External USB drives that are over 2TB can have some issues using built in backup software. This is because drives over 2TB are using a larger sector size of 4096 bytes (commonly referred to as 4K sector size). Historically the drives have used 512 byte sector sizes.
This is not all bad news alot of the drives have a thing called 512e which is an abbreviation for 512 emulation, which like it sounds is the 4k sector size emulating a 512 sector size drive. This allows you to do backups on these disks using the standard Windows Server Backup software.

If you have this problem you can get the below event:

Microsoft-Windows-Backup Event ID: 517

Backup started at ‘xx/xx/xxxx xx:xx:xx PM’ failed with following error code ‘2155348010’ (One of the backup files could not be created.). Please rerun backup once issue is resolved.

How to find the drive sector size

Tofind out what sector size of your drives you can run the following command:

  • Fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo x: (where x: represents the drive that you are checking)

Outout of fsutil command

What is Microsoft doing about this issue

So apparently Windows Server 2012 has support for the 4K disks. I have not tested this but according to Microsoft it will work.

Microsoft says:
Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
The below list summarizes the new features delivered as part of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 to help improve customer experience with large sector disks.

Builds upon the Windows 7 SP1 support for 4K disks with emulation (512e), and provides full inbox support for disks with 4K sector size without emulation (4K Native). Some supported apps and scenarios include:

  • Ability to install Windows to and boot from a 4K sector disk without emulation (4K Native Disk)
  • New VHDx file format
  • Full Hyper-V support
  • Windows backup
  • Full support with the NT File System (NTFS)
  • Full support with the Resilient File System (ReFS)
  • Full support with Storage Spaces
  • Full support with Windows Defender
  • Inbox application support

They also have released an update (KB982018) that is meant to improve compatibility between the 4K drives and Windows but I have installed this and tried to backup onto the drives with no luck still just get the

I have been trying to find a way around this in Windows Server 2008 R2 but I have had no luck. I still get the Microsoft-Windows-Backup Event ID: 517 error in  the event logs and the backup fails.

If you have got this to work with Windows Server 2012 please let us know in the comments section.

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For some reason you may want to restart all of the services on your Microsoft Exchange Server. You may want to do this when you have issues with Exchange and you cannot be bothered finding out which exact service needs restarting. This can be done easily by a simple PowerShell script. Below is the script to stop and start all services.

Please note some of your Exchange services may be set to disabled please check to and edit the script appropriately, then copy and paste into PowerShell.

Restart All Services Exchange Server 2007

Stop-Service MSExchangeAdTopology
Stop-Service MSExchangeAntiSpamUpdate
Stop-Service MSExchangeEdgeSync
Stop-Service MSExchangeFDS
Stop-Service MSExchangeIMAP4
Stop-Service MSExchangeIS
Stop-Service MSExchangeMailSubmission
Stop-Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants
Stop-Service MSExchangeMonitoring
Stop-Service MSExchangePOP3
Stop-Service MSExchangeRepl
Stop-Service MSExchangeSearch
Stop-Service MSExchangeServiceHost
Stop-Service MSExchangeSA
Stop-Service MSExchangeTransport
Stop-Service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch
Stop-Service msftesql-Exchange -Force

Start-Service MSExchangeAdTopology
Start-Service MSExchangeAntiSpamUpdate
Start-Service MSExchangeEdgeSync
Start-Service MSExchangeFDS
Start-Service MSExchangeIMAP4
Start-Service MSExchangeIS
Start-Service MSExchangeMailSubmission
Start-Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants
Start-Service MSExchangeMonitoring
Start-Service MSExchangePOP3
Start-Service MSExchangeRepl
Start-Service MSExchangeSearch
Start-Service MSExchangeServiceHost
Start-Service MSExchangeSA
Start-Service MSExchangeTransport
Start-Service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch
Start-Service msftesql-Exchange

Restart All Services Exchange Server 2010

Stop-Service MSExchangeAB
Stop-Service MSExchangeADTopology
Stop-Service MSExchangeAntispamUpdate
Stop-Service MSExchangeEdgeSync
Stop-Service MSExchangeFBA
Stop-Service MSExchangeFDS
Stop-Service MSExchangeIS
Stop-Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants
Stop-Service MSExchangeMailboxReplication
Stop-Service MSExchangeMailSubmission
Stop-Service MSExchangeProtectedServiceHost
Stop-Service MSExchangeRepl
Stop-Service MSExchangeRPC
Stop-Service MSExchangeSA
Stop-Service MSExchangeSearch
Stop-Service MSExchangeServiceHost
Stop-Service MSExchangeThrottling
Stop-Service MSExchangeTransport
Stop-Service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch

Start-Service MSExchangeAB
Start-Service MSExchangeADTopology
Start-Service MSExchangeAntispamUpdate
Start-Service MSExchangeEdgeSync
Start-Service MSExchangeFBA
Start-Service MSExchangeFDS
Start-Service MSExchangeIS
Start-Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants
Start-Service MSExchangeMailboxReplication
Start-Service MSExchangeMailSubmission
Start-Service MSExchangeProtectedServiceHost
Start-Service MSExchangeRepl
Start-Service MSExchangeRPC
Start-Service MSExchangeSA
Start-Service MSExchangeSearch
Start-Service MSExchangeServiceHost
Start-Service MSExchangeThrottling
Start-Service MSExchangeTransport
Start-Service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch

 

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Installing Exchange 2013 On A Single Server

How To Restore Public Folder Database From .edb File

Outlook Web Access did not initialize. An event has been logged so that the system administrator can resolve the issue on Exchange 2007

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I was trying to move mailboxes from one Exchange Server 2007 database to another Exchange Server 2007 database on a seperate server and got the following error:

MapiExceptionNetworkError: Unable to make admin interface connection to server.

Summary: 1 item(s). 0 succeeded, 1 failed.
Elapsed time: 00:00:21

test
Failed

Error:
MapiExceptionNetworkError: Unable to make admin interface connection to server. (hr=0x80040115, ec=-2147221227)
Diagnostic context:
……
Lid: 15000 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: prm[1]: Pointer val: 0x0000000000000000
Lid: 15000 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: prm[2]: Pointer val: 0x1600A8C000000000
Lid: 16280 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: ComputerName: n/a
Lid: 8600 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: ProcessID: 124904
Lid: 12696 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: Generation Time: 2014-02-26 21:31:54:96
Lid: 10648 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: Generating component: 8
Lid: 14744 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: Status: 10060
Lid: 9624 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: Detection location: 318
Lid: 13720 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: Flags: 0
Lid: 11672 dwParam: 0x6BA Msg: EEInfo: NumberOfParameters: 0
Lid: 24060 StoreEc: 0x80040115
Lid: 23746
Lid: 31938 StoreEc: 0x80040115
Lid: 19650
Lid: 27842 StoreEc: 0x80040115
Lid: 20866
Lid: 29058 StoreEc: 0x80040115

Exchange Management Shell command attempted:
‘domainname.local/MyBusiness/Users/SBSUsers/test’ | move-mailbox -TargetDatabase ‘SERVERNAME\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database’

Elapsed Time: 00:00:21

This had me stumped, I checked to make sure all of the Exchange Server services were started and they were so I went to and started searching on the old google machine.

Turns out this has something to do with the Exchange System Attendant Service.

So I restarted the System Attendant Service and it worked.

So to fix MapiExceptionNetworkError: Unable to make admin interface connection to server. error you need to restart the System Attendant Service.

 

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Setup previously failed while performing the action “install”. You cannot resume setup by performing the action “BuildToBuildUpdate”. Exchange 2007

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Psexec is a great little tool that is part of the PSTools suite that was created by Mark Russinovich. The suite can be downloaded from the Microsoft site here.

PSExec allows to execute commands to a remote computer from your command line interface. All you need to do is copy the executable file for PSExec (psexec.exe) into the C:\Windows\System32\ folder to be able to use it. You may also want to copy the rest of the tools into System32 folder as well because they can come in quite handy.

Once it is installed you will need to have administrator access to the other computer or at least know the administrator username and password to the remote computer.

Now you are ready to run PSExec.

Open a command prompt (search “cmd” in the start menu search bar)

Run command(replace Computername with the hostname of the computer and replace command with the command you want to execute):

psexec \\Computername command

Eg. If you wanted to find out the IP configuration on a computer named workstation12 you would use the following command

psexec \\workstation12 ipconfig

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I got a wierd Exchange Service Pack Error today when trying to upgrade to a new service pack in Exchange Server 2007.

During transition of Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2013. I needed to upgrade the Exchange 2007 to service pack 3.

When I ran the command setup.com /mode:upgrade in Exchange powershell to upgrade the exchange server to service pack 3, I was interrupted by the following error message:

Setup previously failed while performing the action “install”. You cannot resume setup by performing the action “BuildToBuildUpdate”.

If the initial setup of Exchange 2007 SP3 fails than it can leave some registry keys behind. You can make the upgrade work by deleting the registry keys

You find the registry keys at the following locations;

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\Admintools]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\CluseteredMailboxServer]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\MailboxRole] (you need to replace the word MailboxRole with the actual role)

Then you delete the subkeys called:

“Action”
“Watermark”

Remember you can open the registry editor by typing regedit in the search box or typing regedit in the run box.

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So you may be reading up on PowerShell and be starting to think “really what is a cmdlet?

Well a cmdlet is pronounced command-let and it is a lightweight PowerShell script that performs one function. PowerShell comes with over 200 core cmdlets included but you can write your own or download and use ones that other people have written. Cmdlets execute code out of the .NET framework(as PowerShell is built of the .NET framework) and return an object to the next command in the pipeline.

Cmdlets are written in a verb-noun format to help describe what they do. This does make it easier in identifying what the cmdlet is used for and easier to search for the cmdlet that you need.

A cmdlet has the extension .ps1 so if you do write one you need to save it with the .ps1 extension.

If you need to access the help file for a cmdlet you can do it by typing the command Get-Help cmdletName-detailed then pressing enter to execute the command.

Some key PowerShell cmdlet terms

  • Parameter set: This is a set of parameters that are used in a command to perform an action. You can have lots of parameter sets in a cmdlet but each set must have a unique parameter.
  • Dynamic parameter: A dynamic parameter that is added to the cmdlet at runtime usually this is a parameter based on another the value of a different parameter.
  • ShouldProcess feature: The ShouldProcess feature is to prompt the user running the PowerShell script for feedback before the script makes changes to the system, (eg. Are you sure you want to change your IP address?) . To use this the ShouldProcess feature, the cmdlet must declare that it has support for the ShouldProcess feature when the cmdlet attribute is declared.
  • Transaction: A transaction is a group of commands that is treated as one single task. The task will automatically fail if any command in the sequence fails. Also when using transactions the user can finalise or undo the actions performed in the transaction, so if the sequence of commands fail the transaction will return everything to the state that it was before the transaction started. To participate in a transaction, the cmdlet must declare that it supports transactions when the Cmdlet attribute is declared.  PowerShell 2.0 was when Microsoft brought out support for transactions.

 

 

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Scripting has changed. A new player has come into the works and added more functionality to the Microsoft scripting world, PowerShell.

You can map a network drive via script in a few different ways this post will show you how to do it using batch script, VBScript and PowerShell.

Map a network drive Batch script

Batch script is the most basic way to map a network drive with a script and is pretty easy to do.

net use F: \\fileserver\share /Persistant:yes

Now I will explain this the “net use” command it connects a Windows computer to a shared resource or shows information about shared resources. For more information go to your command prompt and type “net use /?” without the talking marks.

The “F:” part is allocating the drive letter, so when you go to My Computer it will be called drive F.

The “\\fileserver\share” part is specifying the full path to the network resource that you want to map, so in this example the hostname is “fileserver” and the shared folder is “share”

“/Persistan:yes” means that it is to stay there after a reboot. If you do not use the “/Persistant:yes” switch you may not have the shared folder there next time you go to access it.

Map a network drive VBScript

Once you move into VBScript you can add a bit more functionality like looking up groups or Organizational Units and then map different drives for users that are members of the different groups. A good example of this is on thinkpond.net. The basic command is:

WSHNetwork.MapNetworkDrive F: \\fileserver\share

“WHSNetwork.MapNetworkDrive” can be broken up into two parts. “WHSNetwork” which is an object for accessing shared network resources and “MapNetworkDrive” which is the command stating you want to map a network drive.

“F:” is specifying the drive letter

The “\\fileserver\share” part is once again specifying the full path to the network resource that you want to map the drive to.

Map a network drive PowerShell

With PowerShell you can add even more functionality than the VBScript within your scripting because of the power in PowerShell (yes thats right power in PowerShell 😉 ) you can do all the things that VBScript can do and more funky stuff like get network credentials automatically like Greg Caporale’s blog outlines.

New-PSDrive –Name “F” –PSProvider FileSystem –Root “\\fileserver\share” –Persist

“New-PSDrive” is a PowerShell cmdlet that is used for mapping network drives(Syntax available here)

“-Name “F”” is the part that specifies the network drive letter

“-PSProvider FileSystem” specifies the provider of the service which in this case is the FileSystem which is saying it is associated with a network share

“-Root “\\fileserver\share”” is saying where the network drive is going to be mapped to

“-Persist” this switch makes the drive persistent so after a reboot it will still be there

If you make a PowerShell script to do this and you want to run it you can run into some problems if you have not enabled PowerShell scripts to be able to run. To find out how to allow PowerShell scripts to run read this post.

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sbs error

These errors when adding a user from SBS 2011 console

 

Administrator “Administrator Name” Does not have Exchange administrator rights.

Mailbox does not exist for the recipient of welcome email

 

Fix for this is:
-Delete user you just created in the SBS console
-Go to active directory
-Open the Administrator users properties
-Go to “Member Of” tab
-Select “Domain Users” group
-Set as primary group (marked in the picture below)
-Run SBS console as administrator and try again

User member of

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During one of my installations of Exchange Server 2013 I ran into a problem. I was using an old test VM with Windows Server 2012 installed on it and ran the power shell command to prepare the Schema and it returned the following error code:

Setup encountered a problem while validating the state of Active Directory; The supplied credential for ‘domainname\administrator’ operation is invalid

Simple fix; Just reset the Administrator users password and reboot the server.

 

Read How to install Exchange Server 2013

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This step by step guide will show you how to install exchange server 2013 on a your Domain Controller. The same steps will work for an installation on a non Domain Controller server but I have done it on a single server in a lab environment for testing purposes so I will show you the same way I have done it making my Exchange virtual server.

Firstly I have a Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller that I am installing this on. Follow these steps if you need to install Windows Server 2012. Also there are some on active directory here.

Exchange 2013 is also able to be installed on Windows Server 2008 R2, if you have a previous version of Windows Server then you will need to get a newer version to use Exchange Server 2013.

Now you will need to insert the installation media that came with your Exchange Server 2013 purchase, if you are just testing it out there is a free version available here for testing purposes that is valid for 180 days.

Preparing Schema for Exchange Server

Make sure you are logged in as a user with domain admin rights.

Launch a power shell session

Change the directory to the drive letter for the installation media

Run the following command to prepare the Active Directory Schema(Make sure you don’t forget the ‘.’ in front of the command):
.\setup /prepareschema /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

Once it is finished successfully you will get a message saying “The Exchange Server setup operation completed successfully” the Schema value will now be set to 15137.

 

Prepare Active Directory for Exchange 2013

Run the following command to prepare the Active Directory(Once again make sure you don’t forget the ‘.’ in front of the command):
.\setup /PrepareAD /OrganizationName:YourName /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

Once the Exchange Server 2013 setup operation has completed successfully it will set the organisation objectVersion value to 15449.

NOTE: This will create the required Exchange containers in Active Directory and call it YourName. Please replace “YourName” with an appropriate name for your organisation.

 

Prepare Domain for Exchange 2013

Run the following command to prepare the domain:

.\setup /PrepareDomain /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

Once the Exchange Server setup operation has completed successfully, it will set the Microsoft Exchange System Object objectVersion value to 13236.

Install pre-requisites for an Exchange 2013 mailbox and client access server roles

Launch PowerShell from within your newly created Active Directory server and run the following PowerShell Script:

Install-WindowsFeature AS-HTTP-Activation, Desktop-Experience, NET-Framework-45-Features, RPC-over-HTTP-proxy, RSAT-Clustering, RSAT-Clustering-CmdInterface, Web-Mgmt-Console, WAS-Process-Model, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Digest-Auth, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Dyn-Compression, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Http-Redirect, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console, Web-Metabase, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Mgmt-Service, Web-Net-Ext45, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Server, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Static-Content, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-WMI, Windows-Identity-Foundation

This will install and enable all the necessary roles and features from within Windows Server.

Upon a successful completion of the command you will receive the following details:

Success powershell exchange server 2013

 

You may receive a warning saying you need to reboot the server: “WARNING: You must restart this server to finish the installation process”
If this happens, reboot the server so the roles and features are properly installed and will all be running.

Updating

Now check for updates, install them and reboot the server if it asks you to.

Then you will need to download the following from Microsoft and install in the order listed.

 

Running the Exchange Server 2013 Setup

Run the setup from the installation media and follow through the wizard

 

When you get to the Role Selection for Exchange Server make sure that both Client Access and Mailbox Role are both checked.

It will then ask you to put select a path for the database files to live on, I recommend using a separate partition from the boot partition for the Exchange data to be stored on.

Accessing the new ECP (Exchange Control Panel)

EMC (Exchange Management Console) has now been replaced with ECP(Exchange Control Panel) which is a web based management portal. To access the ECP open your browser window on the server and type in:

http://localhost/ecp/

Or you can also browse to it through any other computer on the network by replacing localhost with your servers hostname.

So that’s it how to install Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, I hope this has helped you. If you have ran into any problems please post them in the comment section below.

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