How to restart IIS without losing data

There may be a time where your webserver IIS (Internet Information Server) encounters a problem and you need to restart it.

If data is being written via a website or an application that uses IIS, a forced reboot on IIS may result in data loss.

To combat this there is a nifty command that can be used which will try and stop IIS but will wait until it has finished processing it's current task. In order to run this command do the following :

1. Open up a command prompt (Winkey + R and type cmd)
2. type in "iisreset /noforce"
3. You will see that it tries to stop IIS but fails. This is normal as it will wait for IIS to finish.
4. After 30 secs to a minute, try the command again and you will see that it stops the service and then restarts it without any data loss.

Windows 8.1 update – How to change the default keyboard language to UK (or any other)

Windows 8 has always been less than user friendly so with the 8.1 update I was expecting Microsoft to have thrown the users a life line. The ongoing theme of windows 8 seems to be “Where would the user expect this to be…”

“OK let’s move it from there !!”.

So it came as no surprise that shortly after I had installed the Windows 8.1 update (and the keyboard had defaulted to US English) I could not find a simple way to change it. On all other versions of Windows it was solved with a trip to the control panel >Languages >Input options and select from the keyboard options. However, this is how you do it in Windows 8.1.

1. Go to Control Panel.

2. Select Language

3. Click Options



4. Click ‘Add an input method’



5. Scroll down to keyboard layout you want to install, click Preview to check how it looks, click Addto add to the input methods.



6. Close the language window and Control Panel if it is no longer required and go back to the desktop.

7. In the notification area you will now see a language option appear. Select English (United Kingdom) and UK United Kingdom keyboard option.


Now your keyboard should be in the language of your choice.

Distributed File System (DFS) schedule not being replicated to receiving server

Today I had a situation where the replication to our data centre was causing our local users to experience slowness. This was the first big replication of files so I wanted to set up a schedule so that it would occur out of hours.

I went onto the local server and altered the schedule but noticed that files were still replicating to the data centre in ‘real time’. I looked at the schedule on the receiving server (in the DC) and noticed that it had not changed.

This was obviously a factor.

So here’s the solution/explanation.

1. When it comes to DFS replication of files it happens almost instantly, however when it comes to replicating a schedule from one host to another it takes much longer.

2. In order for the schedule to replicate the Active Directory Domain controllers must update each other.

3. Once the AD side of things is done, the DFS server must poll the Domain controller (This happens automatically).

4. After successful contact, the amended schedule will show on the receiving server. This took 1 and a half hours on my server.

5. Shortly after this (15 mins in my case) the files will stop replicating in real time which means the schedule is in place.

Sonicwall Global VPN Client – Unable to manage networking component. Operating system corruption may be preventing installation error.

Whilst recently trying to install the Sonicwall Global VPN Client I encountered the error “Unable to manage networking component. Operating system corruption may be preventing installation” and the installation failed.

The initial thought was that the firewall and antivirus were affecting the installation so these were disabled. Unfortunately, the installation still failed . After abit of google searching, I came across an article that referred to DNE. For the uninitiated DNE is the acronym for Deterministic Network Enhancer and is often associated with Citrix and Cisco VPNs.

Although, the problem wasn’t related to an installation of Citrix, I found the following fix in a Citrix forum and it worked perfectly for my sonicwall issue. Hopefully it will work for you too.

1. Go to the registry i.e Start > Run > type in regedit.
2. Go to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\MaxNumFilters’
3. If the value is showing as 8, set it to 14.
4. Reboot and retry the installation.

How to increase the size of a hard drive on VMware ESXi and MS Server 2012

Hard drives that hold varying amounts of data will need to expand as the volume increases.

For example, if a fileserver must accommodate 15 new users that need to add their data to the network you will want to extend the file storage by at least a few Gb. In a virtualised environment running MS Windows server 2012 this can be achieved very easily.

Step 1 – Increase the virtual hard disk capacity in VMware (on your ESXi server)

Step 2 – Use server 2012 to configure and recognise the extra space.

Following these steps will expand your current drive and you will not lose data.

Step 1 – Increase the size in VMware

1. Log into the Vmware vSphere client
2. Go to Inventory > Hosts and Clusters
3. Power down the server which requires increased disk space
4. In the left hand server list, right click the server > Go to Edit settings
5. Highlight the Hard disk you wish to increase
6. Under ‘Disk Provisioning’ increase the Provisioned size to your requirements.
7. Click OK and start the virtual machine (VM)

Step 2 – Expand/extend the disk size in Windows Server 2012

1. Log onto your server
2. Go to Computer Management > Disk Management
3. You will now see the existing drive and now some extra ‘Unallocated space’ next to it.
4. Right click on the existing drive and select ‘Extend Volume..’. The extend volume wizard will appear with the maximum disk space selected by default. Click Next
5. The wizard will then apply the change and expand the volume.

When you return to the Computer Management interface you will see that your original drive has increased as required.

How to resolve the ‘Parameter is not a valid backup job or group’ error in Fbackup

I recently installed FBackup software on my server and configured it to do daily, weekly and month end backups. Each night after the daily backup had completed successfully I would come into the office to find the error ‘Parameter “New Backup” is not a valid backup job or group’.

There was no backup in the FBackup interface with the name “New Backup” so I assumed it was a remnant of the initial configuration that had been changed or deleted.



This error will occur after each backup unless the following fix is applied :

Go to C:\Windows\Tasks and remove the backup that has the same name as the one mentioned in the error message. In my case it was “New Backup” and the file I had to delete in the tasks folder was ‘fba_New Backup’.

I deleted this file and the error was never produced again.

Change a product key in Microsoft Server 2012

When installing Microsoft Server it may be necessary to change the product key. An example of this would be installing an evaluation copy for testing and then purchasing a full license for when the server goes into production.

There is no obvious link to add or overwrite a product key so it can be achieved in the following way :

1. Go to the Home Screen of Server 2012 (if you are on the desktop) by pressing the Windows key or point to the lower-right corner of the screen, and then click Search.
2. Type Slui.exe 0x3
3. click the Slui.exe 0x3 icon
4. This will give you the option to enter your new product key. Enter the key and then click Activate.

Your new product key will now be active on your server.