Removing Computers in Active Directory

We experinced a Windows 2003 server failure (two of the 3 drives on the RAID-5 failed at once).  The decision was made to move the server contents to a virtual sever.  The new server has the same name of the older server. 

Before I could name the new server, the old server needed to be removed from Active Directory.  I went into Active Directory, found the server in the appropriate folder, right clicked it and selected Delete. After clicking Delete I recieved the following error:

The object or some of the objects it contains cannot be deleted because access is denied Scope Agreement: To fix help removing the object (Member server) from active directory.

After clicking OK I recieved an error message stating Access Denied.

To correct the problem from the command prompt I opened ADSIEDIT.msc  on the Domain Controller. In ADSI Edit I browsed to the correct container folder and expanded the server I was trying to delete. Once expanded, I was able to see a folder under the computer name.  I right clicked on the folder and deleted it.  Once deleted I was able to delete the server.

I verified the server was removed from DNS and was able to successfully name my new server the same name as the one it replaced.

Installing Windows 64bit on VMware ESX 3.5

I ran into a issue a while back when atttempting to install Windows 2003 x64 on VMware EXS 3.5. I ran into the following error:

"Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause... File: \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe Status: 0xc000035a Info: Attempting to load a 64-bit application, however this CPU is not compatible with 64-bit mode."

The server was a Dell 2950 and I had Windows 2003 64x installed on it before I decided to to make is a VM Ware server. After digging a little bit I was able to find the issue.

In order to run a 64bit application on ESX 3.5 you must first enable VT extensions in the systems BIOS first.

• Power down the server and boot into BIOS mode.
• In BIOS go into Advanced Properties.
• Enable VT Extensions.
• Save your settings.
• Cold boot your system. (This is important. A warm boot does not put VT Extensions into effect).
• Go into VMware as usual and install your 64 bit OS.

Blocking Ports 139 and 445

In an effort to protect our network against the new Gimmiv Worm it was reccomended to block traffic using ports 139 and 445. I went ahead and blocked all traffic, internal and external, to these ports. After completing this we started noticing connection issues to some of the shared folders on some of our servers. The bulk of the issues were coming from computers on one network of our WAN connecting to a server on a different network on our WAN. After some testing I was able to determine that is issue was a result of blocking these ports. It looks like I should have only blocked inbound traffic to these ports. Windows relys on these ports for connectivity to the network.

I found a great posting that explains what these ports do. http://www.petri.co.il/what

Changing the SID on a Windows 2003 server

I have imaged countless computers over the years. In the past after the computer was imaged I would fire up the comptuer and run SysPrep to reset the SID (Computer Security Identifier). This would work fine but it would require me to go through the initial Windows setup again.

Recently I have been getting more involved with server virtualization using VMWare. I have created a couple of basic Windows 2003 virtual images. I knew when I deployed them I would need to reset the SID on the new virtual server.

After poking around I found NewSID on Microsoft's TechNet site. NewSID is a small executable that will reset your SID. It gives you the option to set a random SID, copy a SID from another comptuer or specify the SID. It will also allow you to change the current computer name.

My inital testing of it appears to be pretty positive. I have it on my basic virtual images. After I power up the virtual server for the first time I run NewSID. The basic virtual image network card is also setup to use DHCP so I wont run into IP conflicts.

I found NewSID by going to: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897418.aspx

Moving Folders From One Server to Another

I am in the processing of replacing a server that is ready for retirement. It is necessary for me to move the information from the old server (server A) to the new server (server B). Traditional Copy and Paste will not work because it will only copy the files, not the creation dates, security etc. Here is how I accomplished the task.

To properly copy all of the information I used Robocopy.

• Robocopy is part of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools. The Resource Kit can be downloaded at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&displaylang=en
• I was also able to find and download Robocopy GUI for Microsoft Technet. As the name implies, it is the GUI version of Robocopy. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc160891.aspx

I used Robocopy GUI for this task. I selected the Source and Target Path. In the Copy Options Tab I selected /S /E /SEC. This copied all files and folders from Server A to Server B. It also retained the attributes and Security settings for the files and folders.