MOSS 2007 Installation - Could not access the Search service configuration database

I had some trouble configuring the Windows SharePoint Services Search Service during a MOSS 2007 installation. When starting the service I hit the following error message:

Could not access the Search service configuration database

In the Application Event log the following error was shown:

The filename or extension is too long. 0x800700ce

This problem is caused by the server names in use being too long. It is no good trying to change the name of the database server to be the Netbios name (rather than FQDN) within the Windows SharePoint Services Search Service configuration, you need to change the name of the server registered to perform the Search service.

Before doing this please ensure you take a full backup of your MOSS site collections (if you have any, in my case I didn't as it was a clean install):

stsadm.exe -o backup -url <http://hostname> -filename backup.dat
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/889236

After the backup perform the following steps to register your search (perhaps also WFE/Index) server using stsadm.exe to invoke the "renameserver" command option.

Open a command prompt window and navigate to the folder where stsadm.exe sits. Normally "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN".

Use the renameserver command as follows, replacing and with the new and old names of your server:

stsadm -o renameserver -newservername -oldservername

That should do it.

I am told that this command is safe to run as part of your configuration if necessary, although I would recommend you follow the setup procedure in the following site though to avoid it.
http://mindsharpblogs.com/bill/archive/2006/06/27/1153.aspx

Multiple Languages/Invalid Characters in RSOP of Windows 2003

When you run RSOP on Windows 2003 SP1/SP2 and you have Group Policies that modify the Error Reporting settings, you may notice that under Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\ there are a lot of random languages that appear to be related to Application Error Reporting.

This is caused by RSOP quering the applicable settings for Application Error Reporting in local ADMs. All local ADMs named AER_xxxx.adm in the %Systemroot%\INF folder are parsed to see if there is a match for the error reporting policy setting. If there are multiple AER_xxxx.adm files that match the error reporting policy, they are all displayed in the RSOP result. These ADM files are installed by .Net Framwork 2.0. as Microsoft have not released language specific versions of .Net 2.0.

This is not by design, but there is no current fix.

To workaround this issue you can either happily ignore it, or on the machine where RSOP mmc is being run (this does not need doing on all machines if you query them from a central server) have a look in the %Systemroot%\INF for any ADM files that begin with AER_xxxx.

If you find multipleAER_xxxx.adm files, then (after backing them up) remove all but the AER_1033.adm (English).

Run Rsop again.

VMWare Server: Virtual machine config file is invalid

Have you experienced this error after a host lock up on VMWare Server? This can be caused by a number of things from duplicate/invalid entries in the config .vmdk file (compare it to others), missing files, corrupt disk volumes or corrupt memory files. In my case the problem was with corrupt memory files and the following steps resolved it:

Reboot the host server to remove any file locks
Delete the .vmem and .vmem.lck files in the faulty VM's working directory.

The virtual machine can then be powered back on.

Please approach this with caution on production VM servers as any transactions that are in memory and not committed to disk will be lost.

Automatically update and reboot Citrix Presentation Servers on a schedule

When we originally set up our Citrix PS 4.0 farm we needed to establish an efficient method of patching our servers without any maintenance windows or visible downtime. This method of patching needed to tie in with our use of WSUS and not add any administrative overhead.

The answer seemed easy, we need a system that detects if there are any outstanding patches (those approved for installation on WSUS, or available from Microsoft Update depending on environment), if there are outstanding patches it then needs to stop subsequent TS/Citrix logins, wait for everyone to log off, download and install the patches and then reboot.

I was sure that there would be plenty of people who need a similar solution but having spent some time looking all I could find were scripted methods for installing patches, tools that rebooted servers when there were no remote logons (all of which I found inconsistent) and the obvious change logon /disable command. I needed a way of pulling this together so I wrote a number of batch files and VBScript (I can't claim credit for all the VBScipt as I downloaded it from http://www.wsus.info/).

We set WSUS setting via GPOs to check for updates every night and install between 04:00 and 06:00. Therefore, if we approve a WSUS update to a group the servers in that group will update that evening. The first step was to change this GPO for the Citrix PS servers so that the servers were set to only download the updates and not install (although you could set it to do nothing, the important thing is that the servers are set to look at the WSUS server for updates). the next step was to create a scheduled task to run my scripts, which I set to run every night.

Now to the scripts, the first of which determines if updates are available: if there are it calls a batch file, if not it quits and nothing happens until the scheduled task runs again the next night.

Set updateSession = CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.Session")
Set updateSearcher = updateSession.CreateupdateSearcher()
Set searchResult = _updateSearcher.Search("IsInstalled=0 and Type='Software'")
Set File = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set LogFile = File.OpenTextFile("R:\Temp\WSUSUpdates\CheckForUpdates.log", 8, True)
LogFile.WriteLine("***************************************************************")LogFile.WriteLine( "START TIME : " & now)LogFile.WriteLine( "Searching for updates..." & vbCRLF)
LogFile.WriteLine( "List of applicable items on the machine:")

For I = 0 To searchResult.Updates.Count-1
Set update = searchResult.Updates.Item(I)
LogFile.WriteLine( I + 1 & "> " & update.Title)
Next

If searchResult.Updates.Count = 0 Then
LogFile.WriteLine( "There are no updates waiting to be installed, quiting.")
WScript.Quit
Else
LogFile.WriteLine( "There are updates waiting to be installed.")
LogFile.WriteLine( "Stopping the IMA service to prevent logons.")
dim shell set shell=createobject("wscript.shell")
LogFile.WriteLine( "Checking for logged in users....")
shell.run "R:\Temp\WSUSUpdates\CheckLoggedInUsers.bat 350"
set shell=nothing
WScript.Quit
End If

You will notice that if patches are available the batch file CheckLoggedInUsers.bat is called. This batch file disables new logins and checks for users logged in remotely using the ICA protocol and if there remote users it loops round until they are not! It takes the parameter from the first VBScript "350" as the number of times to retry before giving up and quiting. You will need PS Tools from: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/PsTools.mspx installed for this to work and sleep.exe from the Windows 2003 server resource kit tools: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9D467A69-57FF-4AE7-96EE-B18C4790CFFD&displaylang=en.

@echo off
If "%1"=="" GOTO Parameter
set E2=0
set E1=0
set E0=0
%systemdrive%
cd %systemdrive%\temp\wsusupdates\
date /t >>CheckLoggedInUsers.log
echo Stopping logons >>CheckLoggedInUsers.log
echo Stopping logons
change logon /disable
goto firstrun
:loop
echo Users logged on, checking retry limit
echo Users logged on, checking retry limit >>CheckLoggedInUsers.log
echo Incrementing retry count >>CheckLoggedInUsers.log
echo Incrementing retry count
:E0
if %E0%==9 goto E1
if %E0%==8 set E0=9
if %E0%==7 set E0=8
if %E0%==6 set E0=7
if %E0%==5 set E0=6
if %E0%==4 set E0=5
if %E0%==3 set E0=4
if %E0%==2 set E0=3
if %E0%==1 set E0=2
if %E0%==0 set E0=1
goto DONE
:E1
set E0=0
if %E1%==9 goto E2
if %E1%==8 set E1=9
if %E1%==7 set E1=8
if %E1%==6 set E1=7
if %E1%==5 set E1=6
if %E1%==4 set E1=5
if %E1%==3 set E1=4
if %E1%==2 set E1=3
if %E1%==1 set E1=2
if %E1%==0 set E1=1
goto DONE
:E2
set E1=0
if %E2%==9 set E2=0
if %E2%==8 set E2=9
if %E2%==7 set E2=8
if %E2%==6 set E2=7
if %E2%==5 set E2=6
if %E2%==4 set E2=5
if %E2%==3 set E2=4
if %E2%==2 set E2=3
if %E2%==1 set E2=2
if %E2%==0 set E2=1
goto DONE
:DONE
If "%E2%%E1%%E0%"=="%1" GOTO RetryLimit
echo Sleeping for 60 seconds >>CheckLoggedInUsers.log
echo Sleeping for 60 seconds
sleep.exe 600
:firstrun
echo Checking for ICA Sessions >>CheckLoggedInUsers.log
echo Checking for ICA Sessions
query session FIND "ica-tcp#" >nul
IF NOT errorlevel 1 GOTO loop
:update
Echo Performing an update >>CheckLoggedInUsers.log
Echo Performing an update
InstallWSUSUpdates.vbs
psshutdown /r /f
:RetryLimit
echo Retry limit exceeded, script exiting >>CheckLoggedInUsers.log
echo Retry limit exceeded, script exiting
GOTO end
:Parameter
echo No retry limit entered (enter three characters i.e. 003), script exiting >>CheckLoggedInUsers.log
echo No retry limit entered (enter three characters i.e. 003), script exiting
GOTO end
:end

We now have no logged in users, new users cannot login and there are patches waiting to be installed. The third of the scripts installs the patches:

Set updateSession = CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.Session")
Set updateSearcher = updateSession.CreateupdateSearcher()
Set searchResult = _
updateSearcher.Search("IsInstalled=0 and Type='Software'")
Set File = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set LogFile = File.OpenTextFile("R:\Temp\WSUSUpdates\InstallWSUSUpdates.log", 8, True)
LogFile.WriteLine("***************************************************************")
LogFile.WriteLine( "START TIME : " & now)
LogFile.WriteLine( "Searching for updates..." & vbCRLF)
LogFile.WriteLine( "List of applicable items on the machine:")
For I = 0 To searchResult.Updates.Count-1
Set update = searchResult.Updates.Item(I)
LogFile.WriteLine( I + 1 & "> " & update.Title)
Next
If searchResult.Updates.Count = 0 Then
LogFile.WriteLine( "There are no applicable updates.")
WScript.Quit
End If
LogFile.WriteLine( vbCRLF & "Creating collection of updates to download:")
Set updatesToDownload = CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.UpdateColl")
For I = 0 to searchResult.Updates.Count-1
Set update = searchResult.Updates.Item(I)
LogFile.WriteLine( I + 1 & "> adding: " & update.Title )
updatesToDownload.Add(update)
Next
LogFile.WriteLine( vbCRLF & "Downloading updates...")
Set downloader = updateSession.CreateUpdateDownloader()
downloader.Updates = updatesToDownload
downloader.Download()
LogFile.WriteLine( vbCRLF & "List of downloaded updates:")
For I = 0 To searchResult.Updates.Count-1
Set update = searchResult.Updates.Item(I)
If update.IsDownloaded Then
LogFile.WriteLine( I + 1 & "> " & update.Title )
End If
Next
Set updatesToInstall = CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.UpdateColl")
LogFile.WriteLine( vbCRLF & _
"Creating collection of downloaded updates to install:" )
For I = 0 To searchResult.Updates.Count-1
set update = searchResult.Updates.Item(I)
If update.IsDownloaded = true Then
LogFile.WriteLine( I + 1 & "> adding: " & update.Title )
updatesToInstall.Add(update)
End If
Next
logFile.WriteLine( "Installing updates...")
Set installer = updateSession.CreateUpdateInstaller()
installer.Updates = updatesToInstall
Set installationResult = installer.Install()
'Output results of install
LogFile.WriteLine( "Installation Result: " & installationResult.ResultCode )
LogFile.WriteLine( "Reboot Required: " & installationResult.RebootRequired & vbCRLF )
LogFile.WriteLine( "Listing of updates installed " & "and individual installation results:" )
For I = 0 to updatesToInstall.Count - 1
LogFile.WriteLine( I + 1 & "> " & updatesToInstall.Item(i).Title & ": " & installationResult.GetUpdateResult(i).ResultCode )
Next
'if installationResult.RebootRequired = -1 then
'LogFile.WriteLine( "reboot the server")
'strComputer = "."
'Dim refWMIService
'Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
'& "{impersonationLevel=impersonate,(Shutdown)}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
'Set colOperatingSystems = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem")
'For Each objOperatingSystem in colOperatingSystems
'ObjOperatingSystem.Reboot()
'Next
'end if
LogFile.WriteLine( "STOP TIME : " & now)
LogFile.WriteLine("***************************************************************")
LogFile.Close

You can comment back in the VBScript reboot command but I found using psshutdown /r /f within the calling batch file (script 2) much more dependable.

I also have a scheduled task to re-enable logins at bootup: change logon /enable

That is it. This has been running problem free for about six months and does not require any administrative overhead (any more than WSUS does anyway).

Suggestions and comments always welcome!