Poor graphics performance on Windows 2008R2 / Win7 on ESX4.x

When installing Windows 2008R2 (and Windows7) on Vmware ESX, you will end up with non-accelerated graphics, even with acceleration set to full in the graphics setup. To sort this out you need the new WDDM driver included with Vmware tools, but not automatically installed. Those new drivers are in the following directory.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\wddm_video

Add them to your standard graphics card through device manager and restart your computer, all is well. This info can be found at Vmwares KB1011709.

Anonymous relays via Exchange 2010

Sometimes you need your Exchange server to allow relaying from scanners, printer units or software that need to push mail directly. If you only need emails to your local users you pretty much dont need to do much, but if you need it to relay to external users, you should make your own receive connector for it allowing anonymous users.

Server Configuration -> Hub Transport -> Create new Receive Connector
Choose an easy name and select Custom for use, set it to use the local IP with port 25 (if you dont want it running on another port or IP), choose which units can relay through it. You can go with either your subnet, or spesific IPs, or a combination if you have several subnets. Finish the wizard and you have your new connector. Now you need to edit it, and make sure only Anonymous users are selected on the Permission groups tab.

When its done, start up Exchange Management Shell and do the following command to give the proper Anonymous rights on the connector.

Get-ReceiveConnector "Name of your new connector" | Add-ADPermission -User "NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON" -ExtendedRights "ms-Exch-SMTP-Accept-Any-Recipient"

After that restart your Transport service and you should be good to go.

Exchange 2010 says #550 5.7.1 RESOLVER.RST.AuthRequired

If you make distribution groups in Exchange 2010 and you are enabling them from external senders, make sure you remove the authentication requirement on the group itself. Follow these steps to ensure its setup proper.

#1. Click the Distribution Group name as you want to set

#2. Click the "Properties"

#3. Click the "Mail Flow Settings" Tab

#4. Click the "Message Delivery Restrictions" item

#5. Click the "Properties..." button

#6. Uncheck the "Require that all senders are authenticated" item

#7. Click "OK" button

#8. Click "OK" button again

Thats all you need to do to enabled external senders.

Upgrade your ESX from 4.0 to 4.1 using ESXUPDATE

I just did this upgrade and it was very quick and simple. I followed the guidelines in this video from Vmware.com, do the same or go by the small guide I've written.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0wSHPSvmpk

Here are the steps you need to take

1. Make sure you obtain your new license keys from your valid account at Vmware.com, your old license will not work on 4.1.
2. Download the two patchfiles you need from Vmware.com, they are named pre-update and update and will have your from and to version in the name, ending with .zip. Upload the two patchfiles to your local VMFS store so they are ready for use.
3. Shut down all our running VMs and put your host in maintenance mode. You can do this by using the vSphere client, or you can do it on the command line as root with the command "vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter"
4. Run the pre-upgrade patch with "/usr/sbin/esxupdate --bundle=<name of pre-update bundle> update"
5. Run the version upgrade with "/usr/sbin/esxupdate --bundle=<name of update bundle> update"
6. When its done updating, you can either turn off maintenance mode from command line with "vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit" or you can just restart the host and do it from your vSphere client.
7. When your VMs are started, remember to upgrade the vmwaretools.

Thats all there is, you can do a commandline check with "vmware -v" to make sure you're on the correct version, or check it from your vShpere Client.

Good luck!

Setup NTP on Windows 2003 DC

This is quite easy but I always end up looking at the web to find out how, so I just made this short note of it here.

Every Domain Controller in a Windows AD need to have a reliable timesource, and personally I like to use "ntp.uio.no", its proven stable over the years. So whenever I setup a new domain controller, I like to setup NTP on it to ensure everything runs smoothly.

Follow the link to this article to get the walkthrough for it.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816042

Make sure your PDC emulator has this set as timesource, and if you dont want to set it up on the other DC's, make sure they use the main as internal source.

Remote Access stirring up problems on Windows 2003 servers.

We came across a problem today regarding a Windows 2003 SBS where Domain Services, Remote Access services and Exchange were all running on same computer. When the server started all were good, but once a VPN remote user connected, things went bad fast. It turned out that once the RAS interface were activated, DNS was updated with the RAS IP-address instead of the normal IP-address to the server, and mail services, domain services and so on were being denied.

After some quick searches on the web I came up with this artice which explain the problem and the solutions needed to correct the problem.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/292822

Accessing Windows 2003 shares from OSX

There are several ways to access Windows shares from a Mac, but some are better than others. Up until today I have run SMB sharing all the way, figured it was the easiest and cleanest way to do it atleast with up to date Macs. Today I came across a site where I couldnt easily do that though, so I desided to give File sharing services for Macintosh a go to see how it works.

First of all you install the service itself on the Windows server. Add/Remove programs (run appwiz.cpl to make it quicker), Windows components, Other network file and print services, and then add File Services for Macintosh. When you do, the appletalk protocol will be installed automatically and it might require a restart depending on your system. When you're ready, go into Network connections, properties on your default network, and then choose properties on your new AppleTalk protocol. This is to ensure that you bind appletalk to the correct NIC incase you have more, even disabled ones.

Now, you have your appletalk and you have your sharing, its about time to share something. This is where I messed about a bit before I found the correct way to do it. Go into Computer Management and Shared Folders. This is where you create the magic.

Rightclick and select New Share, press Next and then type in or browse to the folder you want to share, then press Next. It will default come up with SMB share name, but you have to manually select to share it for Apple users, so go ahead and mark the checkbox for Apple, and then choose Next. Now, this is where you need to think straight. Some places you have Everyone full control, other sites you have very stright control over permissions. If you use Custome Share permissions you have pretty much all the control you want over the shares, so just go ahead and choose what level you want, either with the predefined ones, or by custom settings. When you have done, choose Finish and then Close to get rid of the Wizard.

After you're done, you will see that you now not only have the normal Windows share, but you also have an Apple share marked with a small computer sign on the share itself. What you need to do now is to rightclick the Apple share and choose Properties, and then remove the mark on "This volume is Read Only", or you'll have a hard time using the share for anything useful.

Thats about it, test your connections with your Macs, go into your Finder, press Apple-K or use your menu to get to the right place, add your IP into the servername and press Connect and your shared apple folders should appear in your list, and then choose which one you want to mount.

Nothing more to it.