Month: July 2012

Applications are not visible in RDWEB access

Published on in Windows Server by Elvis

Sometimes applications can not be visible in Remote desktop web access. It looks that they are deployed and published correctly, you are able to connect to them via Remote app. In these cases I found mostly two different problems:
First problem
Server, that is hosting the RD Web application website, is not a member of Windows Authorization Access Group. RD Web Access server directly queries the servers and filters the retrieved list of RemoteApp programs based on the ACLs and needs permissions to do that. To solve or control this settings do the following steps:

  • Open the Active Directory Users and Computers, expand the console and find the name of RD Web Access server.
  • Right-click on it and select Properties, then in Member Of tab, add the Windows Authorization Access Group.

Second problem
Security settings in WMI control are not correct. Also this issue is easy to fix:

  • On the server, that is hosting RD Web Access, open start menu and run WMIMGMT.MSC.
  • Right-Click on WMI Control (Local) and select Properties.
  • Expand Root, CIMV2 and click on TerminalServices.
  • Click on Security and look for TS Web Access Computers (COMPUTERNAME TS Web Access Computers).
  • If TS Web Access Computers group is not present, then add it.
  • Add the Execute Methods, Enable Account and Remote Enable rights to this group.

After this check the RD Web Applications in most cases work.

Future reading: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2009/06/12/introducing-remoteapp-user-assignment.aspx.

What are thinking SBS professionals about the future in the SMB segment

Published on in Windows SBS Server, Windows Server by Elvis

Few days ago SMB Nation did a survey about the SBS and SBSC in the future. I was also a part of this survey and actually I saw that no one is happy with the SBS end of life decision. The second thing, that is visible from the survey, is the clear way of partners to go to the market with third party solutions, more then with Cloud. We can also see, that the SBS Competency is not very popular, or maybe it loses the right value with the SBS end of live.
You can read a complete article about the survey here. I suggest you also to read the blog posted by  Harry Brelsford about SBS product clarifications..

Windows SBS is now Windows Server 2012 Essentials only

Published on in Windows SBS Server, Windows Server by Elvis

As a lot of us probably heard in the last days, Microsoft declared that Windows SBS server is out. They told us this is because we are entering in new era of Cloud computing and this is definitely the way where companies in SMB segment will go.
I don’t completely agree with this statement, but this is the way where we go… Maybe in the near future the Cloud will be really the best solution, but now there are still a lot of small companies who don’t have a good internet connection or just don’t want to go in the Cloud.
We have to remind that it was a day when SBS appears on market and now it is the day when it disappears. The only thing that remains from this project is Windows Server 2012 Essentials. Let’s take a short look on it:
This is a very similar project to Windows SBS 2011 Essentials and it has more or less the same functions. It is designed for very small businesses with a maximum of 25 users (and also a maximum of 50 devices). It has a very easy to manage SBS console and a similar remote web access as the previous version. Of course the synchronization with Office 365 is natively supported, but the new thing is the support to on premise Exchange on the second server. In this case, of course, you have to buy Windows Server 2012 Standard and Exchange Server + CALs. A new feature in this version is also Online Backup, which is used to back up your system in the Microsoft Cloud. The good news is,that 100GB of space are included with any installation of Windows Server 2012 Essentials for free (in Beta version,I’m not sure about the amount of free storage in the release version).
It will be available also the “transition pack”, which is the way to “upgrade” Essentials version to Standard. It removes all limits, except the limit for the number of backups for the client computers (the maximum is 75 PCs). After the transition there will still remain some functions like RWA and SBS Console (but I am not sure if Console will be useful with a large number of users). At transition I’m also worried how we will manage or convert the users. In Essentials version they have permissions in file system and in AD established on principle user by user. This is practically impossible to manage in large environments like the new one will be.
Anyway, like it or not, I invite you to download and try Essentials version from here, to be prepared when it will come on the market..

Replacing OS image in MDT 2012

Published on in Deployment, Windows, Windows Server by Elvis

Days ago I had a problem on one of MDT”s. There were installed OS images for some Windows 7 systems without SP1. Because I use the ImagePatcher PowerShell script to offline update all images, and there is no way to install SP1 with offline updating, I tried to delete the images and update new ones directly from DVD.
In that moment I had a problem with task sequences, because they lose OS images to install.
This problem can be solved very easy, with few clicks. You must open the desire task sequence and go to the tab Task sequence. You can find there the task “Install operating system”. In this task you have just to browse the right system you want to install.

 

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