Remote Desktop Nirvana

Every once in a while, I stumble across some feature, option, utility, or application that simultaneously makes me say "Wow! That's amazing!", and "D'oh! I should have known about that!". These are great features / options / utilities / apps that are no secret, but aren't necessarily well publicized.

I received an e-mail at 9:30pm this Saturday evening from a client who suddenly started getting errors from a GP related SQL Server job. We started a GoToMeeting session to look at the SQL Server issue, and as soon as I saw his desktop I noticed something out of the ordinary. He said "We're looking at Server A now, but if you want to look at Server B, just click it in the list on the left."

This is what I saw:



Never having seen this before, I asked him if this was some type of 3rd party server management app that he uses--perhaps like a VNC or Citrix management console of some kind, something I have seen at other clients. "No, it's just part of the Server 2003 Admin Pack."

Sure enough, this is a fantastic utility included in the free Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools Pack. The tools pack includes several tools, but the one I was most interested in is the "Remote Desktops" MMC snap-in.

The Tools can be downloaded here. Just make sure to download the SP1 version, as the original version, which is still available for download, does not allow you to connect to a Terminal Server running on a port other than 3389. After installation, the Remote Desktops app should appear under your Administrative Tools program group.

This MMC snap-in allows you to save multiple RDP profiles in a single place, avoiding the need for multiple RDP files ( I currently have 13 of them sitting on my desktop) or hunting through the MRU (most recently used) list on the Remote Desktop Connection app window. Once you setup the server connections, with just a single click on a server name on the left, you can quickly login to a server and also switch from one RDP session to another.

It doesn't offer all of the connection options of the Terminal Services Client, but I generally don't need the extra options:



And something that I find very valuable: It allows you to have an RDP session that will automatically fill the MMC window, regardless of size or aspect ratio. You can choose to fill the MMC window, choose a standard desktop size, or even specify a custom resolution.



So I'm no longer limited to the standard 1024, 1280, or full screen options. (That is actually the only feature I appreciated in Virtual PC vs. virtual server--the ability to dynamically resize the VPC window.) I like the size and convenience of the Terminal Server Client full screen mode, but it's a hassle when I need to minimize or move the RDP window out of the way, or when I have to work with multiple sessions in full screen mode.

The Remote Desktops app effectively let's me have several simultaneous near-full-screen sessions in a single desktop app. Very handy when jumping between different servers throughout the day.

If you are only working in a single RDP connection at a time, the standard MS TSC app in full screen mode is great, as it gives you ALT+Tab, the Windows key, and other shortcuts that aren't available otherwise. But if you have to bounce between multiple servers, the Remote Desktops utility is much more convenient.

Because it is an MMC snap-in, it does have the standard MMC navigation and UI quirks, but given what it offers, it's a great solution.


UPDATE: Reader Jivtesh brought up an excellent point: What about this feature in Server 2008? He informed me that it is a standard feature in Windows Server 2008, but after looking for it, I didn't see an icon for it under Administrative Tools.

It appears that it may not have an icon by default in Server 2008, but it is present by default, and is very easy to get working.

Here is the KB article with instructions.

To open Remote Desktops from the MMC

1. Click Start, click Run, type mmc in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. On the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in.

3. In the Available snap-ins list, click Remote Desktops, and then click Add.

4. Click OK.

You can then do File --> Save As to save an MSC file that you can launch to open Remote Desktops.

Open additional Exchange mailboxes

This feature requires you to be using a Microsoft Exchange Server e-mail account.

If you have delegate access permission for other Exchange mailboxes, you can specify which mailboxes to open in Microsoft Outlook.

1. On the Tools menu, click E-mail accounts, select View or change existing e-mail accounts, click Next, select the Exchange account, and then click Change.
2. Click More Settings, then click the Advanced tab.
3. Under Mailboxes, click Add, and then select the mailboxes to add.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP010030561033.aspx

You receive error "Someone is clearing company files and you cannot get into this company" when logging into a company - The Clear Data process

This one was actually a very interesting case reported on the Dynamics GP newsgroup, so I figured I needed to get to the bottom of it. The very frustrated user reported seing the following error trying to get into a company in Dynamics GP.



In an attempt to replicate this issue, the most logical place to start was to login into Dynamics GP as my 'sa' user and open the Clear Data window and try to do something there.



Since Clear Data is a distructive process, the Dynamics GP Development team figured they had to find a way to prevent users from accessing the system while this process was being executed by, perhaps, the system administrator. This is how the Clear Data Comp reserved user ID was born. When the window is first accessed by the system administrator, Dynamics GP checks for any users currently available in the system. If there are no users, it will display the Clear Data window and create a record for the Clear Data Comp user ID in the system databases User Activity table (DYNAMICS.dbo.ACTIVITY). The following query shows the content of the ACTIVITY table.



If a second user attempts to access the same company, the code will check for the Clear Data Comp user activity record before allowing the user to access the company. If the record is found, the system will issue the error message originally described.

Since this user ID is internal to the application, there are no locks placed or sessions logged in the tempdb..DEX_LOCK or tempdb..DEX_SESSION tables respectively. If you noted the query results, the Clear Data Comp user ID's SQL session ID is 0.

What happens when Dynamics GP crashes in middle of running Clear Data?

If the system crashes in middle of the Clear Data process or SQL Server becomes unavailable, the ACTIVITY record for the Clear Data Comp user ID will not be properly released. Hence, when users attempt to log back into the company they will receive the same error message.

To correct this problem, the system administrator must log into SQL Server Management Studio and remove the record by running the following query:

-- created by Mariano Gomez, MVP
DELETE FROM ACTIVITY WHERE USERID = 'Clear Data Comp'

Hope this helps in your troubleshooting efforts and to understand another one of those 'old' Dynamics maintenance utilities.

How to change net time servers in Windows

How to change net time servers in Windows

Accurate time settings in Windows is crucial, especially if one is using Kerberos for authentication. This is because Kerberos relies on time stamps as a part of its security token mechanism. As long as all of your clients and servers are synching time, then Kerberos will work pretty well. But what if you also want your clocks to maintain accuracy? Like, atomic clock accuracy?I had a user in one of our remote offices complain that her workstation clock was three minutes off of her digital atomic clock that she always uses. I looked at the time on my workstation and noticed the same thing. I decided to see what time servers our Domain Controllers were syncing to. Can you take a guess? That's right, they were set to sync with time. microsoft.com. I wanted to change the time servers to a more accurate group, so I decided on using the time servers at ntp.org. According to many websites I have visited, the NTP.org servers are more accurate, and more reliable that the Microsoft time server (Can anyone substantiate that for me?).Want to know what I did to set the ntp servers as the default time servers? Simple, from the command line I ran the following command:

net time /setsntp:"0.pool.ntp.org 1.pool.ntp.org 2.pool.ntp.org"

This set the server to use the following time servers in a round robin format:

0.pool.ntp.org
1.pool.ntp.org
2.pool.ntp.org

After that I restarted my w32time services to make the changes active right away:

net stop w32time
net start w32time

After the services came back up, the last thing I wanted to do was to force synchronization with the new time servers, so I ran the following command:

w32tm /resync /rediscover

BAM! Time was correct again! Now by default in a Windows 2003 domain environment all clients and member servers are supposed to automatically sync with the primary domain controller. That is good news for you, because you only have to make this change on your primary DC.If you don't want to use the NTP.org servers, here is a list of other time servers provided by NIST.gov: (List of time servers)