How-tos

Backup Exec 2010 – Restore window hangs on devices tab

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Just a quick post today. This is not necessarily a software issue, but I did come across it the other day whilst trying out the latest version of Backup Exec. Admittedly, it was my fault the restore window was freezing.

What I was doing was testing out various restores of backup jobs that had been done on two different types of devices – one device being a standard B2D (Backup to Disk) and one device being the newer Deduplication type device. I had previously removed the Deduplication device and deleted the Deduplication storage folder on the Backup Exec Media server, so every time I chose to restore from a backup set that was previously done on the deduplication storage the restore window would freeze, and I would have to kill the BE GUI.

After this happened a few times to me I realised that I was trying to reference a job done on deduplication storage, which I had previously deleted. Duh! So just in case you come across a hanging devices tab when trying to restore, check that it is not trying to reference a device that has previously been removed. Ideally, the software would have handled this problem and displayed an error to the effect of “Device not found” instead of freezing the entire GUI and leaving the CPU stuck on 100% utilisation each time it happened.

Modify your NIC MTU size setting in Windows Registry

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A quick and easy blog post today on how to modify your NIC MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) size setting in the Windows Registry.

By default your MTU won’t be defined in registry. Microsoft state that (Link):

The MTU is usually determined by negotiating with the lower-level driver. However, this value may be overridden.

To change your MTU setting in Windows Server 2003 or 2008 use the following steps:

  • Open regedit as an administrator account on the server in question.
  • Navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\[Choose the interface in question] (Do this by checking the correct IP address is in the settings under this key for the adapter you are configuring)
  • Once you are in the correct key for your interface, right-click and select new DWORD value (32 bit).
  • Call it MTU
  • Give this a decimal value equal to the setting you would like your MTU to be (measured in bytes).

For more information about Maximum Transmission Unit sizes, have a look at the official Wikipedia article.

Here is a screenshot of an MTU setting I made on this server using 1400 bytes as an example. This would obviously be tuned to whatever amount you are wanting to use for your NIC and specific application settings.

Manage VMware Server 2.0 with Virtual Infrastructure Client instead of the Web UI

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I personally find the Web UI a little slow for managing VMware Server 2.0 on my home lab and also prefer to use an interface more like the one I use at work when managing our vCenter and ESX hosts. So here is how to use the VMware Infrastructure Client to manage VMware Server 2.0. For this to work, ensure you use an older version of the Infrastructure Client. The one that comes with ESX 3.0 / 3.5 hosts seems to work well. The newer vSphere Client doesn’t work and gives you an error message when you try to login.

1. Grab a copy of the Virtual Infrastructure client and install it on the machine you are accessing your VMware Server Host from. I had trouble finding a download link, so I needed to pull it off an old ESX 3.5 host.

2. Install the client, then run it. At the login prompt enter the full web UI address of your VMware Server Host in the IP Address / Name section. So if you were trying locally on your host, you could enter https://localhost:8333 or from a remote machine use the IP address in the format https://x.x.x.x:8333

3. Enter your user name and password and hit “Login”. This should load up your VMware Server 2.0 server in the infrastructure client. Enjoy!

Shrink a SQL Database using SQL Management Studio

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Here is a quick “how to” on shrinking a SQL Database using SQL Management Studio.

1. Launch SQL Management Studio and login with your desired credentials.

2. Connect to the SQL Database engine instance and expand it by double clicking on it.
3. Expand your “Databases” node and right-click the specific database you would like to shrink.
4. Go to “Tasks” -> “Shrink” and then click “Database”

5. There are some optional settings at this point. Read more about the process here if you would like to learn more. Otherwise continue with the defaults by clicking “OK”.

Here are the results on a DB I shrunk today (before & after):

How to pin an application on a network / mapped drive to your Windows 7 or 2008 R2 taskbar

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So here is something that has been annoying me lately. On my work machine I use a couple of applications that are stored on mapped network drives. When you try and right-click the .exe to select “Pin to taskbar” there is no option to do this. Here is a work around that will allow you to get these network stored applications / exe files pinned to your taskbar in Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2.

1. Copy the .exe file of your application on the network drive to a temporary location on your local machine or server’s drive.

2. Make a shortcut to this .exe on your desktop.

3. Right-click on this shortcut and then select the “Pin to taskbar” option which will now be available.

4. Right-click the pinned icon on the taskbar and then right-click the shortcut in the list of options that appears – select Properties.

5. Edit the “Start in” and “Target” fields to point to the actual location of the original application on the network location.

6. You can now remove the temporary shortcut and .exe that you copied as these are not needed anymore.

You’ll now have your network location application pinned to your Windows 7 or 2008 R2 taskbar.