Scheduled server reboots

To schedule a reboot, ie. like patching and having a server reboot during the downtime...

"at 23:00 shutdown /l /r /y /c"

See reference for details...

Reference:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/317371

BusLogic SCSI controller not supported on Vmware VM

When a Windows virtual machine is powered on, the Tasks and Events tab of the virtual machine on the vSphere Client displays this warning under Events:

The guest operating system is and one or more virtual SCSI devices are installed in the virtual machine. does not support the BusLogic SCSI adapter that VMware ESX currently uses for virtual SCSI devices. Install the VMware driver in the virtual machine. Download the driver from "http://vmware.com/info?id=43". Click OK to continue or Cancel to cancel.
Fix is in reference below...

Reference:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2007603

Fixing orphan database users

This is a good article on how to fix orphan users.  Works well when you restore a database and need to create/link the SQL logins that correspond to database users in the restored database.

Reference:
http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/02/15/sql-server-fix-error-15023-user-already-exists-in-current-database/

Netapp Command Cheat Sheet

Just found this...  pretty useful...

Reference:
http://www.datadisk.co.uk/html_docs/netapp/netapp_cs.htm

Nice SQL setup checklist

Reference at the bottom is a good check list for installing SQL server.

Good resource for SPs and updates to SQL server:
http://sqlserverbuilds.blogspot.com/

Reference:
http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2008/03/sql-server-2005-setup-checklist-part-1-before-the-install/

Reporting server stops updating fileshare

Ran into a case where report creator had created a report (non-unique file names) that updated to a fileshare every 15 mins.  If the file was kept open by a user, job output would fail and be set to retry in 15 mins. 

By default, RS maxretries=3 which means RS will try again 3 times before giving up.  This was causing issue where these timed subscriptions were blocking each other from being successful.  Ie. job runs, tries to save to file, but fails and will retry in 15 mins, but 15 mins later a new iteration of the job runs, tries to save to file, but that one fails as well and will retry in 15 mins, etc...

Resolved by setting Maxretries=0 so that if output fails, RS will NOT retry and next iteration of the job will have a chance to update the file.

Reference:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms157273.aspx

How to mail-enable a security group in Exch 2007

Note: security group needs to be set to Universal or Exch 2007 will not see it.

Reference:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123805(v=exchg.80).aspx