Mark's Windows Server Blog

MCS Talks: Enterprise Architecture (Infrastructure Architecture)

Microsoft is currently running a series of webcasts under the heading of MCS Talks: Enterprise Architecture with topics including:

• Infrastructure architecture.
• Core infrastructure.
• Messaging.
• Security and PKI.
• Identify and access management.
• Desktop deployment.
• Configuration management.
• Operations management.
• SharePoint.
• Application virtualisation.

Over on my main blog I've written up my notes from the first session (as well as some commentary on being and architect) and here are the links to the various posts:

• So, you want to be an infrastructure architect?
• Software as a Service - or Software plus Services?
• Infrastructure Architecture considerations:

1. Introduction.
2. Remote offices.
3. Controlling network access.
4. Virtualisation.
5. Security.
6. High availability.
7. Data centre consolidation. 

I'm hoping to follow the entire series so, to pick up the articles as I write them (rather than as I get around to double-posting them over here!), subscribe to the RSS feed or, to get the information from the horse's mouth (so to speak) check out the MCS Talks blog.

Active Directory UK user group

The number of user groups around Microsoft products seems to be increasing steadily and another group has recently started - the Active Directory UK user group (ADUG) - who aim to:

“[…] build a community of Active Directory users, be they experts or beginners, where they will be able to ask questions, share experiences and learn from each other and leading experts in the field. Regular meetings will be held, to discuss and learn about topical issues such as upgrade paths, virtualisation and compliance; these will be in addition to traditional topics such as replication, disaster recovery and administration.”

As for the Windows Server UK user group, we’re steadily building a membership in our LinkedIn group and I’ve just approached Microsoft to see about getting a room for a meeting in the autumn.

Outlook cached mode is not available on a server with Terminal Services enabled

I was putting together a demo environment earlier today and needed to publish a Terminal Services RemoteApp, so I installed Terminal Services (and IIS) on my Windows Server 2008 notebook. Later on, I noticed that Outlook was not working in cached mode and I found that offline store (.OST) files and features that rely on them are disabled when running Outlook on a computer with Terminal Services enabled.

I can see why cached mode on a terminal server would be a little odd (it’s fair enough caching data on a remote client but it’s also resonable to expect that the terminal server would be in the data centre - i.e. close to the Exchange Server) - even so, why totally disable it - surely administrators can be given the choice to enable it if circumstances dictate it to be an appropriate course of action?

Oh well… I’ve since removed the Terminal Services role and Outlook is working well again.

Core Configurator - download it whist you can…

A few months ago, I wrote a post on customising Windows Server 2008 Server Core and Michael Armstrong tipped me off about a cool utility, written by former MVP Guy Teverovsky, called Core Configurator. I say former MVP, because Guy has given up that award to join Microsoft in Israel - and I’m not surprised, after his employer claimed it was their intellectual property (even though he developed it in his spare time) and asked him to remove it from the web.

Anyway, Core Configurator is intended to provide a GUI (strange as it may seem on server core) to aid in the initial setup tasks for a server core machine including:

• Product activation.
• Display configuration.
• Date and time configuration.
• Remote Desktop configuration.
• Local user account management.
• Firewall configuration
• WinRM configuration
• Networking.
• Computer name and domain/workgroup membership.
• Installation of server core features/roles.
• Shutdown.
• Reboot.

Because the tool has been removed from the web, it’s now pretty hard to get hold of, so download it while you can (there is another download location but this version has a slightly different filename and I cannot vouch for the file contents - i.e. I have not tested it). Once it’s gone, it’s gone - so don’t ask me where to get it if these links stop working.

Incorrect side-by-side configuration caused by missing runtime libraries

Just before the weekend, I was trying to run an application on a 64-bit installation of Windows Server 2008 and was presented with a strange error:

This application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log for more details.

I know that side-by-side is something to do with avoiding DLL hell (by not dumping all the DLLs in the same folder with the consequences of one application overwriting another’s libraries) but I didn’t have a clue how to fix it and the application event log didn’t help much:

Log Name: Application
Source: SideBySide
Date: 15/08/2008 18:00:10
Event ID: 33
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: computername.domainname.tld
Description:
Activation context generation failed for “C:\foldername\applicationname.exe”. Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC90.CRT,processorArchitecture=”x86″,publicKeyToken=”1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b”,type=”win32″,version=”9.0.21022.8″ could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.

Thankfully, Junfeng Zhang wrote a comprehensive blog post about diagnosing side by side failures. It’s a bit too developery for me but I did at least manage to follow the instructions to produce myself a sxstrace:

=================
Begin Activation Context Generation.
Input Parameter:
        Flags = 0
        ProcessorArchitecture = Wow32
        CultureFallBacks = en-US;en
        ManifestPath = C:\foldername\applicationname.exe
        AssemblyDirectory = C:\foldername\
        Application Config File =
—————–
INFO: Parsing Manifest File C:\foldername\applicationname.exe.
        INFO: Manifest Definition Identity is (null).
        INFO: Reference: Microsoft.VC90.CRT,processorArchitecture=”x86″,publicKeyToken=”1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b”,type=”win32″,version=”9.0.21022.8″
INFO: Resolving reference Microsoft.VC90.CRT,processorArchitecture=”x86″,publicKeyToken=”1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b”,type=”win32″,version=”9.0.21022.8″.
        INFO: Resolving reference for ProcessorArchitecture WOW64.
                INFO: Resolving reference for culture Neutral.
                        INFO: Applying Binding Policy.
                                INFO: No publisher policy found.
                                INFO: No binding policy redirect found.
                        INFO: Begin assembly probing.
                                INFO: Did not find the assembly in WinSxS.
                                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\Microsoft.VC90.CRT\9.0.21022.8__1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b\Microsoft.VC90.CRT.DLL.
                                INFO: Did not find manifest for culture Neutral.
                        INFO: End assembly probing.
        INFO: Resolving reference for ProcessorArchitecture x86.
                INFO: Resolving reference for culture Neutral.
                        INFO: Applying Binding Policy.
                                INFO: No publisher policy found.
                                INFO: No binding policy redirect found.
                        INFO: Begin assembly probing.
                                INFO: Did not find the assembly in WinSxS.
                                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\Microsoft.VC90.CRT\9.0.21022.8__1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b\Microsoft.VC90.CRT.DLL.
                                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\foldername\Microsoft.VC90.CRT.DLL.
                                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\foldername\Microsoft.VC90.CRT.MANIFEST.
                                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\foldername\Microsoft.VC90.CRT\Microsoft.VC90.CRT.DLL.
                                INFO: Attempt to probe manifest at C:\foldername\Microsoft.VC90.CRT\Microsoft.VC90.CRT.MANIFEST.
                                INFO: Did not find manifest for culture Neutral.
                        INFO: End assembly probing.
        ERROR: Cannot resolve reference Microsoft.VC90.CRT,processorArchitecture=”x86″,publicKeyToken=”1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b”,type=”win32″,version=”9.0.21022.8″.
ERROR: Activation Context generation failed.
End Activation Context Generation.

I don’t understand most of that trace but I can see that it’s trying to find a bunch of resources named Microsoft.VC90.CRT.* and a search of my system suggests they are missing. Microsoft VC sounds like Visual C++ and v9 would be Visual Studio 2008. Checking back at the original developer’s website, I saw that he suggested to someone else experiencing problems that they might need the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 redistributable package. I thought that the whole point of having the Microsoft .NET Framework on my PC was so that .NET applications would run, regardless of the language they were developed in (if there are any developers reading this, please feel free to leave a comment on this because I’m out of my depth at this point) but I downloaded the latest x64 version and installed it on my system.

No change (same error).

I realised that I was using the latest (SP1) version (v9.0.30729.17) and perhaps I needed the original one (v9.0.21022) as that’s the version number in the systrace log. So I removed the SP1 version and installed the original redistributable package instead.

Still no change.

I had the C++ source code, so I considered recompiling the application but I found that there was no compiler on my system (unlike for C#) and so I needed to install one of the Visual Studio Express Editions and would take a while. So I thought about other options.

It turned out that, even though I was running on 64-bit Windows, I needed to install a 32-bit redistributable. Don’t ask me why (that’s another developer question - the references to GAC_32 and Win32 in the sxstrace probably provide a clue) but it worked - and it didn’t matter whether I used the original or the SP1 version of the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 redistributable package (so I used SP1).

Now the application runs as expected. It’s got me thinking though… I really should learn something about .NET development!

Windows 7 blog launched

After a year of speculation about what will, or won’t, be included in the next version of Windows, it looks like Microsoft might be getting ready to tell us a bit more. Yesterday they launched a new blog called Engineering Windows 7 (thanks to Dave Saxon for alerting me). As the title suggests, it’s all about putting together the next version of Windows and is probably worth keeping an eye on.

Installing PHP 5 on IIS 6

I’ve run PHP with Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) before (running on a Windows XP laptop) and I seem to remember the installation being quite straightforward. Even so, tonight I was installing PHP 5.2.6 with IIS 6 (on Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition) and I ran across a few issues. This post describes what was involved:

• Firstly, PHP can be installed in CGI, FastCGI or ISAPI mode. I used ISAPI.
• Secondly, there is anecdotal evidence that the Windows Installer version is problematic - for that reason you may prefer to use the ZIP file and perform a manual installation (as I did), following the instructions on the IIS Admin blog, which were:
  • Extract the files to a location of your choice (I used C:\PHP to keep it simple but C:\Program Files (x86)\PHP would be better).
  • Rename php.ini-recommended to php.ini.
  • Edit the extension_dir line in php.ini to read extension_dir = C:\phpinstallationfolder\ext.
  • Add the PHP installation folder to the %path% system variable (e.g. append ;C:\PHP to the existing path).
  • Create a web service extension for PHP using cscript iisext.vbs /AddFile c:\phpinstallationfolder\php5isapi.dll 1 PHPISAPI 1 “PHP ISAPI”. The new extension should show in IIS Manager with a status of Allowed.
  • Create an application extension mapping for .php files. Following the advice on the IIS Admin blog article that I referenced previously will remove all other mappings so I used the IIS Manager MMC instead (Default Web Site Properties, Home Directory, Configuration to add a mapping to the executable at c:\phpinstallationfolder\php5isapi.dll using extension .php for all verbs).
  • Create a test file called phpinfo.php containing <?php phpinfo(); ?>.
  • Use a web browser to navigate to http://servername/phpinfo.php and the PHP information page should be displayed.
  • If you are running on 64-bit Windows there are some extra steps in order to avoid an HTTP 500 Internal server error or the message %1 is not a valid Win32 application. It seems that this is caused by trying to load a 32-bit application (in this case PHP) inside a 64-bit worker process (as described in Microsoft knowledge base article 895976). To resolve this issue, enter cscript adsutil.vbs SET W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32bitAppOnWin64 1. adsutil.vbs is one of the scripts installed into the wwwroot\AdminScripts folder but if you have removed it to secure the server (as I had), then it may be temporarily copied back to the server from another IIS installation.
  • To ensure that PHPinfo reflects the correct location of the php.ini file, create an environment variable called PHPRC referring to c:\phpinstallationfolder and restart the server or, alternatively, set the appropriate registry keys (although neither option seemed to have any effect for me).

Microsoft virtualisation news

Some time back, there was talk of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (then called SCVMM vNext) shipping within 90 days of Hyper-V. This link was later denied, or at least downplayed (depending upon who you spoke to at Microsoft) but it seems that SCVMM 2008 is expected to ship in September… that’s ooh… about 90 days after Hyper-V. Of course, speculating on product release dates is always a risky business, but Rakesh Malhotra should know (he runs the SCVMM program management team).

On a related note, he also explains why SCVMM requires virtual center in order to integrate with VMware ESX (a question I asked a few days back after the release of the VMware Infrastructure Toolkit for Windows v1.0 (PowerShell cmdlets for VI).

Last, but not least, the Microsoft Virtualisation User Group UK has been formed and have an inaugural meeting planned at Microsoft’s London (Victoria) offices on 24 September.  Clearly there is a cross-over between MVUG and the Windows Server Team's content, so I'm sure I'll be in touch with Patrick and Matthew to see how best we can work together.

Using BITS to manage file distribution

Microsoft’s Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) has been around since Windows 2000 SP3 and provides a “firewall-friendly” means of transferring files across the network which also allows for restarts. It’s also the file transfer mechanism used for Windows updates (but is not exclusively used for Microsoft products) and is now at version 3.0 (included with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008).

A few weeks back, I was discussing the problem of rebuilding remote servers with some colleagues. We considered that it may be advantageous to keep a copy of the build image locally (e.g. on a branch office server) but image management (making sure that the locally cached image is the latest version) is an important concern. One of my colleagues asked if BITS could be used to control the distribution of the image files (which could be expected to be around 2GB) so I decided to dig a little further. The short answer is “yes”, but there are some things to be aware of:

• Whilst recent versions of BITS can transfer files from either a web server (using HTTP/HTTPS) or a UNC shares (using SMB) but BITS 1.5 and earlier does not support the SMB protocol for the remote server.
• Uploads require Microsoft IIS (5.0, 6.0 or 7.0, but not 5.1) with BITS IIS extensions configured. This means that pushing updates to a folder on a client is not possible (unless running IIS on all the clients); however it is possible to “pull” a file, if another method of initiating the transfer exists (e.g. a process which polls a central location for changes; by running a remote script from RDP, telnet; or instantiating a job using another method). If running IIS for uploads is appropriate, then check out the article on using BITS to upload files with .NET by Phil Wilson (no relation!).
• IIS 5.0/BITS 1.2 or earlier each have a maximum file size for download of 4GB.
• BITS 2.0 and earlier only uses the network interface card to measure network traffic and is not aware of network conditions further out on the network (i.e. the client’s Gigabit Ethernet NIC may be barely used but the WAN link may be significantly slower and could possibly be running at full capacity). For this reason, group policies may be applied to control the behaviour of BITS. BITS 3.0 can also use an Internet gateway device to determine network usage, as well as supporting peer caching - for peer-to-peer distribution of files using BITS.
• BITS guarantees that the version of the file it transfers is consistent based on the file size and time stamp, not content (BITS does not protect against man-in-the-middle attacks but implementing IPSec would).

Microsoft provides a command line tool called BITSAdmin (bitsadmin.exe) for monitoring the progress of BITS jobs. BITSAdmin is available as a support tool for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 but is included with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. James Finnigan has a good post introducing the concept of transferring files using BITS; Aaron Czechowski has another BITSAdmin script; Frank-Peter Schultze has a good post on scripting downloads with BITS; or refer to the full BITSAdmin syntax and examples for further details.

Various third party wrappers also exist, including:

• Bitsup.
• Bits C# Wrapper.
• Managed BITS.

I haven’t seen a PowerShell wrapper for BITS yet but I have used Alexander Sukhovey’s BGet command (batch) file to initiate and manage BITS file transfers.

If BITS is not appropriate, those with plenty of bandwidth might consider RoboCopy (I have used it in the past to synchronise folders across the network) but, for me, Mads Klinkby’s BITSync looks perfect - unfortunately the download link was unavailable at the time of writing this post.

Upgrading Hyper-V (pre-release to RTM)

A few nights ago, I finally got around to upgrading my own Hyper-V installation from release candidate 1 to the RTM version. I’d already updated the notebook PC that I use for work but I’d forgotten about the server at home - it was working well (and if it ain’t broke…). What follows explains the process for upgrading a server that is already running a pre-release version of Hyper-V to the RTM code:

1. On the parent partition, run the 64-bit version of Microsoft update 950050. This will update the Hyper-V components and will require a restart. After the restart, the version of Hyper-V Manager should be 6.0.6001.18016.
   
2. On each virtual machine, upgrade the integration components ICs - also known as integration services). To do this:
   • Connect to a VM using the Virtual Machine Connection (VMC) tool and log on.
   • Cancel the Found New Hardware Wizard and select Insert Integration Services Setup Disk from the Action menu in the VMC tool.
   • A previous version of the Hyper-V integration services should be detected. Click OK to upgrade.
     
   • When the integration services have been upgraded, restart the virtual machine.
   • Following the restart, there should be no new hardware detected and all synthetic devices (e.g. the Microsoft Virtual Machine Bus Network Adapter) should be at version 6.0.6001.18016.
     

The process is time consuming and it does involve restarting every computer in the virtualised infrastructure, which should not be surprising as it also involves some pretty deep changes in the operating system (this upgrade is also from a pre-release version of Hyper-V, which implies it’s not running a production workload).