Virtual Server guest operating system upgrade requires re-installation of virtual machine additions

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Here’s a tip for Virtual Server administrators: remember to remove the Virtual Server virtual machine (VM) additions before upgrading a guest VM’s operating system version!

I just upgraded a Windows Server 2003 VM from standard to enterprise edition and couldn’t get the mouse to connect (keyboard control was present, but not what you might call responsive). Virtual Server reported that the VM additions were not installed, but the guest still showed them as present in the Add/Remove Programs applet. Once they had been removed and then reinstalled, everything was back to normal.

Active Directory operations master management

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Moving Active Directory operations masters is not something that you need to do every day, and I can never remember how to do it when I need to (well the RID, PDC, infrastructure and domain naming masters are easy enough, but I always forget how to move the schema master because it requires registration of the Active Directory Schema console).

As part of the final preparations for shutting down a virtual machine which I had running as a temporary domain controller, I needed to transfer all of the operations masters roles to the remaining permanent (physical) machine. Full details (along with details for identification of and seizing roles) can be found in the Active Directory how to… manage operations master roles section of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 TechCenter.

GPMC modelling after upgrading Active Directory

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Earlier today, I came across a interesting hangover from last week’s domain upgrade from Windows 2000 Server to Windows Server 2003.

After installing the group policy management console (GPMC), I was viewing a pre-existing group policy object (GPO) and GPMC notified me that Enterprise Domain Controllers did not have read access to all GPOs in the domain. This was initially worrying, but for once the help link had some useful information at the other end.

It turns out that Windows Server 2003 group policy modelling (simulating the resultant set of policy for a given configuration) is performed by a service that runs on domain controllers and in order to perform the simulation in cross-domain scenarios, the service must have read access to all GPOs in the forest.

In a Windows Server 2003 domain (whether it is upgraded from Windows 2000 or installed as new), the Enterprise Domain Controllers group is automatically given read access to all newly created GPOs. This ensures that the service can read all GPOs in the forest.

However, if the domain was upgraded from Windows 2000, any existing GPOs that were created before the upgrade do not have read access for the Enterprise Domain Controllers group.

GPMC had detected this situation and notified me that Enterprise Domain Controllers do not have read access to all GPOs in this domain and after reading the help text was was directed to use one of the sample scripts provided with GPMC, GrantPermissionOnAllGPOs.wsf to update the permissions for all GPOs in the domain.

Whilst logged on with Domain Admins permissions I simply opened a command prompt, navigated to %programfiles%\gpmc\scripts and issued the command cscript GrantPermissionOnAllGPOs.wsf "Enterprise Domain Controllers" /Permission:Read /Domain:dnsdomainname.

The output was as follows:

C:\Program Files\GPMC\Scripts>Cscript GrantPermissionOnAllGPOs.wsf “Enterprise Domain Controllers” /Permission:Read /Domain:home.local
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.6
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved.

Warning! By executing this script, all GPOs in the target domain will be updated with the desired security setting.

Both the Active Directory and Sysvol portions of the GPO will be updated. This will result in the Sysvol contents of every GPO being copied to all replica domain controllers, and may cause excessive replication traffic in your domain.

If you have slow network links or restricted bandwidth between your domain controllers, you should check the amount of data on the Sysvol that would be replicated before performing this task.

Do you want to proceed? [Y/N]
Y
Updated GPO ‘Default Domain Policy’ to ‘Read’ for Enterprise Domain Controllers
Updated GPO ‘Windows Software Update Services’ to ‘Read’ for Enterprise Domain Controllers
Updated GPO ‘Default Domain Controllers Policy’ to ‘Read’ for Enterprise Domain Controllers

Once this was completed, GPMC was able to function as normal with the existing GPOs.

Advice for potential eBayers

Posted on By Mark Wilson


Click here to buy & sell on eBay!

I have a lot of “stuff” hanging around taking up space, some of which I don’t use (mostly old IT odds and ends, plus some books and videos). Now, some of it turned out to have little or no value (at least commercially), but I have sold some of it on eBay.co.uk.

The trouble is, in my bid to make this stuff attractive (in a market of people selling things for silly money), I didn’t set the postage charges high enough…

I hate it when I buy a £4.99 item and someone charges me £5 to ship it, only to find that they only spent a few pence on postage; so, in a bid to be fair, I weighed the items, looked up the correct prices on the Royal Mail website, and just passed on the Royal Mail costs to my buyers. The trouble is, on a couple of items earlier today, I forgot that the weight of the packaging would push it up into the next bracket (and then there’s the cost of buying a Jiffy bag…). In another (just about to be very expensive) deal which closes in a few minutes time, I only charged £6.95 for up to 2kg by Royal Mail Special Delivery but forgot that whilst that should cover the item, it wouldn’t be enough once I’d added the cables that were also part of the deal and the actual cost to me (as the next price band is up to 10kg) will be £19!

I’ll still make a profit but, when I sell goods for less than I would like (to attract bids), and then don’t add enough to cover my postage and packing costs, I feel a bit stupid. Still, at least it’s better than selling books/videos through Amazon, where they set the postage costs and the seller always seems to lose out.

On top of all this, eBay is not really very user friendly. Sure, it guides you through the process but it takes ages to list a new item and you’re never quite sure what communications the buyer has received from eBay so in a bid to keep my feedback high through excellent customer service, I often find myself contacting the buyer to tell them I’ve shipped it and to ask them to leave feedback if they are happy with the purchase.

I understand that an amazingly high number of people are actually in business selling via eBay. Good luck to them, but for anyone like me who’s just trying to flog their old gear, here’s some advice I’ve worked out over the last few transactions:

  • Use a 10 day auction and time it to cross two weekends to maximise your chances of getting some bids.
  • Make sure your postage and packing charges really will cover your costs.
  • Don’t forget that eBay and PayPal will each take their fees on the transaction.
  • See what other people are selling the same or similar items for (and how much interest they have had) and if you don’t want to let it go that cheaply (or there is no apparent interest), leave it a week or so before advertising at the price you think is fair.
  • Remember that even on second-hand goods, your income from the Internet is taxable (yes, I know, it sucks)!

Good luck!