http://armmf.adobe.com/arm-manifests/win/SCUP/Acrobat11_Catalog.cab

AdobeReader XI (11):

http://armmf.adobe.com/arm-manifests/win/SCUP/Reader11_Catalog.cab

From within Microsoft SQL Management Studio, run the query below to check fragmentation:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

SELECT a.index_id, name, avg_fragmentation_in_percent FROM
 
sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats (NULL,NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL) AS a JOIN sys.indexes
 
AS b ON a.object_id = b.object_id AND a.index_id = b.index_id WHERE
 
avg_fragmentation_in_percent > 30
 
GO

2)    Run this command on the tables:

1
2
3

Exec sp_MSForEachtable 'DBCC DBREINDEX (''?'')'
 
go

3)    Once this was done, run the “Rebuild Indexes” task from Site Maintenance of the primary server.

4)    Finally run this command back on the SQL Server via SQL Management Studio.

1
2
3

EXEC sp_MSForEachTable "UPDATE STATISTICS ? with fullscan"
 
GO

Trouble formatting new *Intel* SSD

I had some difficulty formatting the drive in Computer Management. Every time I attempt to format it, it would lock up my OS. So here are the steps I took to resolve it:

!!!! WARNING: this will destroy all data on the target disk !!!!

1. Download and install Intel SSD Toolbox
2. Open an elevated cmd prompt.
3. Type diskpart.exe and hit enter
4. list disk
5. select disk # (the disk you want to clean)
6. clean all (more info on this command and diskpart http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465%28v=ws.10%29.aspx )
7. It will take 10-20 minutes or so but after these steps I was able to format the drive.

Also note that 64K unit allocation size is recommended for drives where VHDX’s will be stored (since they will be large files). This unit size is not recommended for smaller files. You can use the wizard in computer management or run format FS=NTFS LABEL=”L.A.B.” UNIT=64k QUICK in disk part.

Moving your Hyper-V VM’s via PowerShell

After installing my shiny new SSD I sure as heck wasn’t going to move all my VM’s manually, so PowerShell it is!

Here is a good start to become familiar with the Hyper-V PowerShell cmdlets. Just be sure to run the PowerShell ISE is elevated mode! http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/8700.windows-server-8-manage-hyper-v-3-0-with-powershell-en-us.aspx

After you familiarize yourself with some of the cmdlet’s there is some really slick ones for moving VM’s around:

• Move-VM (Moves the VM to another host)
• Move-VMStorage (Moves all of the VM’s dependencies to another location)

I’m moving my VM’s to my new SSD on my laptop so Move-VMStorage was the best route!

1. Start with Get-VM to get a list of VM’s
   
2. Now you will want to copy that to a variable. Let’s say $VMs via

   1	$VMs = Get-VM

3. Now for each of these $VMs we will want to execute Move-VMStorage to (in my case) D:\.

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7

   $DestinationPath = "D:\SCSM Lab" ForEach ($VM in $VMs) { $VMName = $VM.Name.toString() Write-Output "Moving $VMName" Move-VMStorage -VMName $VM.Name -DestinationStoragePath "$DestinationPath\$VMName" Write-Output "Finished Moving $VMName" }

   A progress bar will appear indicating the move is occurring:
   

4. That’s pretty much it . You will also be able to migrate them while they are still running, although it could take longer.

Full script:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

$VMs = Get-VM
$DestinationPath = "D:\SCSM Lab"
ForEach ($VM in $VMs) {
	$VMName = $VM.Name.toString()
	Write-Output "Moving $VMName"
	Move-VMStorage -VMName $VM.Name -DestinationStoragePath "$DestinationPath\$VMName"
	Write-Output "Finished Moving $VMName"
}

But wait, my two Private Cloud beta exams are still not showing up on the damn MCP site! It’s been over four months! I need support! I don’t really like to call into support (even though sometimes it’s usually faster) and ended up using the MCP site’s chat feature in the support section, see our exchanges below…

Sponsors, article continues below...

Juned: Hi Stephen,

Juned: Thank you for contacting Microsoft. My name is Juned. Please give me a moment while I review your question.

Stephen Leuthold: Hi

Juned: If I understand you correctly your two exams are missing from your transcript.

Stephen Leuthold: 071-247 and 071-246 are not showing on my transcript. However four months ago I passed the exams (shows on Prometric as passed).

Juned: Thank you for the information, please give me a moment.

Juned: Do you have exam registration id or exam confirmation number for the missing exams?

Stephen Leuthold: Yes

Stephen Leuthold: 071-247 is …………..

Stephen Leuthold: 071-246 is …………..

Juned: Thank you for the information, It would be my pleasure to assist you with it.

Juned: Please give me a moment.

Juned: I regret to inform you that I am unable to locate your exam details in our database.

Stephen Leuthold: They were beta exams at the time.

Juned: It seems that we have not received your exam data from the testing vendor.

Stephen Leuthold: So, how do we proceed from here?

Juned: Yes, I have checked that exam went live on June 11, 2012.

Juned: As we have not received your exam data from the testing vendor. I would request you to send us the scanned copy of the exam score report via email at MCPhelp@microsoft.com including your MC ID and Name to escalate this issue.

Juned: In order to obtain the score report for the exam you may contact Prometric testing center.

Stephen Leuthold: Microsoft can’t handle all that for me?

Juned: You can contact Prometric at:

Juned: Prometric:

Juned: Phone: 1-800-755-3926 (USA)

Juned: Email: CustomerService@prometric.com

Stephen Leuthold: So once I email the MCPhelp email how long will it take to show up on my transcript?

Juned: Once we get the details your exam would be update within 3-5 business days.

Stephen Leuthold: ok

Juned: Is there anything else apart from this I can help you with?

Stephen Leuthold: No, thank you.

Juned: You are welcome and I really apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

Juned: Thank you for contacting Microsoft Certification Chat Support.

Juned: Have a great day ahead.

I called the Prometric number the support technician gave me and had to wait for their 5 minute disclaimer (keep reading I’ll save you the grief). After that and navigating the selections I was connected to a support technician, now at Prometric. I gave her my testing ID “sr#######…”, verified my information and she confirmed that I did indeed pass the exams. She said that they will submit my score report to Microsoft and it would take 7-10 business days for them to receive it. I insisted that I’ve been waiting for over four months and really wanted to have my shiny MCSE: Private Cloud certification sooner than later. The nice lady talked to her supervisor and escalated me to their Candidate Care department at +1 (800) 775-3926. Before transferring me she gave them all the information so I wouldn’t have to repeat, what a gal! The nice gentleman on the phone said he’d get a ticket in and they should have the information sent to Microsoft within 48 business hours and would give me a call back with a status update in a few days. He offered to go ahead and expedite the exam I passed today too .

In short, if you are having similar issues with these or other exams call Prometric’s Candidate Care department at +1 (800) 775-3926. I hope this helps out anyone else that experienced the same issue!

Sponsors, article continues below...

Alert: Logon Failures – Multiple failures by same User on single Machine
Severity: 2
Source: ADS04.Domain.pvt
Path: ADS04.Domain.pvt
Last modified by: System
Last modified time: 9/22/2011 11:47:49 AM

Alert description: Multiple Logon Failures by user DOMAIN\user01 with logon type 0xffffffffc0000225. See Alert Context for more details.

Alert view link: “http://RMS01:51908/default.aspx?DisplayMode=Pivot&AlertID=%7bdbe48f98-2051-4d83-aecb-664a07c0eb46%7d”
Notification subscription ID generating this message: {BB47B5DE-176C-524C-FC13-2C8576C7000E}

Now that you have the subscription ID, you can use PowerShell to obtain the name of the alert via the subscription ID. This script will also show you who is subscribed to each notification subscription. NOTE: Be sure you load the SCOM PowerShell modules first!:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22

######################################################################
## Usage: SCOMSubscriptions.ps1  #####################################
## Author: Stephen Leuthold (http://blogmynog.com) ###################
## Created: 9/22/2010 ################################################
## Modified: 12/5/2010 ###############################################
## Purpose: Obtain list of alert notifications and subscribers #######
######################################################################
 
$subs = get-notificationsubscription | Select-object Id,DisplayName,ToRecipients 
$out = ""
[system.array]$report = $null
foreach($sub in $subs) {
                $recipients = $sub.ToRecipients | %{$_.Name}
                foreach ($recipient in $recipients) {
                                $out = New-Object PSObject
                                $out | Add-Member -membertype noteproperty -Name Id -Value $($sub.Id)
                                $out | Add-Member -membertype noteproperty -Name Name -Value $($sub.DisplayName)
                                $out | Add-Member -membertype noteproperty -Name Recipient -Value $($recipient)
                                $report = $report + $out               }
 
} 
$report | export-csv c:\temp\SCOM_AlertSubscriptions.csv

Sponsors, article continues below...

1. First you want to ensure that the intended account(s) can successfully access the intended Live Maps dashboards.
2. Ensure that your RMS has SPN’s (Service Principal Names) registered for your SDK service account. In the following example RMSSERVER is my RMS SERVER, DOMAIN and domain.local are my domain, and SDKaccount01 is my SCOM SDK service account.
   • Check if your SPN’s are registered by running the following:
     setspn -L RMSSERVER\sdkaccount01
     It should tell you that the SPN is regered under MSOMSdkSvc/RMSSERVER and MSOMSdkSvc/RMSSERVER.domain.local. If it’s registered for your RMS server’s hostname and FQDN proceed to step 3.
   • If it is not registered for the RMS server’s hostname and FQDN, register it!
     setspn -a MSOMSdkSvc/RMSSERVER DOMAIN\SDKaccount01
     setspn -a MSOMSdkSvc/RMSSERVER.domain.local DOMAIN\SDKaccount01
3. Verify your domain function level in AD Domains and Trusts (2003 or 2008…same solution works for 2008 R2).
4. Verify “Account is sensitive and cannot be delegated” is NOT checked on the SCOM SDK service account in AD. You can see this option under the Account tab.
   • Configure constrained delegation.
   • Locate the Live Maps’ server computer object in AD, go to its properties and select the Delegation tab.
   • For Windows 2003 (also look at Kevin’s reference to hotfix issues):
     Select “Trust this computer for delegation to specified services only” and “Use Kerberos only”.
     Click the Add button and add the SCOM SDK service (in my case sdkaccount01). The “Add Services” box should show MSOMSdkSvc, click OK on all remaining windows.
   • For Windows 2008 and 2008 R2:
     Select “Trust this computer for delegation to any service (Kerberos only).
     Click OK on all remaining windows.
5. If you haven’t already, enable Windows authentication for Live Maps on your Live Maps server.
   • Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager and go to the Live Maps site.
   • Open Authentication.
   • Enable “Windows Authentication” and disable “Forms Authentication”.

Hopefully this works for you as it did for me. Good luck!

1) First step is to get a list of the machines to be rebooted into a CSV.

2) Fire up a PowerShell with a domain account that has local admin rights on the target machines.

3) Set the header if you did not put a header in the CSV file.

1

$header = "server"

4) Set $servers equal to an array of server names to be rebooted.

1

$servers = import-csv c:\path\to\ServersToReboot.csv -header $header

5) Issue reboots using a foreach loop.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

foreach($i in $servers) {
     Write-Host "Attempting to reboot:" $i.server "..."
 
     $serverObj = gwmi Win32_operatingsystem -computer $i.server
 
     $status = $serverObj.reboot()
 
     if ($status.ReturnValue = "0") {
          Write-Host "Reboot successful."
     } else {
          Write-Host "Reboot failed. Check permissions."
     }
}

Here is an example of all the code together:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

$header = "server"
 
$servers = import-csv c:\path\to\ServersToReboot.csv -header $header
 
foreach($i in $servers) {
     Write-Host "Attempting to reboot:" $i.server "..."
 
     $serverObj = gwmi Win32_operatingsystem -computer $i.server
 
     $status = $serverObj.reboot()
 
     if ($status.ReturnValue = "0") {
          Write-Host "Reboot successful."
     } else {
          Write-Host "Reboot failed. Check permissions."
     }
}

Piece of cake!