Tag Archives: “Windows Server 2008”

Fax, Microsoft, SBS 2008, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2008, Small Business Server 2011, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista

The Microsoft Fax Service crashes when you receive a fax on Windows Server 2008 – SP2, SBS 2008 – SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2 – SP1, SBS 2011 – SP1

You may find that the Microsoft Windows fax service randomly crashes when your server is receiving a fax, this will be evident in the Windows Application Event Log where you will find Event ID 32083 and 32089.  These Events will contain the following errors/warnings:

The Fax Service failed to execute a specific routing method. The service will retry to route the fax according to the retries configuration. If the retries fail, verify routing method configuration.

and/or

Unable to route fax FileName to the requested e-mail address. The following error occurred: 0x80040211 This error code indicates the cause of the error. Check the SMTP server configuration, and correct any anomalies.

The error is related to two classes not being unregistered each time the Inetcomm.dll module is unloaded, next time it is loaded to route a fax a function still tries to point to the old address and causes the Fax Service to Crash.

The issue can be resolved by installing the Microsoft Hotfix from KB 973640 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973640 this hotfix contains updated versions of Inetcomm.dll and Inetres.dll for Server 2008/Vista/SBS 2008 and just a new version of Inetcomm.dll for Server 2008 R2/Windows 7/SBS 2011

Fujitsu, HP, Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft, ML110 G5, ML350 G5, ML350 G6, Office, Outlook 2010, Primergy, ProLiant, Uncategorized, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Remote Desktop Sessions Pause Or Exhibit Unresponsiveness – Lag Whilst Typing And Session Will Not Accept Mouse Inputs

Remote Desktop Services can be extremely useful, allowing users to access a terminal server or their company desktop computer from another location.  One very common complaint with RDP sessions is screen refresh delays and a delay when typing or trying to click on items using the mouse cursor.  It will appear to most that the session has become unresponsive for a period of 5-20 seconds, after this delay the session will return to normal for a period of several minutes before once again becoming unresponsive.  You may find that this issue becomes more apparent as more users connect to the specific terminal server in question and if all these users utilise several applications (i.e. Outlook, Word and Excel) together.

Causes for poor user experience when connected via RDP are varied but one of the most common is resource exhaustion or contention.  This in turn causes a delay in processing that appears as a pause or unresponsiveness.

Check that your computer or terminal server has sufficient Memory to cope with the current load.

The next thing to verify by using performance monitor is that the PhysicalDisk\% Idle Time is consistently high, that’s correct this should be 90-100% when the server is not very busy.

It is worth running performance monitor using the PhysicalDisk\% Idle Time counter whilst you are seeing the slowdowns, this will help identify if your hard disk or controller are causing contention and in turn the pausing or unresponsiveness.

If you do find that the “%Idle Time” keeps going very low then it’s time to consider some of the options below to help resolve the issue

  • Install a second drive or mirror set, move the Windows Page File to this second disk/array to reduce the load on the drive/array holding your operating system
  • Install additional memory into the computer or server, this will reduce paging to disk and will generally improve overall system performance
  • Migrate to or upgrade your existing RAID controller to a unit that had a Battery Backed Cache (Fast) or Flash Backed Cache (Newer – Faster) to significantly improve performance and alleviate the system
  • Migrate to faster hard disk drives, 7200, 10,000 or 15,000 RPM drives are amongst the fastest.  The SATA interface is slower than the SAS interface but is cheaper.  Try to invest in the fastest drives that you can to future proof the system and avoid future performance issues if you have to scale for more users.
  • Ensure that you have at least 20-25% free disk space on all partitions/drives
  • Defragment all drives on a regular basis to optimise read and write operations
  • A cheap solution for improving disk performance may be to turn on the Hard Disk Cache using “Device Manager” or in the event that you are using a RAID controller without a battery backed Cache module you will need to open the RAID Array Management Software and then enable Disk Cache within the management software as this feature will not be available within “Device Manager” in this instance.  Please note that this does have some risks and should be used with caution, you may loose data in the event of a sudden/unexpected loss of power to the system.  Consider using this option with a UPS and redundant power supplies to reduce the risk of power loss to the system.  As always ensure you have a reliable backup that is carried out at regular intervals.

Example – HP RAID Array Configuration Utility:

Example – Windows Device Manager:

Command Prompt, Microsoft, SBS 2008, Small Business Server 2008, Windows, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista

Microsoft Windows Vista – SP1 or SP2 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 – SP1 or SP2 – How to Easily Free Up Some Disk Space

Have you started to notice that C drive is getting a little full or do you just want to have a spring clean, well you may not realise it but when you installed Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2 onto your Windows Vista or Windows 2008 Server that Microsoft very sensibly backed up all the old system file before replacing them with new ones.

Assuming that you have had Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2 installed for sometime without issue it may be good to know that you might be able to reclaim some disk space by dumping these obsolete system files.

Simply launch an elevated Command Prompt by right clicking “Command Prompt” and selecting “Run as administrator”.  Once you are in a command prompt simply paste in the following according to the Service Pack you are currently running:

Service Pack 1 you need to paste: VSP1CLN.EXE

Service Pack 2 you need to paste: Compcln.exe

Be patient with these commands they will need time to enumerate a large number of files and could take up to 60 minutes to complete.  Once finished I would recommend a reboot.

With these commands we are telling the operating system to remove any of the superseded service pack files.  If you do not have any files to remove it might be because someone else has already removed them or your computer/server may have already come with Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2 pre-installed/integrated.

Exchange, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Microsoft, Office, Outlook 2010, Powershell, SBS 2008, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2008, Small Business Server 2011, Windows, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

Powershell Script to Determine Active User Count for Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2007

A script that I came up with to determine the user load that is being placed on a particular Exchange server so that you can plot the days of the week and times of the day that are busiest. This Powershell Script can be used with GFI Max Remote Management or SpiceWorks to easily identify busy Exchange servers.

$GETMSEXCHISAUC = Get-Counter ‘\MSExchangeIS\Active User Count’
$MSEXCHISAUC = $GETMSEXCHISAUC.CounterSamples |Select-Object CookedValue
Write-Host You have $MSEXCHISAUC.CookedValue Active Exchange User Connection\s to the Exchange Server

Feel free to edit the text part of the output (Last line), this could be simplified if required.