Extending a Share Quota in server 2008

In server 2008, you use the Share and Storage Management tool to provision shares and storage. In this tool you can create a quota for a share. this is a good idea to stop data sprawl which can occur, especially on shared drives. But what if you want to manage, extend or decrease this quota?

for some reason in their infinite wisdom, Microsoft doesn’t allow you to do so from the Share and Storage Management Tools Window. To increase the quota size:

1. open File Server Resource Manger
2. expand Quota Management and choose Quotas
3. This will present all the available Quotas (known as Source Templates) that you have configured.
4. Find the source template you want to extend, right click and choose edit quota properties
5. From here you are shown the Quota template from which your folder pulls its settings, the specific space limitations of this share and any warnings that you have configured for out of space notifications
6. As you an see above, I have set the Quota to be 350GB in this instance (from a 100GB template) and configured email and event log notifications (note that for email notifications to work you will need to configure SMTP in IIS)
7. click ok and your quota has been set!

please note that this article can also be viewed at our sister site dizzyit.com at : http://dizzyit.com/2011/12/01/extending-share-quota-server-2008/

SCCM PXE Error after booting – The certificate associated with this media has expired

SCCM PXE Error after booting – The certificate associated with this media has expired

you boot into configuration manager and you get this message which just makes your day:

Error: the certificate associated with this media has expired. New Media with a valid certificate will need to be created.

This is pretty easy to fix assuming you have a self signed certificate. To do so:

1. Log into you SCCM server and go to Site Database → Site Management → Site Settings → Site Systemsand select the SCCM server that maintains your PXE load point

2.In the right hand side  pane, right click on the “ConfigMgr PXE service point” and choose Properties.

3. Select the Database tab and look for the the Create self-signed PXE certificate option in the lower half of the screen.

4. here you can change the date for the self signed PXE certificate to a date in the future then choose OK

5. To verify that all is now OK  go to Site Database → Site Management → Site Settings → Certificates.Double click on the PXE certificate and make sure that there is an entry that is NOT listed as blocked

6. from here you should be able to boot into the boot media without issue. however, if the certificate has expired you will need to re build your boot media.

This article can also be found on our sister site DizzyIT.com : http://dizzyit.com/2011/11/16/sccm-pxe-error-booting-certificate-media-expired/

Create Network and Sharing Center Shortcut in Windows 7

In windows 7, it can be troublesome getting a Network and Sharing Center Shortcut for the desktop, which in my case is something i wanted for an SOE i was building. after some research i came across the following sollution:

1. go to the desktop, right click and select create new shortcut

2. In the create shortcut text box paste the following text:

C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:::{8E908FC9-BECC-40f6-915B-F4CA0E70D03D}

3. Choose Next and then type in a name for the shortcut. I normally just use Network and Sharing Center as that’s what your creating a shortcut for in the first place!

4. Choose Finish and you’re done! from here if you wanted you could go and chance the icon and name from within the properties for the shortcut.

this is also repeated on our sister site www.dizzyit.com at: 

http://dizzyit.com/2011/11/13/network-sharing-center-shortcut-windows-7/

Initial Configuration Tasks screen missing in Server 2008

Initial Configuration Tasks screen missing in Server 2008

You either love it or hate it, the initial configuration tasks screen that comes up when you first login to a Server 2008 box.

down in the bottom right hand corner is a little check box where you can elect to not show the window at logon. This is great until you realize that perhaps you do indeed want to view this at logon in the future, or perhaps right now.

get the page back go to start -> Run or Start -> search and type in “oobe” without the quotes and the page will re- appear.

Printer Error 0x000003eb when installing printer

Printer Error 0x000003eb when installing printer

When trying to connect to a network printer you get the following error 0x000003eb :

For me, this turned out to be a printer driver issue. To determine this, i created a new printer on the server using the same IP, driver, permissions etc and the problem again occurred.

I then changed the printer driver to a random driver  ( of a printer model that i know works OK on the server) on both the new and existing printer objects and ta-da the printer worked.

While researching this, i also found reference to the print spooler service crashing, however this was not a symptom in my case. IMHO, if the service is crashing when you install your printer, this probably points to a driver issue anyways