Windows PPTP VPN with Cisco Linksys RV042

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Thomas Maurer

Today I was setting up my little lab, I decided to create a Windows PPTP VPN for my lab network which should give me more comfort. First I installed the Network Policy and Access Services Role and did the configuration. I also enabled PPTP Passthrough, added a port forwarding and a firewall rule to my Cisco Linksys RV042. I know the RV042 is not really a big deal, but you have a lot of jobs and if you don’t really need a lot of network options, like me in my lab, this is a pretty cool device.

I now tested the VPN Connection with my Windows 7 Client. Error 800 and 807 which basically means no connection through the firewalls with the VPN Server.

I checked again the Firewall Configuration on my RV042, and could not found any mistake. After a quick search with Google and Bing I saw a lot of posts with the same problem and the Linksys RV042.

After some search I came to a solution, I deactivated the SPI Firewall on the Device, and this caused the problem. After activating the SPI Firewall again, the error was gone and the VPN worked.

Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 Server with 3ware 9650SE Raidcontroller

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Thomas Maurer

If you need to install Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 on a Server with a 3ware 9650SE Raidcontroller, you can’t just install it on this machine, you can’t even install it with adding the driver during the installation process.

First Update the Raid Controller Firmware by downloading the Codeset ISO from the 3ware Download page UPDATED (Version 9.5.1 or higher).
Burn the ISO file and boot this CD
Update the Firmware
Reboot with the Windows Server 2008 R2 DVD
During the Boot (right after “Press any key to boot from CD/DVD…”) of the CD press F8 and choose “Disable Driver Signature Enforcement”
Now you can add the Raid Controller Driver (Version 9.5.1 or higher) via USB Stick, Floppy, CD or DVD.
IMPORTANT: You can not add the Driver without an updated Firmware
After you have installed your Windows Server 2008 R2 you can download the latest Drivers and Firmware form here (Version 10.2). I could not found any Codeset ISO with Version 10.2, thats why you have to update first to 9.5.1 (or 9.5.3).

This needs to be done for all Windows Server 2008 R2 Server and Windows Server 2008 Editions.

Windows Server 2008: Allow multiple Remote Desktop sessions per user

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Thomas Maurer

In Windows Server 2003 you could have multiple Remote Desktop session with the same user. In Windows Server 2008 this is not possible by default. If you login with the same user account the first session will be taken over by second session.

But you can allow multiple Remote Desktop sessions per user by changing a registry key.

Start regedit
Check out the follwoing registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer
If the fSingleSessionPerUser value doesn’t exist, create a new DWORD value named fSingleSessionPerUser
Open the fSingleSessionPerUser value. The possible values for this setting are as follows:
0×0 Allow multiple sessions per user
0×1 Force each user to a single session
save this

Found this on remotedesktoprdp.com

Pagefile size bigger than 4095MB on Windows Server 2003

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Thomas Maurer

UPDATE: If you can use PAE on your Windows Server 2003 you should check out this post: Pagefile size limits on Windows Server 2003

The pagefile size on Windows Server 2003 x86 and other Windows x86 platforms is limited to 4095 MB per pagefile. But a lot of Windows Server 2003 systems already have 4GB RAM and are using PAE (Physical Address Extension) to use them. So it would be useful to create more than 4 GB pagefiles.

Microsofts solution for this is to create multiple pagefiles. You can now create multiple pagefiles on different partitions. If you don’t have enough partitions or you just have one, you can create multiple pagefile in different folders by using the Windows Registry.

Create the folders on the drive where the pagefiles should be located. For example, C:\Pagefile1, C:\Pagefile2, and C:\Pagefile3.
Open regedit.exe
I would recommend to create a backup of the registry
locate this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\MemoryManagement
Edit the value “PagingFiles”
Remove the existing values and add the following values:
C:\Pagefile1\pagefile.sys 4096 4096
C:\Pagefile2\pagefile.sys 4096 4096
C:\Pagefile3\pagefile.sys 4096 4096
Save this

Note: It’s still recommended to have the Pagefiles on the same partition as the system

You can get more information in this Microsoft Knowledge Base entry: How to overcome the 4,095 MB paging file size limit in Windows

How to do this with Powershell: Powershell: Changing registry key value

Time sync problems with Hyper-V Guests

Posted on March 23, 2010 by Thomas Maurer

If you have time sync problems with Hyper-V Guest Systems there is a simple solution for this.

Problems:

Time between Server and Active Directory Domain Controller is not correct
Can’t login because of this
Can’t add AD Users to local groups

Solution:

To solve this problem you have to disable Time Synchronization in the Hyper-V Integration Services for each guest. Then restart the Windows Time serviceon the guest. The guests will then correctly synchronize with a domain controller.