Geek projects, tidbits and things I'm working on at the moment…

At work, we’ve installed SharePoint servers a couple of times. A reoccurring issue, is a permissions issue that appears in the event logs as Event ID: 10016 or 10017 but doesn’t seem to effect SharePoint performance. We just recently installed SharePoint 2010 and I decided to chase these errors down since it’s annoying and fills up the log files. Seems the local domain account you create to run specific SharePoint services during the initial installation don’t have specific permissions for local activation.


The machine-default permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{000C101C-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
and APPID
{000C101C-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
to the user SOMEDOMAIN\SOMEUSERACCOUNT_SVC SID (S-1-5-21-BLAHBLAHBALHBLAH) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.


So if you run off to the Component Services, find the offending CLSID object and right click->properties, hit the Security tab to allow this account to run this DCOM object it’s greyed out!

You’ve apparently got to find it in the registry first (should be “Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID\YOUR_CLASSID_HERE.”)

Once found, right click the key in the left pane and goto permissions. From there, you’ll want to take ownership of the registry object from the Trusted Installer which will allow you, the admin, to change its’ security permissions w/in the dcomcnfg application.

Now that’s done, open up the “DCOM Config” node of the local computer, find your AppID GUID, right click and select properties. Now select the Security tab and change your Launch & Activation Permissions for your domain account that’s generating your error.

As always, here’s some links to explain:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/tfsadmin/thread/883b5f1c-1718-4b9a-a6c8-bf32c5d4d6d2

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920783

http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/Fix-the-SharePoint-DCOM-10016-error-on-Windows-Server-2008-R2.aspx

Here’s a tidbit of information that I had to use last night on a Windows 2003 server which got hung up on a reboot in a remote location. I’ve used this a couple times before but always double check the “help shutdown” before proceeding. The shutdown command has been available on all Windows OSes since Windows 2000 came out and can be very useful when working with a virtualized server, a headless server or a box in a remote location. Last night’s server reboot somehow got hung; probably on some application that required user interaction (I could still ping the box remotely, couldn’t RDP back into it but could still access it via RPC.) I just issued a quick:

shutdown /r /f /m \\"IP ADDRESS HERE!"

And the box finished its reboot and I was back in business. If it hadn’t been for that command at 10pm last night I would have had to wait until morning to get it back up and running!

Here’s a couple useful links w/ more info.

http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/w2k3/shutdown.htm

http://www.shutdown.cc/

So I’m playing around w/ a SAN for home use. We’ve virtualized about 80% of our infrastructure at work but most of our VM hosts are standalone with local storage only. So, I’m spending a lot of time at home recently building a SAN on OpenSUSE 11.3 with high hopes of getting iSCSI to play nice. Part of this equation is getting another box to run vCenter Server which will need access to the iSCSI LUNs the VM hosts see.

Hence the title. Windows has a utility called Diskpart.exe which will allow you to turn off auto mount BEFORE you connect your Windows’ iSCSI initiator to your iSCSI target.

Open up a command prompt and type:

C:\Users\yournamehere>diskpart


Once you’re in the diskpart tool, type ‘automount’.

DISKPART> automount
Automatic mounting of new volumes enabled.

Then finally, ‘automount disable’.


DISKPART> automount disable
Automatic mounting of new volumes disabled.

This will keep your OS from trying to mount your iSCSI volume and mess with your VMFS partition!

Keep in mind, this means any new volumes your system sees will need to be mounted manually w/in the disk partitioning tool.

While you’re in there, type just a ‘?’ and see the whole list of commands you can play with. See the Microsoft KB article below for a more thorough introduction!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

I do a lot of virtualization both at home and at work. Several times I’ve needed a way to extend the activation period of Window 7 because I’m not done w/ a project.

Enter Windows Software Licensing Management Tool.

If you open up a command prompt by right clicking it and selecting, “Run as administrator” you can run the slmgr.vbs command such as…


C:\Users\yournamehere>slmgr /rearm


This can buy you some valuable time before you delete that VM and start on something else. This command ‘rearms’ the activation period and I believe you can do it for a total of 3 times before it stops working. Also, try adding a /? on the end to see a handy dialog box w/ the other available options.

I’ve always been a big fan of keeping my fingers on the keys versus using a mouse to get things done. I think everyone learns the clipboard hotkeys first before picking up others but even I learn a few new ones from time to time. That having been said, here’s a couple new ones that came out w/ Windows 7|Vista I’ve been enjoying.

• Win + Up arrow: Will maxamize your currently active window.
• Win + Down arrow: This will minimize the current window unless it’s maxamized, then it will simply restore it.
• Win + T: This will allow you to preview items on your taskbar. Just hit enter for it to get focus.

A couple of my day to day favs aren’t new to Windows 7 but they are:

• Win + E: This will open up Explorer view for browsing your system. This has got to be the one I use most often.
• Win + D: This does a “Show Desktop” which is very useful for when things start to get a tad bit cluttered.
• Win + R: This brings up the “Run” dialog box which is handy for those times you need to run something quickly.
• Win + L: Probably my all time favorite. This will lock your screen so the interns won’t mess with your system!

Here’s a couple URLs w/ more information:

http://lifehacker.com/5132073/the-best-new-windows-7-keyboard-shortcuts

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449

http://lifehacker.com/5390086/the-master-list-of-new-windows-7-shortcuts