Friday 29 February 2008

Exchange 2003 IMF updates (well, mostly)

One of the SBS2003 R2 servers running Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 3 generated error 0x800706be when installing Update for Intelligent Message Filter for Exchange Server 2003 2008.02.14 (KB907747).

The update installed successfully on the next attempt, but I found a few interesting pointers whilst checking out manual installs/uninstalls of IMF Updates.

There's a useful document from MS called the IMF v2 Operations Guide, linked from 907747.

You can manually install an update or go back to a recent version simply by registering the appropriate DLL and restarting IIS (run iisreset). Fire up a command prompt (Start > Run > CMD) and take a look at the pic below. The commands are:
cd exchsrvr\bin\MSCFV2\6.5.7993.0
regsvr32 MSExchange.UceContentFilter.dll
Note that if you try and register the MSExchange.UceContentFilter.dll from a different directory you'll get a 'module not found' error, so make sure you change to the correct directory first.
You can back out the current filter by simply registering the previous version. Alternatively head into Add/Remove Programs and remove the Update for IMF under Microsoft Exchange (you may need to tick the Show Updates box) which goes all the way back to the original Exchange 2003 SP2 filter when IMFv2 was originally installed.

The original error listed in Update Services, top picture, should automatically clear after 24 hours - but it didn't, nor after a reboot. Giving it another 24h post reboot ...

Sunday 17 February 2008

WindowsUpdate 0x8000FFFF fix

Just built a PC for someone with one of GigaByte's GA-73PVM-S2H motherboards. Its a nice spec nVidia based board including DDR2-800, VGA, DVI-D, HDMI, eSATA, 1394 Firewire (rear and front), SPDIF, 7.1 HD sound and support for 10xUSB - don't think there's a lot to compare at the price. I loaded Vista Home Premium OEM without incident, went to check WindowsUpdate and was greeted with error 0x8000FFFF which sounds like some non-specific default message. Trawling Google (but not Microsoft support) throws up similar errors and recommendations to uninstall update KB929777 - ah, but I hadn't actually loaded any updates so far. I did wonder whether not activating during install or immediately switching to Microsoft Update (i.e. Windows + other products) caused the error?

Fortunately at Ask Leo there's a comment from Mark Lewis / Eric M referring to some keys to delete in the registry (take a backup first!). Start regedit and head into HKLM\Components and remove the keys for PendingXmlIdentifier and AdvanceInstallerNeedResolving. Then restart and try WindowsUpdate again. Gotta be on the right track when the messages change from red to yellow :-)The update loaded in a blink with no prompts and and I had to manually run an update check again - now we were in business ...

Friday 8 February 2008

ASP.NET Event ID: 1062 - confused SBS2003 server

So one of the SBS2003 servers I manage bleated at me this morning that it didn't know which ASP.NET it should be using 1.1 or 2.0. At which point it duly filed an error in the Event Viewer and kicked everyone out.

Source: ASP.NET 2.0.50727.0
Event ID: 1062
It is not possible to run two different versions of ASP.NET in the same IIS process. Please use the IIS Administration Tool to reconfigure your server to run the application in a separate process.

We had a new application loaded this week from one of the suppliers and part of it relies on ASP.NET v2.0. Turns out it dropped into the DefaultAppPool along with some SBS specific applications; Backup, Monitoring and Remote. These rely on ASP.NET 1.1 and I found the tip-off in Scott Forsyth's blog about keeping your ASPs in separate pools.

The solution is to create a new application pool (called KxEntiretyPool in this case) - see the screen shot - using the DefaultAppPool as the template. You can then go down into the Web Sites section, into Default Web Site and open the Properties for your new application. Simply change it over from DefaultAppPool to the new application pool and restart the Web Publishing service.

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