leedesmond’s blog

The web conferencing feature is not enabled by default after the successful completion of the initial installation and setup of OCS 2007. This results in an error message when you attempt to schedule a Live Meeting session directly or with the Outlook LM conferencing add-on:

You do not have the necessary privileges to schedule meetings. Please contact your Live Meeting administrator.

To fix this issue, start the OCS MMC snap-in, highlight then right-mouse click on “Forest - <domain name>”. Select Properties, Global Properties then move to the Meetings tab.

Under Policy settings, you can add your own policy or simply highlight “Default Policy” and click Edit. On the next dialog box, put a check mark against “Enable web conferencing” and confirm with OK twice. Next, drill down to the server pools, highlight the desired server and click Properties on the right-mouse click context menu. Stop then start all running services.

On the client end, you should restart the Live Meeting or Outlook client to enable web conferencing / meeting schedule to function.

Technorati tags: LCS/OCS , Unified Communications

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[Window Title]
New Virtual Hard Disk Wizard

[Main Instruction]
The server encountered an error trying to create the virtual hard disk.

[Content]
The system failed to create ‘c:\vm\vmname.vhd’ with error ‘The system cannot find the path specified..’ (0×80070003)

[Close]

This error message appears as a result of Hyper-V failing to find the folder. Unfortunately, Hyper-V will not automatically create it either if it does not exist in the first place. The simple fix is to make the folder before attempting to build a new virtual hard disk (or virtual machine for that matter). Double check and ensure that the folder name was spelt correctly since it is a fairly common mistake.

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server Virtualization, Hyper-V

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For all who have worked with Exchange Server since 2003, the popular best practice analyzer is now available for Office Communications Server 2007. In a nutshell, it is a diagnostic tool capable of gathering configuration information from your OCS and Active Directory environment, analyzes the results and determines whether the configuration is set according to best practices.

It is recommended to install the OCS best practice analyzer tool on a separate computer instead of the server running OCS itself. According to the stated system requirements in the article, the administrative workstation must run Windows Server 2003 with the .NET Framework 2.0 setup with the OCS 2007 Administrative Tools.

The target OCS 2007 servers must be running on Windows Server 2003 with SP1 although limited support for Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 on Windows Server 2003 is available.

Download and more details at source.

Technorati tags: LCS/OCS , Unified Communications

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If you are like me working a lot with Office Communications Server 2007 (and Communicator Client 2007) and in the Unified Communications and Collaboration space, the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit is one of the must-have reference on your book shelf (ISBN: 978-0-7356-2406-1).

Thanks to a sharp-eyed colleague, I would like to bring to your attention the KB 950045 article that contains updated comments, corrections, and information about known errors relating to the OCS 2007 RK. Enjoy!

Technorati tags: LCS/OCS, OCS 2007, Unified Communications

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Running Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on Microsoft Hyper-V or hypervisors validated under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) is now officially supported. In addition, licenses for virtualized Exchange can be freely moved between servers within a farm as often as necessary. Previously this was limited to a 90-day period (read more).

Consult the authoritative article on this subject entitled “Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments” for more information.

You should also read the updated articles covering Microsoft’s support policy on virtualization in general:

- Support policy for Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software
- Support partners for non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software
- Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments

Technorati tags: Exchange Server, Virtualization, VMware, Windows Server Virtualization, HyperV

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You can take advantage of Windows Server 2008 Full or Server Core without first having to upgrade your entire Active Directory infrastructure to Windows Server 2008. Neither is raising the domain or forest functional level a pre-requisite.

By default, AD built on Windows Server 2003 SP1 and up are in the “Windows 2000 mixed” and “Windows 2000″, domain and forest functional level respectively. You can join a WS08 Full or Server Core machine as a member server to such an AD environment based on WS03 “as-is”.

The WS08 computer object when inspected by Active Directory Users and Computers MMC snap-in will be correctly identified under the Operating System tab as:

Name: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
Version: 6.0 (6001)
Service pack: Service Pack 1

See also: search for my earlier post “Windows Server 2008 in Windows Server 2003 Active Directory” on this blog (tip: enclose in quotes to narrow the search).

Technorati tags: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server Core 2008, Windows Server 2003, Active Directory

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Superseding KB946164 (Apr 2008), this update addresses 4 specific issues with Office Communicator 2007:

- 954642 Error message when you restart Outlook after you log off Windows without exiting Communicator 2007: “A data file did not close properly the last time it was used and is being checked for problems”

- 954648 How to disable instant messaging in Communicator 2007

- 954649 When you use Communicator 2007 together with a GN9350 headset to make a call, the call ends when you mute the microphone

- 954651 Communicator 2007 downloads the full offline address book every 30 days

It is not available for general download and obtainable only by contacting Microsoft should you be affected. No computer restart is necessary after you apply this fix to bring Communicator.exe up to 2.0.6362.76 (from the last version 2.0.6362.64).

Technorati tags: LCS/OCS , Unified Communications

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Latest VMware email on ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2, quoted here for your info and action:

ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2

Dear VMware Customer,

We have re-issued the entire ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 release (ISOs, upgrade tar and zip files, and patch bundles). They are available for download at http://www.vmware.com/download/.

Please note this update is only relevant to customers who did not install the impacted release of ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908) or ESXi 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103909). If you have installed either of these please visit http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/esxexpresspatches.html and install the express patch.

Thank you,

The VMware ESX Product Team

Technorati tags: VMware, Security

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The express patches for the ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 product expiration issue has been released. You can find knowledge base articles and the corresponding patches for the affected products as follows:

KB 1006716 - fix of virtual machine power on failure issue
KB 1006721, Express Patch - ESX VI 3.5 deployment consideration and instruction
KB 1006670, Express Patch - ESX VI3.5i deployment consideration and instruction

Reference: ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 - Express Patch Download

Technorati tags: VMware, Security

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Reports have been pouring in concerning the failure of virtual machines to power on or VMotion successfully much of today. This bug shows up in the ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 and its seriousness prompted VMware to issue an urgent email notification. In the affected VM’s vmware.log file, the following message is logged:

This product has expired. Be sure that your host machine’s date and time are set correctly. There is a more recent version available at the VMware web site: http://www.vmware.com/info?id=4.

The incident has been identified to be caused by a build timeout that was mistakenly left enabled for the RTM build. Technical details about this extremely critical bug have been published at the following locations:

kb.vmware.com/kb/1006716
www.vmware.com/support/esx35u2_supportalert.html

A patch is expected sometime later today at 1800 hrs PST (0300 hrs CET next day). In the meantime, recommended workarounds are quoted here:

1. Do not install ESX 3.5 U2 if it has been downloaded from VMware’s website or elsewhere prior to August 12, 2008.

2. Set the host time to a date prior to August 12, 2008. This workaround has a number of very serious side affects that could impact product environments. Any Virtual Machines that sync time with the ESX host and serve time sensitive applications would be broken. These include, but are not limited to database servers, mail servers, & domain administration systems.

See also: All your VM’s are belong to us, VMTN Blog

Technorati tags: VMware, Security

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