Insert name here » 2008

Internet time tab missing in server 2008

Chris — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:42:31 +0000

Just noticed that all the computer clocks on a network were 5 minutes out. Went to the server (Windows Server 2008 Standard), to check the internet time synchronisation only to find that the usual Internet time tab on the clock/date control panel was completely missing. I didn’t bother investigating exactly why this is, but found the following solution.

w32tm /config /syncfromflags:MANUAL /manualpeerlist:time.nist.gov
w32tm /config /update

Obviously you can use your preferred time server instead of time.nist.gov, but run these two commands and wait a few minutes, and you should see your clock correct itself. The process will show ‘time-service’ events in the system event log to confirm your changes.

_sbs_netsetup doesn’t log off

Chris — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:27:07 +0000

We’ve been having lots of fun (or not) installing our action pack version of Small Business Server 2008. All of our client machines need to be disconnected from the old domain and then re-connected to the new one. We decided NOT to use the new 2008 migration tool for reasons which I wont go into here, so are having to migrate manually.

When connecting a computer via the SBS connection wizard (found at the URL http://connect) by default, we found that when the _sbs_netsetup user logs on, that it does not log off again, and any attempt to log off manually just causes it to automatically log back on.

To solve this we needed to grant local administrator rights to the local user _sbs_netsetup. Obviously as the user is currently logged on and you cannot log off in order to log back on as an administrator, it is not possible to do this on the local machine. To do this, follow these steps:

Run MMC on your server

Add computer management snap-in and set it to manage the computer in question

Browse to Local Users and Groups / Users

Add _sbs_netsetup to the Administrators group

Log off the local machine

Now the SBS setup process should complete as normal and you should end up with a machine connected to your domain and ready to go!

Deploying printers from x64 servers to x86 clients

Chris — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:21:06 +0000

Ah, the fun with SBS 2008 continues. Today we noticed that one of the printers (an HP Laserjet 2300) we had added to the server for deployment via group policy CSE (client side extensions), was not installing on any clients. This included both x86 Vista and XP machines. The error we were receiving in the event log is as follows:

The user ‘HP LaserJet 2300 Series PCL 6′ preference item in the ‘Common {}’ Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code ’0x8000ffff Catastrophic failure’ This error was suppressed.

This error is not very helpful as you can see, and infact turned out to be that the driver for the printer was not available. This led us into another issue – that of installing x86 drivers on the server to be available for clients when they connect.

Initially, we thought this would be easy. “Oh, just go into sharing and tick the x86 box in additional drivers”, we thought. Having tried to do that it turned out to be a lot more complex than it should be. Ticking this box will ask you to browse to find the x86 version of the x64 driver you currently have installed – easy. Then it will ask you to ‘please provide path to windows media (x86 processor)’ – OK, that’s doable?

It seems to be looking for the file ntprint.inf, and wanted to look on a CD-ROM, in the I386 folder by default. So, recognising the folder name we stuck in the XP pro disc, thinking we would be off, but alas, it tries to load the file and then gives the same prompt again! I then decided to search my own workstation (Vista Ultimate x86) for the the file and found the following directory to contain it, as well as an I386 folder.

C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ntprint.inf_xxxxxx

I copied the contents of this directory to the same directory on the server which holds the x86 version of the driver in question, and then went into sharing and ticked the x86 box once more. It again asked for the path to the driver, but this time did not prompt asking for the additional media!

So, in conclusion, it seems you need both your x64 server and an x86 client available in order to get the driver installed, for our printer at least.