Backups Failing in SBS 2011

Recently The PC Support Group were contacted by a customer whose Windows server backup was failing, with error code 2155348129.  Typically we don't use Windows Server Backup because the reliability and features are somewhat lacking, however this customer chose to use it for price reasons.

It turns out that the cause of it not working was down to a Sharepoint update (SP1 to be precise).  This has been blogged on the SBS Technet site.

Backups failing is a real concern for business.  Once configured, do ensure that someone is receiving notifications of its success or failure.  You can do this with the Reports feature from the SBS Console.

Quickbooks PDF converter not working

After upgrading a clients operating system recently we found that quickbooks could not create PDFs either through the "email accounts" function, or the file > save as > pdf option.

Having run through all the the troubleshooting steps, manually we were no closer to resolving the problem.  As a workaround, we had installed PDF Creator allowing the user to print to pdf and then email the file out manually, but this significantly increased the number of steps involved.

Solution
On this occasion the solution was simpler than imagined, Intuit's own PDF diagnosis tool resolved the problem.
http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Articles/SLN40733 (Solution 1)
Perhaps a misnomer on their part as it is more a repair tool than a diagnosis tool.

If you require assistance with this or any other problems then please call The PC Support Group on +44 (0)845 2233116

Deciphering Blue Screens

One of our customers called today with the infamous blue screen, actually she wasn't getting the blue screen, she was getting the "Windows just recovered from a serious error" screen which happens after Windows automatically reboots itself.

What you can do to troubleshoot this is check the event viewer (eventvwr) for system errors with ID 1001.  This will reveal something about the cause and regularity of the errors.  It is also worth seeing if any other errors occur just momentarily before the 1001 event.

Should you require more information then there is a great program called BlueScreenView, it is included with Windows 7 Professional, but you may be able to download it for other versions of Windows.  Using the Kaseya console I transferred the C:\Windows\Minidump folder to a temporary folder on my local machine and running this was immediately able to see the main suspects

Although the Stop Code was 0x10000008e, and searching Google suggested it was a graphics driver problem.  Using BlueScreenView seemed to suggest is was caused by some security software Trusteer Rapport.  Adding further weight to this theory, the Trusteer website even lists "blue screens" in their FAQ.

For further information check out the detailed response in the Microsoft Forums
Please contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0)845 2233116 if you would like us to resolve these blue screen problems for you.

How to manually extract self-extracting archives

This applies to certain .exe .msu .msp and .msi files and is taken from the following website (http://www.windowswiki.info/2009/02/19/how-to-extract-msumspmsiexe-files-on-the-command-line/)

How to extract msu/msp/msi/exe files on the command line

I find these commands quite helpful — maybe you know them already — if not, here you go:

Microsoft Hotfix Installer (.exe)

setup.exe /t:C:\extracted_files\ /c

Microsoft Update Standalone Package (.msu)

expand -F:* update.msu C:\extracted_files
cd extracted_files
expand -F:* update.cab C:\extracted_files

Microsoft Patch File (.msp)

msix patch.msp /out C:\extracted_files
msix.zip

Windows Installer Package (.msi)

msiexec /a setup.msi /qb TARGETDIR=C:\extracted_files

XP Service Pack 3 uninstall Blue Screen

When The PC Support Group recently received a call about a non-booting computer we were able to trace it to an attempted installation of XP service pack 3.  The user has a Dell Dimension 9200 with XP service pack 2.  Service pack 3 had installed perfectly but upon rebooting to complete the installation they were greeted with the well-known blue-screen-of-death (or BSOD) with stop code 0x0000007E stating "there was an attempt to Execute non-executable memory".  This also happened in safe mode.  It did not happen in any live CDs so the approach we took was to uninstall the service pack.


So step 1. take an image backup using Acronis True Image to make sure that if the worst happens you still have a copy of all the data.
step 2. boot the computer using the original install CD and select the recovery console
step 3. Use the recovery console approach here to uninstall the service pack


Alternative step 2.
If you do not have the original install CD then you may be able to use an alternative install CD, but in this case the computer has a RAID setup that is not supported by the standard XP install CD.  In this case the best option available for us was to boot from an Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (UBCD4Win).  In order to use the RAID drivers you need to add the Mass Storage drivers from the Driver-pack plugin (this would be at step 7 in their how to http://www.ubcd4win.com/howto.htm).
This did work for us, but something worth noting is that Dell drivers are available from their public FTP site ftp.us.dell.com

Alternative step 3.
Once into the UBCD4Win environment then launch a command shell and type:
cd c:\Windows\$ntservicepackuninstall$\spuninst
ren spuninst.txt spuninst.bat
spuninst.bat


You should now be able to boot into Windows.

Kaseya script to silently uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft security essentials is a good anti-virus program for small businesses because it is a capable program and its End User License Agreement (EULA) allows its use for free where the business has less than 10 PCs.  However, if you are a managed server provider like The PC Support Group then you may well be using software like Kaseya with its automated scripting engine for preventative maintenance routines and its 24/7 monitoring and alerting features.  A new customer would typically take the Kaseya Endpoint Security (KES) thus allowing an integrated management service.  So using Kaseya, how do you uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials prior to installing KES? With a script of course (this script was taken courtesy of SMason on the Kaseya Forums):

Script Name: Uninstall Security Essentials
Script Description: 

IF True 
THEN
   Execute File - (Continue on Fail)
     Parameter 1 : %PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Security Client\setup.exe
     Parameter 2 : /x /s
     Parameter 3 : 3
         OS Type : 13
   Execute File - (Continue on Fail)
     Parameter 1 : %ProgramW6432%\Microsoft Security Client\setup.exe
     Parameter 2 : /x /s
     Parameter 3 : 3
         OS Type : 13
   Execute File - (Continue on Fail)
     Parameter 1 : %PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Security Essentials\setup.exe
     Parameter 2 : /x /s
     Parameter 3 : 3
         OS Type : 13
   Execute File - (Continue on Fail)
     Parameter 1 : %ProgramW6432%\\Microsoft Security Essentials\setup.exe
     Parameter 2 : /x /s
     Parameter 3 : 3
         OS Type : 13
ELSE

Free Software Downloads for Microsoft Partners

At The PC Support Group, we subscribe to the Microsoft Action Pack (MAP) because this gives us use of a lot of the Microsoft products for a simple yearly subscription.  To qualify you need to pass a short technical test to prove that you're a competent Microsoft reseller and then you pay your subscription.  The MAP software although extensive is perhaps not all the software that you may need.  Recently I needed to download Windows Home Server 2011 and found that only WHS 2008 was available through the MAP.  Then I discovered that the software was available through a Technet subscription.  Thankfully this is included now as part of the MAP benefits the tricky part is figuring out how to link the subscriptions.
Thanks to this Blog (http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2010/05/24/technet-plus-now-part-of-action-pack.aspx) I was able to access Technet fairly quickly.

It is worth noting the differences in the terms of use, the Technet software is available as trial editions, whereas the MAP software is available for internal use.  It may nevertheless be just what you need, as it was for me on this occasion.