Microsoft update problems; Yay for my backup plans!
Posted on August 2, 2010, under Web Dev/Tech.
Microsoft released a critical security patch (MS10-046) that hosed my Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit machine. After the patch installed, I click the button to reboot, but it never finished. It froze on the screen that said, "Preparing To Configure Windows. Please Do Not Turn Off Your Computer." Even the little spinner had froze. I finally powered down the machine, but I couldn’t get Windows to boot even in Safe Mode.
I did have a plan though. I booted up my Windows 7 emergency System Repair Disc, and attempted to go back to a previous System Restore Point. Every time I tried though, I received a failure error of 0×80070057. (*Spoiler Alert* After I restored my computer, I realized I had turned off Systems Restore for all my drives. Sheesh, not sure why I did that. Probably to save disk space. Lesson learned.)
That left me with one option to get Windows back up and running without too much pain. In the menu of the System Repair Disk, I selected System Image Recovery, since I had scheduled weekly full backups of my system. (You do too, right?)
After successfully running the system image restoration process, a few of my files were now a week or so out of date. When I logged in, up popped my Carbonite client. It had recognized that my system had just gone through a recovery, and gave me options on restoring my files that were either out of date or missing. I selected the files to restore, and now my system is back up and running! Sweet!
The change I will be making to my backup strategy is enabling System Restore Points on my C: drive.
Summary:
- Create a Windows System Repair Disc
- Enable System Restore Points on the System drive (C:)
- Schedule weekly System Image backups
- Purchase a Carbonite subscription, and use the recommended backup settings
- Be a little skeptical of emergency patches
Zune – Reserved Space fixed with a device restart
This last year, my 8GB Zune has been acting up a little when it comes to the Reserved Space on the device. Every so often I would receive a message that my Zune was full, only to see that Reserved Space was using over 1 GB of storage.
In the past, I would go through the not-too-painful-but-still-tedious process of reformatting and re-syncing all of the content.
I just discovered that I can simply restart the Zune, and when I connect it back up to my computer, everything is back to normal. I guess we still live under the principle of “when in doubt, reboot.”
Discover core databases for a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 farm
Posted on March 4, 2010, under SharePoint.
Below are steps for one method to discover databases used by a WSS 3.0 farm. Log in to SharePoint Central Administration for each of these activities.
Configuration Database
- Go to the “Operations” tab
- Click “Servers in Farm”
- Under “Farm Information” see the following items:
- Configuration database server
- Configuration database name
Central Administration Content Database
- Go to the “Application Management” tab
- Click “Web application list”
- Click “SharePoint Central Administration v3″
- Under “SharePoint Site Management”, click “Site collection list”
- Under the root “/” site, look in the information table for the “Database Name” value
General Usage Content Databases
- Go to the “Application Management” tab
- Click “Web application list”
- For each web application listed other than “SharePoint Central Administration v3″ (see above), perform the following:
- Click the web application name
- Under “SharePoint Site Management”, click “Site collection list”
- For each listed site collection (by URL):
- Click the URL of the site collection
- In the information table, look for the “Database Name” value
Search Database
- Go to the “Operations” tab
- Under “Topology and Services”, click “Services on server”
- Click the text “Windows SharePoint Services Help Search”
- Under “Search Database”, look for the values:
- Database Server
- Database Name
Windows 7 – Homegroups
Posted on October 25, 2009, under Web Dev/Tech.
Finally! Easy home networking. I bought a Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack (3 licenses), set up a Homegroup to share files and a printer, and I’m loving it. Super easy.
Book Recommendation: MOSS 2007 Best Practices
Posted on December 17, 2008, under SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.
There are several books that stand-out in my career where the value is well over the $50 spent on the book. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Best Practices is definitely one of those books.
P.S. WordPress 2.7 is pretty slick
Microsoft apps on VMware ESX will now be supported
Posted on September 11, 2008, under SharePoint, Web Dev/Tech.
Microsoft will now support their applications running on the VMWare ESX platform running version 3.5 update 2. For anyone using both VMWare and Microsoft technologies (like Exchange, SharePoint, etc), this is great news!
