vista. I applied the patch to test the machines, rebooted and the machine came up, I logged in as the patron and the computer froze, would no longer log in. It would try but go nowhere. Remove the group policy from being applied, the machine logs in.

I don’t know what the problem is yet, but I narrowed it down to adding the printers and I am guessing it is driver related. The computers I tested on where Vista and needed the driver installed, so UAC could have also been hanging it up. The printer is applied as a user preference but it looks at the subnet of the computer to determine which printer to install. I plan to test later but for now I will use GPO to assign printers to computers.

I will have more to come on this, probably in June or July.