Microsoft releases load simulation tools for desktops

October 16, 2009 — Julie

Microsoft has released their Remote Desktop Load Simulation Tools which have nothing to do with Remote Desktop in the RDP sense.  Instead, the tools are designed for 32-bit and 64-bit server capacity planning and performance/scalability analysis.  According to Microsoft:

In a server-based computing environment, all application execution and data processing occur on the server. Therefore it is extremely interesting to test the scalability and capacity of servers to determine how many client sessions a server can typically support under a variety of different scenarios. One of the most reliable ways to find out the number or users a server can support for a particular scenario is to log on a large number of users on the server simultaneously. The Remote Desktop Load Simulation tools provide the functionality which makes it possible to generate the required user load on the server.

Supported operating systems are:

  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows Server 2008 Datacenter
  • Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V
  • Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
  • Windows Server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V
  • Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-based Systems
  • Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V

(Notice the lack of Windows 2003 support?)

A minimal test environment requires:

  1. Target Remote Desktop Server
  2. Client Workstations
  3. Test Controller Host
Posted in Windows. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Find Windows system uptime from the command line

September 1, 2009 — Julie

Here’s a quick and easy way of checking how long a Windows server or workstation has been up, via the command line.  It pipes the results of Net Statistics Workstation into find.  Run the following from a command prompt:

net statistics workstation | find /i “statistics since”

The results will look like

Statistics since 8/12/2009 11:08 PM

Which shows the machine has been up since 11:08pm on August 12, 2009.

Posted in Windows. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 14 Comments »

Fix: The IP address you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter that is hidden from the Network Connections folder because it is not physically in the computer

August 20, 2009 — Julie

I brought up a snapshot of a Windows Server 2003 R2 guest today and could not login to the domain.  After further review I found the server had lost its static TCP/IP settings – both NICs were set to DHCP (they had previously been statically set).  When I attempted to add the TCP/IP addresses back to the NICs, I received the following error message:

 
“The IP address you have entered for this network adapter is already assigned to another adapter “Fast Ethernet Adapter #2″. “Fast Ethernet Adapter #2″ is hidden from the Network Connections folder because it is not physically in the computer. If the same address is assigned to both adapters and they both become active, only one of them will use this address. This may result in incorrect system configuration. Do you want to enter a different IP address for this adapter in the list of IP addresses in the Advanced dialog box?”
 
Solutions – KB825826 outlines several potential fixes.  I ended up using Method #6 to remove the hidden network adapter.  To uninstall the ghosted network adapter from the registry, complete these steps:
  1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd.exe, and then press ENTER.
  2. Type set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1, and then press ENTER.
  3. Type Start DEVMGMT.MSC, and then press ENTER.
  4. Click View, and then click Show Hidden Devices.
  5. Expand the Network adapters tree.
  6. Right-click the dimmed network adapter, and then click Uninstall.
Next I configured the static IP on the NIC, and regained network connectivity.  A reboot was required in my case, only because services dependant on domain availability did not automatically startup.
Posted in Windows. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Howto: Reset a lost VMware guest password

August 12, 2009 — Julie

So you’ve forgotten your VMware Linux or Windows guest password?  Here’s how to reset it.  These instructions focus on resetting the password through the Virtual Infrastructure Client, but there’s no reason you couldn’t do it using VMware Workstation or VMware Server.  

1. Grab a Kon-Boot .iso image.
 
2. In the Virtual Infrastructure client, configure the problematic guest’s Virtual CDROM for the Kon-boot ISO image.
 
3. Boot the problem guest server.  At the VMware BIOS screen, press the ESC key to bring up the boot menu.  Select to boot from CD-ROM.
 
4. When the Kon-Boot splash screen appears, press Enter to boot Windows.
 
5. At the Windows login screen, enter administrator as the user name, with any password you’d like.  Note:  This password is not persistent!  You must set the administrator password manually! Once the password is set, reboot the server and you will be able to login with the newly set credentials.
 
If you are trying to reset the password in Linux, the steps are the same, but instead of logging into Windows and resetting the adminstrator password, login to Linux and reset the root password.
Posted in howto, virtualization. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Howto: Delegate the enable/disable accounts permission in Active Directory

July 1, 2009 — Julie

To delegate the ability to enable and disable user accounts in Active Directory:

  1. Launch Active Directory Users and Computers with adminsitrative credentials
  2. Right click on the OU where you want to delegate the ability to enable and disable user accounts
  3. Select the Active Directory security group that you want to delegate the ability to and press Next
  4. Select Create Custom Task to Delegate and press Next
  5. Under Delegate Control Of select the Only the following objects in the folder radio button
  6. Select the User objects check box and press Next
  7. Under Show these permissions uncheck General and select Property-specific
  8. Select the Read userAccountControl and Write userAccountControl check boxes and press Next and Finish
 
You’ve now delegated the ability to enable and disable AD user accounts to a security group.
 
Additional References
 
Posted in Windows. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Access is denied when attempting to view or restore Volume Shadow Copy contents

June 26, 2009 — Julie

I setup our help desk users to be able to restore documents using Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Copy client on remote servers yesterday.  Everything worked just fine for me as an administrator, and for users who owned the files, but it didn’t work for the help desk folks.  I found out they didn’t have NTFS rights to the files and folders, so I assumed all I had to do was assign them change permissions, and they’d be able to do the restore.

I made the permission change, but when the help desk folks tried to view the contents of the shadow copy snapshots they received “Access Denied” errors.  I had them confirm they could UNC to the location where the snapshots were located, and they could create and delete files there.

After much Googling didn’t provide many troubleshooting ideas, I decided to manually create a snapshot of the same volume.  I had them test again, and they were able to view the snapshot’s contents and restore files.  Underlying cause was the help desk group didn’t have permissions to the original snapshot, so they couldn’t see the files to restore them.  Hope this helps someone else out.

Posted in Windows. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Howto: Do not display the name of the user who has locked a Windows computer or server

April 24, 2009 — Julie

Normally when a Windows workstation or server is locked, you’ll see something similar to the following Windows Security message:  

This computer is in use and has been locked.
 
Only DOMAIN\USER (user name) or an administrator can unlock this computer.
 
To not show the name of the user who has locked a computer, the following can be defined in a workstation level GPO
 
Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Interactive logon: Display user information when the session is locked.
 
There are three choices if you enable this policy:
 
  • User display name, domain and user names (default setting)
  • User display name only
  • Do not display user information
 
Besides being able to apply this to Active Directory GPOs, this setting appears in the local security policy on my Windows XP SP3 VM.  The setting is not available on my XP SP2 laptop, but I see from KB837022  there is a hotfix that corrects this problem in XP SP2.


Alternatively, the following DWORD can be created in the registry of XP SP2, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 machine to accomplish the same thing:
 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system\DontDisplayLockedUserId
 
User display name, domain and user names = 1
User display name only = 2
Do not display user information =3
 
You need to restart the machine for the change to take effect.
 
You may also be interested in the related Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Interactive logon: Do not display last user name setting. This security setting determines whether the name of the last user to log on to the computer is displayed in the Windows logon screen.

If this policy is enabled, the name of the last user to successfully log on is not displayed in the Log On to Windows dialog box.  If this policy is disabled, the name of the last user to log on is displayed.

Posted in Group Policy, Windows, registry. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Fix: 0×80070005: Access is denied when running scheduled task as a non-administrator

April 22, 2009 — Julie

I was running a scheduled task on a Windows 2003 server that called a script that ran as a non-administrator on the server.  The service account that the script ran under had rights to all the appropriate directories on the server, but I still kept seeing the following error after the scheduled task failed to execute:

0×80070005: Access is denied

The solution is documented in KB867466

Grant the Cmd.exe program Read and Execute permissions for the user account that the batch job runs under. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, and then click Windows Explorer.
  2. Locate and then right-click the Cmd.exe file. The Cmd.exe file is located in the %windir%\System32 folder.
  3. Click Properties.
  4. Click the Security tab.
  5. Click Add.
  6. In the Enter the object names to select box, type the user name that the batch job runs under, and then click OK two times.Note When you add the user, the user is automatically granted Read and Execute permissions.
  7. Click Yes when you are prompted to continue.
 
This issue occurs if all the following conditions are true:
  • You run the batch job on a Windows Server 2003-based member server.
  • The batch job runs as a non-interactive process.
  • The batch job is configured to run under the context of an account that is not a member of the Administrators group.
In Windows Server 2003, the Users group does not have Read and Execute permissions to the command processor (Cmd.exe). By default, the Cmd.exe program has the following permissions settings:
  • The Interactive implicit group and the Service implicit group have Read and Execute permissions.Note On a member server, the TelnetClients group also has Read and Execute permissions. On a domain controller, the Batch implicit group also has Read and Execute permissions.
  • The Administrators group and the System implicit group have Full Control permissions.
Posted in Windows. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Copying command prompt output directly to the Windows clipboard

March 26, 2009 — Julie

How often have you wanted to copy the output of a Windows command from the command prompt, but had to go thought the process of marking and copying the text first? 

Redirecting the command and it’s output is as easy as this:

ipconfig /all | clip

will pipe the results of ipconfig into the clipboard, which can then be pasted into notepad with a CTRL-V.  How convienent is that!  This works in Windows 2003 and higher (sorry, no Windows XP).

Found at http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-server-2008/copy-command-prompt-output-directly-clipboard-in-windows/

Posted in Windows. Tags: , , , . 4 Comments »

Howto: Mount a Windows share on SLES linux using cifs

February 19, 2009 — Julie

This post is mainly for my own benefit.  I mount Windows shares on my SuSE linux box so infrequently, I have to dig through past notes to remind myself what the syntax is.

To mount a Windows share on SLES linux using cifs:

mount -t cifs -o username=jsmith //po5/gwdompri /mnt/po5/gwdompri

where:
  • jsmith is the user account to authenticate as
  • //po5/gwdompri is the Windows server and share you wish to mount
  • /mnt/po5/gwdompri is the location to mount the share, or where you access it on the local Linux box.
Note:
  •  you will be prompted for the password 
  • /mnt/po5/gwdompri must exist
Posted in Linux. Tags: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »
« Older posts