SCCM logic detects failure for some .Net 2 or 3.5 hotfix although successfully installed

Recently (and previously actually), we had some issue when using SCCM to deploy security updates specifically for the following KBs which are either Microsoft .Net Framework 2 SP2 or Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 SP1:

• MS11-100 – KB2656352, KB2657424
• MS11-078 – KB2572073
• MS11-044 – KB2518864

So far this has affected some population of Windows XP and Windows 2003 x86 servers.

 

Running SCHTASKS with ONSTART on WS08R2 remotely may not trigger

Ok found out about this today. Here is the story (both are ws08R2)

• SVR1 – my script server in Singapore
• SVR2 – the remote server I want to run the scheduled job in London.

I issued the following command at SVR1:

schtasks /CREATE /s SVR2 /ru me /rp pw /sc ONSTART _
/tn Job1 /tr "c:\runme.cmd"

Task got created on SVR2, I reboot the server but Job1 never kicked off after reboot! Why?

 

Read Thai on WebOS

This is one of the issue that frustrates me with webOS, it doesn’t have Thai fonts installed; you get squares in place of the fonts.

Luckily some nice person on PreCentral found the solution and am reposting it here for easier web search.

http://forums.precentral.net/webos-discussion/189477-modifying-replacing-fonts-3.html#post3094128

 

 

US Keyboard trying to “\” on a UK keyboarded server

This is probably an eye-roller (you mean you really have to post this?!!), however I realize that quite a number of technical guys get stumped by this a lot. How do you enter “\” using a US keyboard on server with UK keyboard settings?

The trick is simply; you can enter the ASCII value from your keyboard using “ALT + keypad numbers”. So for “\”, the ASCII value is 92. If you hold “ALT” and enter “92″ from the number keypad, “\” will appear. You can use this technique for any ASCII character. Its good to remember your ASCII table.

 

Real World Renaming Folder Using Powershell

Renaming folder in Powershell is easy enough, but many times especially in production environment (yes, I am talking to YOU cowboy!), you want to ensure that you changes is done and pre- and post-checks are done between you scripts.

 

Variable expansion in strings and here-strings

An important article that always cause me countless searches in troubleshooting variable expansion

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powershell/archive/2006/07/15/variable-expansion-in-strings-and-herestrings.aspx

 

Terminal Services Server Drain Mode

Interesting FAQ about Windows 2008 drain mode and its uses. Basically its the enhance version of disabling login on Windows 2003 servers.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2007/06/15/introducing-terminal-services-server-drain-mode.aspx

 

Identifying Stale Cluster Computer Objects

From: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/clustering/archive/2011/08/17/10197069.aspx

In summary:

• the pwdLastSet property of the CNO and VCO in AD should be refreshed every 30 days by default (just like workstation passwords). If the last password set is much longer than 30 days, it should indicate stale cluster objects.
• By default, when a cluster Network Name resource is deleted or if a cluster is destroyed, the CNO and VCO’s are placed in a disabled state.  Any cluster computer object which is in a Disabled state is no longer being used by the cluster.
• When destroy a cluster, use –CleanupAD switch to the Remove-Cluster in powershell to remove the CNO and VCO instead of putting them in a disabled state as above.
• CNO and VCO contains SPN “MSClusterVirtualServer”, so you can identity which computer object is cluster by quering its SPN service.

 

 

 

 

VBScript: Convert/Split seconds to days, hours, minutes and seconds

This function converts the number of seconds to its day, hour, min and sec components. It returns a comma-delimited string in format “day,hour,min,sec”. You can use the split() function to extract it into an array, example, MyTime = split(SplitSec(449786), “,”)

Function SplitSec(pNumSec)
  Dim d, h, m, s
  Dim h1, m1

  d = int(pNumSec/86400)
  h1 = pNumSec - (d * 86400)
  h = int(h1/3600)
  m1 = h1 - (h * 3600)
  m = int(m1/60)
  s = m1 - (m * 60)

  SplitSec = cStr(d) & "," & cStr(h) & "," & cStr(m) & "," & cStr(s)
End Function

 

NTDebugging: A Classic Case of Whodunit

Another useful lesson in debugging

This is where the logic starts to break down.  The code wanted to write to b7b4d6ec, which is a valid address.  The bugcheck code and cr2 say we failed writing to address c73fdb0b.  This does not make sense.

The analogy I often use for scenarios such as this one is: If I ask my intern to get me a Mountain Dew from the break room, and he comes back to say we are out of coffee, am I at fault or is my intern broken?  Applying the same logic to this crash, if ObReferenceObjectByHandle asks the hardware to write to address b7b4d6ec and the hardware came back saying it cannot write to address c73fdb0b, is the software at fault or is the hardware broken?  Clearly the hardware is broken if it does not do what the software asks of it.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ntdebugging/archive/2011/06/29/a-classic-case-of-whodunit.aspx