Friday, October 15, 2010

Change IP Address of EBS Conflict with router

So I am one of the handfull of people that purchased EBS, no laughing. Normally it has been a good product. Recently though I had the need to move our management server to another location which involved another subnet.

One of the things you really want to remember is that you must change it's ip address first and then move it. The reason is because you are strongly recommended by microsoft to use their "Change IP Address Settings" wizard. This wizard checks connectivity with the other two servers and makes changes to them.This is fine but I ran into a little problem. Something I am not new. to

Sadly the setup of EBS was a royal pain. after it was setup it was fine but I have not been in any way impressed with their wizards, setup or other. Maybe for some they worked but I think it's just that updates broke them and the EBS team had given up the ghost, even before the announcement was made.

Anyways Back to the story. After firing up the wizard and having it do it's check it provides you a box to change the IP Address, Subnet Mask, and the Gateway. After changing the Gateway and IP address. It came up with the error you see in the picture above.The selected IP address is already in use by another system with physical address XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX. (In the picture above I changed the Hardware address.)

So I double checked to ensure the address I gave it wasn't already used. I then moved to an IP above. Got the same message with the same physical address. Tried 4 other IPs all same physical address. So I checked the arp table. That physical address was tied to my router. A tad odd. Any address from the other subnet I put in their gave me that error. I have never had any other product point to my router like this. So after doing no searching I tried my own solution that worked.

Right after you enter the IP address but right before you click on the "change" button it is going to do a check to see if that IP address is in use, which in my case was broken and stopped me from working. So right before clicking "Change" then unplug the server from the network and as soon as the "Progress of IP address change"(Next screen) screen comes up then quickly plug it back in. If you don't then you will get errors on this screen, and will have to close the wizard and try again.

After using the unplug method to skip the error check I was able to move the server. Problem was I had to change some of the security server firewall settings. For Example I had to change the IP address of my Mangement computer under these two computer sets:
  • Remote Management Computer
  • DNS Servers
Also had to update a few other custom policies, after that though it straightened all of that out. You will also need to upgrade some group policies. Follow the instructions at this technet link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd996618(WS.10).aspx

You can also check all that it does or should change by going to this link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc540075(WS.10).aspx . Hope this helps anybody else out that may run across this.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Symantec = Fail or windows cannot load the user's profile

So I recently started fixing personal computers again recently and remembered why I hate doing it. Anyways I was asked to look at a slow laptop. After taking it home I connected to the internet after noticing it appeared to be virus free. I ran a defrag and it ran some updates.

After doing this and rebooting I saw a screen I didn't like.I was getting aa 16bit 640x480 welcome screen. It gave me the error: windows cannot load the user's profile but has logged you on with the default profile system. Detail - Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service.Ugh and it was giving me an error about bcmwltry.exe. So I rebooted into safe and tried to do a restore. To earlier that day it succeeded but I was getting the same problem. So I tried to before I had touched it and it wouldn't restore. :( I then removed the Dell Wireless utility to at least get rid of the bcmwltry.exe error to see if I would get anymore.

I also created a new user just to check. After rebooting I then selected the new user and get the following error: userinit.exe the application failed to initialize properly 0xc000012d. After looking around I found two forums mentioning Symantec Antivirus as a possible culprit after it had gotten a update of some kind. I am sure while I had it connected to the internet it had done this.

So let me state first off. I have already had numerous problems with various versions of Symantec in the past, don't like it and if I have the choice I uninstall  it. I hadn't done this yet because the user had a up-to-date subscription and I hate to remove a product that someone has paid a subscription for.

Continuing on with the story, I went ahead and in safe mode ran msconfig killed all symantec related startup items. Also disabled all the Services. A reboot later and still no go. I took it a step further in Safe mode. I renamed  the following three folders:

  • C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared 
  • C:\Program Files\Symantec
  • C:\Program Files\Symantec Antivirus
I just added .old to the end of the folders. After a reboot I had the beautiful welcome screen I loved. And guess what, the system was speedy as all get up. That was a good enough excuse for me to remove Symantec. I renamed all three folders back to what they were and did an install of anything Symantec. 
After this I went about my normal computer cleanup steps and installed a free antivirus solution. I predict a very happy client.

MORAL OF THE STORY - Beware of Symantec - (aka If you start having problems with your computer check your Symantec Antivirus Software)