I needed BWping and HTTPing running on Windows for bandwidth and latency testing of some 3G WAN tails so I compiled them using Cygwin. They can be found here and here respectively.
I find QCheck to be a nice tool for bandwidth testing on Windows systems, but it does require a Windows system either side of the link you’re testing.
%LOGONSERVER% is a useful environment variable to use in logon scripts to see which DC has serviced your request and can be handy to reference if you want to access additional files/shares on the DC. Unfortunately this environment variable is only accessible after logon and isn’t useful for computer startup scripts.
When I need to access the DC that’s providing me with GPOs during a computer startup script I emulate %LOGONSERVER% with the following code:
for /f "tokens=1 delims=\" %%i in ('@echo %0') do set DOMCTLR=\\%%i
%DOMCTLR% can now be used in the same way that
%LOGONSERVER% is used.
One of the things that annoys me about MMC is the inability to remove column sort orders. In particular I like the default sort order for the DNS Manager snap-in, but once a column sort order has been applied there is no way inside the MMC console to remove column sort orders to revert to the default unsorted view.
The only way to restore the default view is to remove the customisation file for the MMC snap-in in question.
The MMC snap-in preferences files are located at:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\MMC
Make sure the MMC snap-in is closed, then rename the snap-in preference file by adding a suffix like “-old”. Restart the MMC snap-in and it will be reset to its default settings.
I had a case a few months back where I’d determined that QoS was screwing over some network connectivity on a Server Core install. On a full install I’d simply use ncpl.cpl and remove the QoS Packet Scheduler binding from the adapter. Not so on the Core install. I had to resort to some registry hacking to disable the QoS Packet Scheduler to resolve my problem.
In my Inbox Zero efforts for my RSS feeds I came across this NVSPBind article on John Howard’s blog. Awesome! This will save some time in the future when enabling/disabling protocols.
Download links are here:
NVSPBind - http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/nvspbind
NVSPScrub - http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/nvspscrub
NVSPScrub helps restores your virtual networking configuration if you happen to screw it up with NVSPBind! :-)
Probably not a good idea to install .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 on your SBS 2003 boxes. A recent SharePoint Team blog post talks about the errors and the resolution if you have done this.
Sick of waiting for Microsoft to release a fix to RWW to enable Console access to SBS 2003 and any other Windows Server 2003 systems connected to your SBS network? So am I. So I’ve fixed it. Process is as follows:
Navigate to C:\Inetpub\Remote
Make a copy of tsweb.aspx
Open tsweb.aspx in your favorite editor (mine’s Notepad++)
Line 304 looks like this:
MsRdpClient.AdvancedSettings2.ConnectToServerConsole = console
Replace it with this:
version = MsRdpClient.Version
if strcomp(version,"6.0.6001") < 0 then
MsRdpClient.AdvancedSettings2.ConnectToServerConsole = console
else
MsRdpClient.AdvancedSettings2.ConnectToServerConsole = false
MsRdpClient.AdvancedSettings6.ConnectToAdministerServer = console
end if
Save the changes. You can now establish console sessions to your SBS 2003 box and any other Windows Server 2003 boxes on your SBS network.
If anyone’s got a better way for displaying code in a Blogger page I’d be interested in knowing about it.
Microsoft have made SBS 2008 RC1 available via Public Preview. It can be downloaded from here.
Other useful links from the TechNet site:
Release Notes, Installation Guide, SBS Documentation, SBS Resources and the SBS 2008 Evaluation Centre.
Very handy documents to download and read:
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Installation Guide
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Console Help
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Migration Help
Migrating to Windows Small Business Server 2008 from Windows Small Business Server 2003
Migrating to Windows Small Business Server 2008 from Windows Small Business Server 2008
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Release Candidate Reviewer’s Guide
Three very useful resources to keep an eye on while evaluating and testing SBS 2008:
And finally, if you plan on testing this in a Virtual Machine, check out:
Note that SBS 2008 requires 4GB of RAM. It won’t install with any less memory than this. You can use an evaluation of VMWare Workstation or either VMWare Server or VMWare Server 2.0 Release Candidate. Both VMWare Workstation and VMWare Server 2.0 Release Candidate support USB 2.0 devices, so you can test server backups/recovery with removable USB drives with these products.
Microsoft have made EBS RC1 available via Public Preview. It can be downloaded from here.
Other useful links from the TechNet site:
Release Notes, Installation Guide, EBS Documentation, and the EBS Evaluation Centre.
Very handy documents (in .doc, .pdf or .xps format) to download and READ (as Susan says) before any migrations:
Windows Essential Business Server Product Overview
Windows Essential Business Server Getting Started Guide
Windows Essential Business Server Installation Guide
Migrating the DNS Role to Windows Essential Business Server
Migrating DHCP Server Service to Windows Essential Business Server
Migrating Microsoft Exchange Server to Windows Essential Business Server
Migrating from Windows Small Business Server 2003 to Windows Essential Business Server
Two very useful resources to keep an eye on while evaluating and testing EBS:
The Essential Business Server Team Blog
And finally, if you need some gear to run this on, check out:
HP BladeSystem – in particular, the c3000 enclosure (“Shorty”)
IBM BladeCenter – in particular, the BladeCenter S offering
Just looking back on some old notes.
Found out nearly 4 years ago that I had to reconnect a branch office Windows Server 2003 domain controller that had a reasonable amount of data (in DFS) and apps on it and I had a weekend in which to do it. A re-install would have been pushing it. Especially the DFS replication (don't even ask about the backups...).
I distinctly remember at the time that there wasn't anything on TechNet, except one of those teaser PowerPoint presentations saying how Windows Server 2003 had better support for long-disconnected domain controllers (which I can no longer seem to find with Google. Hmph.).
Some of my Kerberos experience on FreeBSD and - at that time - my new-found knowledge of pointing Google at Microsoft to search for useful information helped me to try to understand what was going on.
After having a good guess of what I thought was wrong and running down some dead-ends, I ended up surprising myself when the following process worked:
Thought I'd post this to help out any other poor sod stuck in this sorry state.
Might just have to run up a couple of VMs to verify this still works...
TechNet now has guidance on this with the Reconnecting a Domain Controller After a Long-Term Disconnection article. Doesn't look like what I've got above.
I have a problem on an SBS 2003 Premium Edition box (2 NICs and running ISA Server) where launching the Enterprise Console sits forever at the connection screen.
This is the same problem even if I perform a console-only install to a separate box.
The drastic remedy is to reboot the server. By using the console on a separate box I was able to use TCPView to find that EnterpriseConsole.exe was connecting to MgntSvc.exe on the server.
I then tried stopping the service from the command line:
> net stop "Sophos Management Service"
Which resulted in me being told that the service could not be stopped. I then used PsKill to stop the service:
> pskill "Sophos Management Service"
And I then restarted the service:
> net start "Sophos Management Service"
This then allowed me to successfully use the Enterprise Console.
Microsoft have made the Hyper-V Release Candidate available.
The Release Candidate has better (but not complete) localisation support, support for the x86 versions of Windows Server 2003 SMP, Vista SP1 and XP SP3, integration components for Vista SP1 and XP SP3 (yay!), and improved performance - especially with pass-though disk support.
It's looking good so far...
| Windows Server 2003 | Session 0 |
| Windows Vista RTM | Session 0 |
| Windows Vista SP1 | Session 1 |
| Windows Server 2008 | Session 1 |
If you're waiting patiently for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Update isn't letting you know about it, then you probably want to go and look at MSKB 948343 for a list of reasons why you're not seeing it.
In particular, check your driver versions. This is the current list of drivers known to be problematic with SP1:
Audio drivers
Realtek AC'97
• For x86-based computers: Alcxwdm.sys - version 6.0.1.6242 or earlier
• For x64-based computers: Alcwdm64.sys - version 6.0.1.6242 or earlier
SigmaTel
• For x86-based computers: Sthda.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier
• For x64-based computers: Sthda64.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier
SigmaTel
• For x86-based computers: Stwrt.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier
• For x64-based computers: Stwrt64.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier
Creative Audigy
• For x86-based and x64-based computers: Ctaud2k.sys - version 6.0.1.1242 or earlier
• For x86-based computers: P17.sys – all versions (This was originally a Windows XP-based driver.)
Conexant HD Audio
• For x86-based computers: Chdart.sys - version 4.32.0.0 or earlier
• For x64-based computers: Chdart64.sys - version 4.32.0.0 or earlier
Biometric (Fingerprint) Sensors
• AuthenTec Fingerprint Sensor with the Atswpdrv.sys driver file – version 7.7.1.7 or earlier
• UPEK Fingerprint Sensor with the Tcusb.sys driver file – version 1.9.2.99 or earlier
Display drivers
Intel Display
• For x86-based computers: Igdkmd32.sys – versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403
• For x64-based computers: Igdkmd64.sys – versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403
Other drivers
Texas Instruments Smart Card Controller with the GTIPCI21.sys driver file – version 1.0.1.19 or earlier
Sierra Wireless AirCard 580 with the Watcher.exe application – version 3.4.0.9 or earlier (This application is located in the AirCard 580 Program Files folder.)
Symantec software driver for Symantec Endpoint Protection and for Symantec Network Access Control clients
• For x86-based computers: Wgx.sys – versions 11.0.1000.1091 or earlier
• For x64-based computers: Wgx64.sys – versions 11.0.1000.1091 or earlier
Note Symantec is aware of this issue, and it is working on a solution. Symantec provides various update procedures. This includes their LiveUpdate service.
The introduction of Hyper-V to all editions of Windows Server 2008 (except Web Edition) has meant there's been a licensing change to the Standard Edition.
The previous editions of Windows Server Standard Edition allowed for 1 instance of Windows Server to be installed as a Physical Operating System Environment (POSE) or as a Virtual Operating System Environment (VOSE). This meant that if you wanted to host a virtualised Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition on say Virtual Server 2005 R2 running on Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition, then you needed to acquire 2 licenses of Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition - one for the physical instance and one for the virtual instance.
The new licensing change brings the Standard Edition in line with the Enterprise Edition. This means that Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition can be installed twice using the one license - once for the physical instance and once for the virtualised instance. The caveat is that the physical instance can only be used for the purposes of hosting the virtualised instance. All the workload for the Standard Edition license is to be performed in the virtualised instance, with the physical instance used to host and maintain the virtualised instance.
More information can be found in the Licensing Information section of the Hyper-V FAQ, Microsoft's Licensing Virtualisation changes and the Volume Licensing Product Use Rights.
I went up to serverunleashed.com last week to have a look at Microsoft's marketing efforts for Windows Server 2008 launch.
On my freshly installed Windows Vista Business x64 with SP1 laptop, I was finding that Internet Explorer was locking up before getting to the loader progress bar (the one that appears on Vista and Server 2008 boot up).
I disabled all the add-ons (except Silverlight) to see if one of the add-ons was causing the problem. No go. My XP boxes were displaying it OK, as was my test Server 2003/2008 boxes and another Vista box.
One thing different with my laptop is that it has a Wacom Bamboo tablet. Which means that loads a heap of tablet-specific drivers and helper applications. I would find occasionally that when I launched Internet Explorer it would prompt me to run wisptis.exe, for which I always clicked Allow but never checked "Do not show me the warning for this program again". I thought this might be the problem, because when I force closed IE7 and selected "Look for a solution to this problem and restart Internet Explorer" it would restart IE and prompt to run wisptis.exe.
I went hunting for wisptis.exe and found that it's a pen input device utility that can be installed from a variety of sources, including being bundled with the OS. It's also useful in talking to the tablet digitisers, so removing it or not running it can impact on the usefulness of the tablet device.
Once I checked "Do not show me the warning for this program again" when prompted to run wisptis.exe and clicked Allow, then I was able to successfully view serverunleashed.com.
So if you're having Internet Explorer lock-ups when visiting a site and you've got tablet devices/drivers installed, this could be your problem.
I never really bothered with SharePoint until WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007 came out and then got overwhelmed with the sheer size and complexity of the architecture.
Once I managed to get a handle on it, I found it to be an exceptionally powerful package with some very nifty features.
I was excited when I saw SharePoint had the concept of different zones for the same content with the ability to use different authentication providers for each zone. Thus began my quest to find an existing package or template that provided user registration and management for Extranet users for a SharePoint site.
After a few false turns I ended up settling on SharePoint Custom Forms Authentication Feature (SCFAF). The setup wasn't intuitive nor was it simple - especially when I had to quickly hack up a simple .aspx page to add the initial user management user to the ASP.NET membership database.
It worked, but there were a few rough edges, particularly in the area of Extranet user administration and self-service. But this was still acceptable for the purposes in which it was to be used.
Further development seemed to have stalled on SCFAF and I had resigned myself to wait for a release of CKS:IEE (Community Kit for SharePoint: Intranet/Extranet Edition). Then out of the blue - well at least for me - came the Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint Beta. On paper, this rocked! It provided the exact feature set I was after for this type of tool. The big downside for me was that the Beta didn't work out of the box on SBS 2003 - a real pain, as most of the WSS 3.0 sites I look after are on SBS 2003 boxes.
I ended up having to perform a manual install (detail here) and hack a DLL to modify the hard-coded LDAPS port so that I could get the ECTS components to talk to the ADAM instance on the SBS box. Side note: I find it quicker to respond to other people's blogs than write my own, hence the blog comment link!
I logged this "bug" on the Microsoft Connect site, but the bug was essentially closed, with "feature as designed" as an excuse.
I didn't give up however. I asked Susan Bradley to help make some noise about it and I managed to find this blog entry by someone in Microsoft who sounded like they were working on this project. This "someone" turned out to be Bill Canning - Project Manager for ECTS!
I e-mailed Bill to let him know how I managed to hack my way around the hard-coded LDAPS port (not as simple as it sounds, as I had to re-sign the DLL and then do some PE header stripping to get the DLL into the GAC).
Bill's response that this wasn't on his team's radar for their release goals, but would be releasing the code on CodePlex so I could rebuild the DLL that way.
Four days later I had another e-mail from Bill to tell me that the feature I'd requested (removing the hard-coded LDAPS port from a component DLL and requesting an LDAPS port for the ADAM instance) had now been implemented and to await the final release.
I pinged Bill last week regarding the release of ECTS as it had been a month since the feature went in. Bill very kindly provided me with a pre-release so I could confirm its operation on SBS 2003. It went smoothly! I've provided some feedback on the documentation and I'm currently happy with the operation of ECTS on SBS 2003. The release will happen Real Soon Now(tm).
My final comments are that if you need an Extranet solution based on Windows SharePoint Services, then you need to at least review Extranet Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint - especially for use on SBS.
The second point is don't take no for an answer. If you've got a good idea for a feature request and you believe it should be there, be persistent. Don't take no for an answer and argue your position in multiple forums. Also demonstrate that you're prepared to do the hard yards to help get the feature working. Bill can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe my persistence is what helped to get ECTS running on SBS 2003.
This has been a long-running battle I've had with Microsoft over the years - the inability to either roll my own slipstreamed SBS media, or obtain slipstreamed SBS media at reasonable cost (like the Volume License media kits).
Why would I want to roll my own or access low-cost SBS media, you ask?
Well, if you ever have to do a Repair Install of your SBS box and you've added a Service Pack, you're hosed. The Repair Install will undo the service pack applied to the once-working box, and on reboot will give you a lovely blue screen. The only way around this is to restore from the last full backup, or re-image from your favorite imaging tool of choice (two listed below if you're not already using one).
Thanks to the wonderful advances of products like Acronis True Image and ShadowProtect, performing Repair Installs are a thing of the past, especially if you're using Repair Install to migrate a Retail SBS install to new hardware. The hardware independent restore capabilities of these products makes a full backup / minimal install / full restore / repair install redundant, as well as a lot slower.
But it's a pain if you don't have these, so make sure you have SBS media from the same channel (OEM, Retail or Volume License) with the Service Pack you're running already slipstreamed. Or simply don't install Windows Server 2003 Service Packs to SBS 2003 boxes.
If you go up to the Heroes Happen {2008} site, you'll notice an absence of Hobart and Darwin in the list of venues.
Good news! Microsoft are going to do a Wave launch in Hobart and Darwin. It's going to be scaled down relative to the launches in the other capital cities, but this is certainly better than nothing at all.
The dates I've been provided with are:
8 April - Darwin
15 April - Hobart
Contact Microsoft Partner Services on 132058, option 4 to make sure you're added to the invite list for these events.
Details will be added to the Partner Portal in due course.
I've been very impressed with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 ever since I had access to it as a Beta, especially with the included Blog and Wiki capability, then with the release of the Application Templates.
The only annoying thing I've found with it is the lack of search support for Office 2007 document formats, without consuming an Office 2007 license on the server, as suggested in Knowledge Base article 944433.
Well, no more! Microsoft have finally released the Microsoft Filter Pack - a set of standalone IFilters for the following file formats: .docx, .docm, .pptx, .pptm, .xlsx, .xlsm, .xlsb, .zip, .one, .vdx, .vsd, .vss, .vst, .vdx, .vsx, and .vtx.
There is a slight catch however. You have to munge with the registry as per Knowledge Base article 946338. I needed to roll this out over a number of servers, so the manual process didn't suit me. I sat down and whipped up the following script:
@echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion
set mv=0
net stop spsearch
for /f "skip=3 delims==" %%i in ('reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Applications"') do set rk=%%i
for /f %%k in ('reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" ^| findstr /b /v HKEY') do if !mv! lss %%k set mv=%%k
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "docm" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d docm
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "docx" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d docx
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "one" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d one
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "pptm" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d pptm
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "pptx" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d pptx
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "vdx" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d vdx
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "vsd" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d vsd
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "vss" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d vss
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "vst" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d vst
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "vsx" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d vsx
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "vtx" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d vtx
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "xlsb" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d xlsb
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "xlsm" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d xlsm
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "xlsx" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d xlsx
)
reg query "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /f "zip" /d /e >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
set /a mv+=1
reg add "%rk%\Gather\Search\Extensions\ExtensionList" /v !mv! /t REG_SZ /d zip
)
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.docm" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{5A98B233-3C59-4B31-944C-0E560D85E6C3}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.docx" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{5A98B233-3C59-4B31-944C-0E560D85E6C3}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.one" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{89BCB740-6119-101A-BCB7-00DD010655AF}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pptm" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{DDFE337F-4987-4EC8-BDE3-133FA63D5D85}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pptx" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{DDFE337F-4987-4EC8-BDE3-133FA63D5D85}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.vdx" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{FAEA5B46-761B-400E-B53E-E805A97A543E}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.vsd" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{FAEA5B46-761B-400E-B53E-E805A97A543E}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.vss" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{FAEA5B46-761B-400E-B53E-E805A97A543E}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.vst" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{FAEA5B46-761B-400E-B53E-E805A97A543E}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.vsx" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{FAEA5B46-761B-400E-B53E-E805A97A543E}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.vtx" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{FAEA5B46-761B-400E-B53E-E805A97A543E}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.xlsb" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{312AB530-ECC9-496E-AE0E-C9E6C5392499}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.xlsm" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{F90DFE0C-CBDF-41FF-8598-EDD8F222A2C8}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.xlsx" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{F90DFE0C-CBDF-41FF-8598-EDD8F222A2C8}" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.zip" /ve /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "{20E823C2-62F3-4638-96BD-90F4F6784EBC}" /f
net start spsearch
stsadm -o spsearch -action fullcrawlstart
I put this into a file called register-ifilters.cmd and ran it after installing the Filter Pack on my WSS 3.0 boxes. It's not a fantastic script, but it does the job.
Please note that if you've got a lot of documents in your WSS 3.0 content databases, then you may want to schedule the fullcrawlstart command at a later stage, rather than run it as part of the IFilter registration.
I'm using Windows Server 2008 as my primary desktop OS, for which I'll be blogging on over the coming weeks as I encounter non-obvious problems. I'll also cover my installation experiences which might help out others who wish to do the same.
The recent problem I had is that I saw the Windows Live suite of applications come out of Beta and I wanted to try them out. OK, up to the Microsoft Downloads site for the Windows Live category and download Windows Live Writer to use it on my Blogger account.
I download WLinstaller.exe, run it and I'm immediately presented with the following unhelpful error:
Hmmm, no Windows Live Writer for my Terminal Servers then.
Undeterred, I download and install Windows Live Writer on a spare Windows XP machine, open up regedit and navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstaller and go browsing for Windows Live Writer. Within a couple of minutes I find the entry and also find that it has cached the MSI to:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\WindowsLiveInstaller\MsiSources\Install_{9176251A-4CC1-4DDB-B343-B487195EB397}.msi So I copy this file to my Windows Server 2008 laptop, expecting to have to modify it with Orca. What the heck, I'll try running it first. And it installs without problem. And I'm using it just fine, as this blog article is written using it.
I'll try the same trick with the other Windows Live programs and write up my findings accordingly.