Notes from the TechNet Briefing in Bloomington, Indiana

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Hi!

Here are the questions I jotted down at our TechNet Briefing in Bloomington, as well as some answers and additional resources.

Also, for your convenience, here is the link to my blog post containing the link to that resource document I handed out.

Q: I’m running Windows Server 2003 servers in an Active/Active cluster. Are there any known issues with SP1 for Windows Server 2003?

A: Doing a search of the knowledge base on “Service Pack 1 Windows Server 2003 cluster” give the results here, where there are several articles related to some issues that may arise.

Here are a couple that seem applicable:

Cluster Services does not work correctly in a Windows Server 2003 SP1-based cluster that has the Internet Connection Firewall enabled
(883398) - Describes behavior where Cluster Services in a Windows Server 2003 SP1-based cluster does not work correctly if the ICF is enabled on the cluster-based server computer.
New event log messages for the Cluster service account are included in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1
(871236) - Describes new events that appear when user rights are missing from the Cluster service account.

Other than that I can’t find any issues. 

Q: COM+ and DCOM

A: Unfortunately, I have to confess that for this one I didn’t write down enough of the question to remember what was asked.  (Sorry!)  As I recall it had something to do with whether or not there were also changes to how COM+ objects permissions are managed.  And for that I was not able to find an answer.  However, I would recommend you check out the great help documentation that is included in the Component Services console. 

CompServicesHelp 

 

Q: When do I get my SQL 2005 Beta?

A: This question was from a gentleman who had attended Bryan von Axelson’s SQL 2005 Webcast Series, where live attendees who filled out evaluations would be sent a copy of the beta.  I’ve sent an email to Bryan, and will update this page when I get his response.

 UPDATE: Bryan says…

First, we are not supposed to call it ‘BETA’ anymore. It is now the Community Technology Preview Build – Gotta Love it!!

Second, they are being shipped now. They starting processing everything last week.

Q: I’m using the release candidate of Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) in production, and it did NOT pull down SP4 for SQL Server 2000. Why is that?

A:  At release, the plan is for WSUS is to support updates Windows, Office XP, Office 2003, SQL Server 2000, MSDE 2000, and Exchange Server 2003.  I don’t know why the Service Pack wasn’t there, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that it is still just a release candidate.  It may be that SP4 for SQL wasn’t made available throught the

I highly recommend you check out the WSUS FAQ page.  Great info.  I also found a “Known WSUS RC Issues” wiki.  I didn’t seen any mention of your issue there, however.

 

Q: I’m configuring ISA 2004 to let my users have FTP access externally. But it’s not working. What am I doing wrong?

A: I wonder if you’re running into the problem that is described in KB article #884580, having to do with FTP clients that operate in Active Mode.  The article describes the issue, and possible solutions, including the mention of a hotfix (although you will have to contact MS Support for that). 

UPDATE: My friend and teammate Keith Combs has dealt with this issue directly, and was good enough to post the solution on his blog.  Thanks, Keith!

If you have a followup question or comment, feel free to enter it by clicking the comment link below.