DirectAccess asking for proxy credentials

I just love DirectAccess. It enables me to connect to my company network from any location and any internet provider.

But lately, since I started using Windows 8, I encountered a problem. If there was no problem then I wouldn't be writing this, would I ;)

The problem is related to proxy servers. Whenever I go to the place, where I need to enter proxy server to get access to the internet and then later remove this proxy, DirectAccess client starts to prompt me to enter proxy credentials!? The final result of this problem is that I can't connect to my company’s network using DirectAccess.

So I started digging and found this workaround. I tested it on my notebook and it worked. I cannot guaranty that this solution is universal and that it will work for all. I also can’t guarantee that by doing this we don’t “brake” something else. This is my finding, I don't say it's correct one but it makes my DirectAccess work again?

I found registry key under which few latest proxy addresses are stored:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iphlpsvc\Parameters\ProxyMgr

And now my solution:
- Export registry key ProxyMgr in case we need it later (link: How to export registry key).
- Remove (delete) all registry keys under registry key ProxyMgr (see on the picture below).

- All I needed to do next was to restart the computer and my DirectAccess started working again.

This is it for today and have fun!

Blocking P2P programs with Group Policy

Some time ago I needed to block as many as possible torrent and other P2P clients with Windows Group Policy. To do this I needed to find as many as possible names of torrent clients executables and prepare a list. The result of all this is this list:

ABC.exe
Ares.exe
Azerues.exe
BitComet.exe
BitLord.exe
BitThief.exe
BitTornado.exe
BitTorrent.exe
Btdownloadgui.exe
Deluge.exe
Emule.exe
Fdm.exe
FlashGet.exe
Giftl.exe
Imesh.exe
KGet.exe
KTorrent.exe
LimeWire.exe
Mediaget.exe
Miro.exe
MLDonkey.exe
Mp3rocket.exe
Msohtmed.exe
µTorrent.exe
Utorrent-2-0-beta.exe
Utorrentportable.exe
OneSwarm.exe
Opera.exe
qBittorrent.exe
Shareaza.exe
Tonido.exe
Swapper.exe
Tribler.exe
Vuze.exe
Wyzo.exe

I hope you'll find this list useful and I'd also like to invite all of you to post me names of the executables that I missed. This way we'll keep this list up-to-date :)

Here are two articles that describe how to block applications with Windows Group Policy:
http://www.technipages.com/prevent-users-from-running-certain-programs.html
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Software-Restriction-Policies.html

This is it for today. Have fun!

Virtualization and SAN upgrade on Windows 2003 cluster (part 1)

Recently we've got task that is not as frequent as we'd like on our territories. We needed to do virtualization and disk migration of two Windows 2003 clustered servers.

So in this and in my next blog I’ll describe how we approached this delicate task, without major downtime in this 24/7 production environment.

First of all we upgraded our HP DL360 g5 servers with additional processor, RAM and FC controller for VMware cluster. We also upgraded two HP DL360 g5, running Windows 2003 cluster, with FC controller. Then we installed, configured and presented LUNs on HP StorageWorks 2024fc G2 Modular Smart Array. And at the end we installed VMware ESX 4.1 cluster.

So now what? We have two VMware ESX clustered servers and two Windows 2003 clustered servers, we also have HP MSA2024fc and old HP MSA500 SCSI. We started Googling (useful link), testing different migration strategies and at the end we decided to do it like this:
- First we’ll migrate data from old SAN to new one (Blog - part 1).
- Virtualize Windows cluster nodes on by one (Blog - part 2).

Our MS Windows cluster has these resource groups that needed to be migrated to new disks:
- File Server resource group
- Print Perver resource group
- Quorum resource group
- MS SQL Server resource group
- Domino Server (Lotus Notes) resource group

Migrating data of different cluster resource groups from old SAN to new one was done in this order:
1) Quorum
- We added new cluster resource disk named NewQuorumDisk with drive letter X:

- Moved old Quorum to new resource named NewQuorumDisk like described in MS KB280353.

- Stopped cluster resource OldQuorumDisk and delete Q: drive from the cluster
- Opened Disk Management and change drive letter Q: to Y: and X: to Q:
- Before migration to second cluster node we deleted OldQuorumDisk on second cluster node
- Tested Quorum migration between nodes

- At the end we removed LUN mapping for OldQuorumDisk

2) File server (with as little as possible downtime)
- We notified users about migration and scheduled maintenance date and hour.
- We added new cluster resource disk named NewFSDisk with drive letter X:
- Started synchronizing data between OldFSDisk (S:) and NewFSDisk (X:). We did this with RoboCopy (download) and Total Commander - Synchronize Dirs command. We repeated synchronization for a few days until the D-day.

- Made print-screens from resources in file server cluster group, just to be sure we don’t forget some settings later.
- On scheduled maintenance we stopped all File Server resource group resources except disks.
- We run file synchronization for the last time.
- We checked if number of files and size in bytes are exactly the same on both disks.
- Then we changed “Dependencies” and “Parameters” on “File Share” resource with new NewFSDisk (X:) value.
- We also checked and if necessary replaced with NewFSDisk (X:) value all other resources in this group.
- We stopped cluster resource OldFSDisk and deleted OldFSDisk from cluster resource.
- In Disk Management we changed drive letters of OldFSDisk S: to Y: and NewFSDisk X: to S:
- Then we needed to changed “Dependencies” and “Parameters” on “File Share” again to fit new lettering NewFSDisk (S:).
- We also checked and if necessary replaced with NewFSDisk (S:) value all other resources in this group.
- Before migration to second cluster node we also changed lettering there OldFSDisk S: to Y:
- After all this we started all resources, checked if file sharing is OK and then we tested cluster group migration to another cluster node.
- At the end we removed LUN mapping for OldFSDisk.

3) Print Server disk migration is almost the same as File Server disk migration
- We added new cluster resource disk named NewPSDisk with drive letter X:
- Made print-screens from resources in Print Server cluster group, just to be sure we don’t forget some settings later.
- We stopped all Print Server resource group resources except disks.
- Started synchronizing data between OldPSDisk (P:) and Print Server (X:).
- We checked if number of files and size in bytes are exactly the same on both disks.
- Then we changed “Dependencies” and “Parameters” on “Print Spooler” resource with new NewPSDisk (X:) value.
- We stopped cluster resource OldPSDisk and deleted OldPSDisk from cluster resource.
- In Disk Management we changed drive letters of OldPSDisk P: to Y: and NewPSDisk X: to P:
- Then we changed “Dependencies” and “Parameters” on “Print Spooler” resource with new NewPSDisk (P:) value.
- Before migration to second cluster node we also changed lettering there OldpsDisk P: to Y:
- After all this we started all resources, checked if Print Server is OK, printers are printing and then we tested cluster group migration to another cluster node.
- At the end we removed LUN mapping for OldFPSDisk.

At the same time we also migrated MS SQL Server cluster resource group and Domino server (Lotus Notes) cluster resource group to new disks.

So as you can see from this blog, changing SAN in MS clustered environment is not so hard as it seems. But in real, you’ll see ;)

In my next blog, part 2 of these series, I’ll describe how we did Physical to Virtual (P2V) migratin of MS clustered servers with VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client.

I think this is enough for this one. Have fun :)

Windows "Add a printer" wizard

Yesterday I encountered interesting situation. I prepared new Windows 2008 R2 server with print server role installed on it and started publishing printers. This task is on Windows 2008 R2 not as easy as advertised by MS. But never the less I did it.

After that I tried adding published printers to our test computer (Windows 7 x64). I started "Add a printer ..." wizard from Devices and Printers.



Click on "Add a printer"



Choose "Add a network, wireless or Bluetooth printer"



On my surprise there were no newly added printers to choose from. But they were listed if I clicked on "The printer that I want isn't listed" wizard.



And Next with "Find a printer in the directory, based on location feature" selected.



So the printer was listed in Active Directory but didn’t show in the wizard. This is weird!? So I started googling for a solution.

Then I found MS forum post where someone had exact same problem. This is actually not a bug but a feature :) This "Add a printer" wizard default configuration is to show 20 printers. And you can change this setting by changing this group policy "Computer configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Printers\Add Printer wizard - Network scan page (Managed network)"



Change it to a number that works best for you. In my case I changed it to 50.



Well done. But then again why going thru all this trouble if you can easily add printer just by right clicking on desired printer in Windows Explorer and choose Connect?



Have fun :)