dhoward_westexetc

We raised Forest & Domain function to 2008 R2 with our Exchange 2007 SP3, no issues at all.

Makes perfectly good sense to me!

Yay! Maybe web browsing with a 64-bit web browser will finally be viable! You can also install the JRE on a PC, then go to the LocalLow folder, and an MSI and associated cab will be there in the Sun Folder. I know that is the case certainly for the x86 one, I have no experience of the 64-bit one though.

There are 64-bit nightly builds, but they're development builds. Waterfox is also based on an x64 nightly and is located on sourceforge.

Spot on. But even on Win 7 x64 I still use the 32-bit IE (when I use IE) as I find that is more responsive, and that needs the 32-bit Java plugin. Likewise 64-bit Firefox, for example, will need 64-bit JRE when it is released fully.

I have also noticed that few programs so far see the JRE 7 plugin. I deploy the current update to Java 6, which as of December 2nd is update 29.

Generally for Java you only need the x86 version for x64 operating systems if only 32-bit programs use it, it depends on what architecture the programs is written for. Generally 32-bit complied programs use the x86 JRE, and 64-bit compiled programs the x64 JRE. Same applies for browsers regarding the JRE plugin. For example, LibreOffice is a 32-bit program, so it uses the 32-bit JRE even on Windows 7 x64.

Right...I think I see now. So in my Printer deployment policy (in the machine OU) I would have a policy preference shared printer that would have the B&W printer to update it and set it as default, in addition to my current deployed printers in computer config. I would then enable loopback policy processing in the printer deployment policy? I hope I have understood this right, if so I can give it a whirl at a convenient time and see how I get on! Thanks for your help.

So with this then, would the printers be deployed to the user's config as opposed to the computer config? I am trying to work this out because I am thinking I may have to change to using policy preferences with loopback to be able to set the default printers correctly. I want to ensure that the B&W ones are set as default, and at present with our Windows 7 network it is a mixture of B&W and colour as default.

Not that I am aware of no, i can't see any group policy preference options for this.

The above also works on Windows Vista\Server 2008 first release.

What a lifesaver this is! Thanks for that rush_tech.

In Windows Explorer on Windows 7, when you click on a file is displays an 'open' button, which when you click the drop down beside it you can change the default program. Is there a group policy to remove/disable this? I cannot see it. Either I want the Open button removed completely, or the link to accessing choose default program disabled. If anyone knows, please let me know!!!

I appear to have cured my srv 2012 errors. It was a combination of installing McAfee 8.8 with the checkbox in on access scanner settings 'block the connection when a threat is detected in a shared folder'. With that setting enabled I could semi-reliably create the srv 2012 errors myself. We also had some PCs that had dodgy NIC drivers, but they were re-installed with Windows 7 SP1 and more up to date NIC drivers. All our DCs, DNS and DHCP are 2008 R2 now. So my advice to anyone having srvs: Update your NIC drivers Update server NIC and RAID drivers and firmware Update your Antivirus software on both client and server Check for any client PCs with any strange networking issues. I also had to disable Network Access Protection on several of my DHCP scopes as our wireless system doesn't support NAP. I think the fact that all of our clients are now Windows 7 SP1, and our 2008 R2 servers are now at SP1 aswell, is helping matters. I hope this helps many of you cure your srv 2012 errors.

Never been an issue for us, but then we use PCounter ports..

I use the PCL6 UPD for the CP2025, and it is fine. I try to use the UPD where possible, though the 4700s don't seem to like it for some reasons, even though it is marked as compatible. The printouts are mono. I use the 4700n Server 2008 driver instead. Note: the Colour Laserjet 2600n driver is actually a Vista driver, but it also functions fine on Server 2008 32-bit, Windows 7 and XP clients. Which is kinda what we need really. There is no entry for Server 2008, only Vista 32-bit.

Sorry no news yet on this, will have to wait until September to see what has happened. I have torn out the XP & McAfee 8.7i clients and replaced them with Windows 7 & McAfee 8.8, together with the unchecking of 'block connection when a threat is detected in a shared folder'. We have added a load of users to our 2008 file server in recent weeks, and srv errors haven't increased (in fact the number of srv errors has been slightly lower of recent). This indicates that it is not load-related, but network errors generated by clients (as the issue only happens during the school day, when certain groups of machines are in use). My hope is that the McAfee upgrade will have at least reduced the errors, if not eliminated them altogether. All of our 2008/R2 servers are running McAfee 8.8 now, and have up to date BIOS/RAID/NIC drivers. We also had a number of troublesome ethernet cards in some of our systems that had dodgy XP drivers, we upgraded those drivers and things seem improved, but I think they may have been contributing to it. Those systems are now on Windows 7 with drivers 1 year newer than the drivers installed on the XP build. Those systems were generating several errors, to the extent that the managed switch was shutting the ports down due to the number of errors (requiring me to re-enable the ports)! My port of call has been to keep the AV clients on the latest version, and look for any odd network behaviours on any clients.

I used a Server 2008 SP2 32-bit print server with a HP Color Laserjet 2600n, and that works a treat. I didn't run the installer, I just added the driver using the add driver wizard. One other point - disable bi-directional printing on each 2600n queue, not sure if the same applies for the 2700n as we have none of that model. 2600n's do not like bi-directional printing one bit.

The following sites need to be added to trusted sites: - thirdforce.com - central.thirdforce.com I had to do this on our Win 7/IE 9 network. Easiest to deploy via group policy.

The x86 patch will be for Windows 7 only, since that has a 32-bit version and they share the same issue clearly. I'll bear your feedback in mind and schedule in applying the hotfix, but I don't know what we do if that same issue is causing the 2012s on our File Server. Thanks bulldog1.

If this does turn out to be the case bulldog1 then it would potentially only fix one of our servers. Our File server runs Storage Server 2008 SP2 and displays the srv 2012 errors, albeit on nowhere near the same frequency as our 2008 R2 one. The significant thing is both are used in a read context (the 2008 R2 one provides the redirected desktop and start menu for students to use).

Didn't resolve the issue i'm afraid. I'm guessing its a client generated issue therefore, since our servers now have the latest and greatest drivers and firmware installed on them. It only happens during the working day, when those clients would be in use. My next port of call will therefore probably be to check for driver updates on those clients I guess. Bit of a sticky issue this....

I have a new, unknown error to me on our 2008 R2 DC. We have started getting continuous SChannel errors on it, event ID 36887 alert 48. From looking at the event logs they are being generated by lsass.exe, the Security accounts manager service. They happen between every 10 and 70 seconds. Does anyone know why they are being generated and what the fix for it is? It does not seem to be bringing our network down but I am just perplexed that they have suddenly started happening. One other note, we do not use SSL on our exchange 2007 client access server.

My latest update: I applied all of the NIC and RAID firmware updates and drivers to our 2008/R2 servers. I've upgraded the servers to McAfee 8.8i as well. Network performance is like night and day, all of the new servers are so responsive it is scary! Our McAfee local mirror on our 2008 R2 server works consistently for the first time ever! Since those upgrades, auto-tune receive window is also now working as I expect, with transfer speeds of around 60 MB/s, which is what I expect between a 2008 SP2 server and a Windows 7 client. We will only know next week if that fixes the srv 2012 errors, but things seem more reliable and responsive already. If that is the case then I can only conclude it is a malfunctioning network firmware/driver that has been corrected with those updates. It would tally with what januttal says in terms of bad packets being produced.

A quick update on this from my end: I updated all our client McAfee installs to 8.7i and I am still getting the errors. However for our servers there seem to be a barrel load of updates recently for NIC, BIOS and RAID, which I plan an update-a-rama at Easter, so I will see if this resolves the issue. I'll try the suggestion by januttal as well to see if that helps, but it only happens on file read/write in our case.