August 2005 - Posts

• In the wake of Katrina.. Do online videos need to have advertisements?

  I'm really disappointed in MSNBC... I'm interested in seeing how things are going with the victims of Katrina and between several of the videos are advertisements for products!!! Where does marketing end and the real news begin? It's just stupid to me that people make money on other people's anguish... I won't buy any of the products I saw during those videos. I mean EVER! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9120777/  Posted Aug 31 2005, 09:51 PM by Anonymous with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Miscellaneous

• A Really Sad Story....

  With all the terrible results of Hurricane Katrina, loss of life is by far the most costly. I'm sure there are a lot of stories out there, but I ran across this and I wish I could have been there to help this woman..... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9142413/   Posted Aug 31 2005, 09:53 AM by Anonymous with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Miscellaneous

• SMS 2003 ITMU Upgrade Working Great

  I installed the ITMU the other day and deployed the upgraded SMS advanced client to all my client's workstations. The install went very well (after a major issue) and we have good reports. I had intended to work with the other Brian Tucker here on myITforum for documentation / notes from the field, but due to several client obligations he was unable to lend a hand. I have finished the documentation and also created a blogcast which shows what you get after the ITMU installation and some of the things you have to do yourself. The documentation is only 14 pages (9 are related to the Microsoft Webcast Q&A) and gives step by step instructions on how I setup the ITMU. Not only do I list the steps, I give the names I gave my new collections (along with the SQL queries), information on the issues I ran into, log files to check, links to related Microsoft documentation and also lists all the questions asked during the Microsoft Webcast last Friday. Chris Mosby and I both had the same idea during the webcast! The blogcast is finished, but I want to think about it for a day and make sure it shows everything I want to explain. As for the documentation, you will have to wait for it to be published on myITforum. I will submit it in the next day or so, but I have to wait my turn for it to be published. Unless of course Rod wants to help me out and post it quick...... Posted Aug 30 2005, 11:52 PM by Anonymous with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Systems Management, Blogcasts, Patch Configurations

• ITMU Upgrade tonight....

  I have tested and checked my work and tonight is the moment of truth. 7,856 clients will upgrade to the new SMS 2003 Advanced Client at 2:00 am CST. Funny thing is that I can tell that some are nervous, but not me. I have never felt uncomfortable pushing out a upgrade or patch to the entire organization. I know that the testing and time I put into these kinds of things always pays off. I can say that had I known the ITMU upgrade was going to be such a push for me, I may have waited until SP2. Now, that's not to say that it's not a good reason to upgrade, just a bit of a pain. Upgrade if you feel the need. It WILL help with your patch process, but decide if it's right for your organization. The documentation process is moving along and I should have the final “notes from the field” available by mid to late week. No calls tonight from the client will be a good thing...... Will keep ya posted. Posted Aug 29 2005, 10:42 PM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Systems Management, Patch Configurations

• World's Ugliest Dog!

  Tim Brennan posted this in the forums: http://www.myitforum.com/forums/tm.asp?m=118954&p=1&tmode=1 You can see the full website here: http://samugliestdog.com/ Normally I would just paste the picture in the post, but really don't want your heart attack to be from seeing this directly on my blog.. Posted Aug 26 2005, 11:14 AM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Miscellaneous

• ITMU Webcast Today

  Webcast starts at 11:30 am PST TODAY! Make a point to watch the webcast if you are looking for more information on the ITMU. http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032280158&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US   Posted Aug 26 2005, 09:54 AM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Systems Management, Patch Configurations

• More on the ITMU Issue / KB901034

  Here is the information I followed up on with my client's TAM this morning. I will keep an eye out for any more information that comes out of this case. Based on the information we discussed during the incident, I would like to make some strong suggestions.  It seems that this issue has happened before in other organizations. I say that based on the fact that Jarrett was talking to someone who said they had seen something like this before with the ITMU site reset. I feel it’s important for Microsoft to change KB901034 so that problems are resolved. ·         Remove the option for a site reset during the installation and advise a site reset after the installation. ·         Fix the issue where KB901034 cripples IIS / SMS reporting. ·         Attempt to find out the root cause of the issue, resolve it and also enable logging for a site reset during the installation if that is Microsoft's solution. ·         Create a Knowledge Base article for people who have already downloaded the ITMU and advise on the issues known. Here is the response from the TAM: In reference to your suggestions, I will DEFINATELY, forward your comments to the appropriate team/group in looking at changing/updating the KB article…(that is if Jarrett hasn’t already J )  I appreciate your comment/effort in participating in working with Microsoft to better the products and services! Posted Aug 25 2005, 12:58 PM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Systems Management

• ITMU - SMS2003-SP1-KB901034-X86-ENU.exe Site Reset Issue

  I applied KB901034 to my primary site server today. During the installation, you are prompted to choose if you want the installation to perform a site reset or if you want to do one yourself after. Either way, the install wants the site reset. I choose for the install to do it for me. The installation completed without error. Not soon after, I am told that “several” sites are reporting that packages are not deploying. I looked around in the logs and checked the services. Hmmm, the SMS_Ececutive is not started. Ok, I start it. A bit later I am notified that packages are still not deploying. I look at the services again and the bootstrap service is active and the reporting point is not responding to remote site admins. I'm concerned... I looked everywhere to figure out what the issue was. I opened a ticket with Microsoft and made it critical. I work with a guy I had worked with in the past who is out of Redmond. I love those folks in Redmond as they have access to the right people all the time.A 7 hour story made short..... there is a “known issue” within Microsoft that has not been released to the public in regard to KB901034. It seems that there have been others who have had issues with “bad” site resets during the installation of the KB. It turns out that the site reset does not log ANYTHING if it is run during the install. The root issue has not been given to me (nor do I think Microsoft knows). If you run the site reset after the install, it works correctly. So, a long day made short, DO NOT run the site reset during the install of KB901034, run it AFTER the installation. Microsoft does confirm that this is not a normal issue, but they have had other calls on this. So, if it ran fine for you that's great, but there is a bug in the update and it IS confirmed. If you do run the site reset during the install and you notice these issues, run a manual site reset and it should fix the issue. We have also noted at my client that a site reset spoofs the SMS reporting permission in DCOM. You may have to add the reporting group back into DCOM to let non domain admins back into reports. This is also being documented as an issue. Also, the bad site reset did more than DCOM issues. After the manual site reset and adding the DCOM permission back, we still could not access reports, even as a domain admin. I had to uninstall and reinstall the reporting point on the server in the SMS console. I hope this helps someone in the future. This information will be updated in my documentation / article Brian and I are working on. I have notes for everything during the preinstall process so far. Even a extra bit of info for those of you who load balance your MPs. More on that soon....   Posted Aug 24 2005, 10:30 PM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Systems Management

• NLB with Windows 2003

  As Tim mentioned, he load balanced our SMS MP's due to the amount of traffic. I am setting up a second server in my home test lab to do a blogcast on how to set that up. It makes no difference if you load balance SMS or anything else, it's really easy as you will see. It's getting late so nothing tonight, but look for it in the next day or so...... by the way, this makes post # 5000 for the blogs here on myITforum, Inc. That's a real milestone for the site.... Posted Aug 23 2005, 10:38 PM by Anonymous with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Systems Management, Windows

• Tim makes a good point

  Tim just commented on the security patch process that's available with SMS 2003 and the success we have had at our client. You don't have to know a lot about security realted issues to stay on top of vulnerabilities in your organization, you simply need to understand that the solutions are available to you. Whether you use SMS, WSUS, SUS or any other tool, stay on top of security updates. It can make the difference between a win or a loss for your client. Very good point Tim! Posted Aug 23 2005, 09:25 PM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Systems Management

• 16 Blogcasts in 24 Days?

  September 14th, 2005 marks the end of the first 6 months of The Blogcast Repository. As of today, there are 84 blogcasts on the site and that in itself is pretty good if you really know what it takes to make a good one. I would like to see if WE can get to 100 by Sept. 14th. There are a lot of blogcasts out there that could be centralized by my site. I don't link to them because my site is simply a hosting site and if they are on another server, then I'm not hosting it. I would never upload someone else's work on my own and I don't want you to either. However, if you have made one and you know a section of my site is missing content, it only takes a minute to upload it and make it visible to everyone on one central location. For those of you who have said to me that you would create a blogcast and never have, now is the time. I know it's more work than a article or blog post, but I really believe there is a value to the videos. If you are interested in doing one, I have a fool proof instruction list that will get you in the right direction. If you have any questions, just let me know. Make a point to help us get to 100 by September 14th! Posted Aug 23 2005, 08:50 PM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Blogcasts

• I missed my 1 year anniversary

  August 20, 2004 was my first article online. Geezzzz, time flies when you are having fun. So, reflecting back.... what have I accomplished? 38 Articles on myITforum (39 if you count the one sitting in the que for over a month) Over 1,000 posts in the myITforum forums I opened The Blogcast Repository after The SMS Blogcast Repository's short life I created 36 Blogcasts out of the 84 on my site God knows how many emails I have answered for SMS related questions Interviewed for an article on SearchWin2000.com 218 posts on my blog (not all of which were technical) related to Microsoft solutions I guess that's not bad for one year. I wonder how this next year will be different? I think I would like to do more speaking engagements. Maybe MMS 2006 will be the next big one. I really wanted to speak at this years MMS, but just couldn't get away. Whether I speak or not, I will make it to MMS to meet everyone! Thanks to everyone who has helped me along the way. I have learned more than I ever thought I could. I will make sure to work harder this next year! Posted Aug 23 2005, 07:42 PM by Anonymous with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Miscellaneous

• Tucker & Tucker = ITMU Learning

  Brian K. Tucker contacted me after my request to walk through the ITMU deployment. Brian (the other one) is consulting with a 1,400 seat law firm and my client is a 10,000 + seat health care deployment. Brian (the other one) is going to document all his steps and I will document mine. As we pass our notes back in forth over the next few days, we should gather some good information. As I stated earlier, I plan on doing a few videos along the way to add to the documentation. If anyone has some gotchas they have experienced, please let us know. On a side note, I like doing things like this where I work with someone else to gather knowledge. I think it's a great learning tool to deploy it yourself and as part of a team, but 2 different production installs documented at every level provides an understanding of what can happen with different site configurations. Should make for interesting reading when it's all said and done. Posted Aug 23 2005, 06:01 PM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Systems Management

• THAT'S funny....

  and NASTY at the same time. I like a funny video, but this one takes the cake. Looks like MTV made it, but I could not find the source so you can see it here since it was sent to me via email... http://www.blogcastrepository.com/Download/NutBra.wmv     Posted Aug 23 2005, 04:28 PM by Anonymous with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Miscellaneous

• Just glad my daughter does not attend this school...

  YIKES! http://www.newsnet5.com/news/4885861/detail.html   Posted Aug 23 2005, 03:25 PM by Anonymous with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Miscellaneous