Monthly Archives: October 2020

Restart server from workstation

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Scenario:

You wish to restart the machine “MyServer” from another computer on the network. The usual routine is:

shutdown /r /m \\MyServer /t 0 /f

If shutdown.exe returns an ‘Access is Denied’ error, then you either didn’t run the command with elevated privileges, or “MyServer” is unable to validate your credentials. If so, run the following command in an elevated prompt:

NET USE \\MyServer\IPC$ MyPassword /USER:MyUser

Where MyPassword and MyUser are appropriate credentials for an administrator account on the MyServer machine.

Once it’s run, you’re returned to a prompt and the shutdown command above should work.

Quickbooks DB service won’t stay started after reboot

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This happens sometimes. After a server reboot, clients say they get “Error Code: H202 This company file is on another computer, and QuickBooks needs some help connecting” and you find the QuickbooksDB service is stopped. You start it but it just stops with the error “The QuickBooksDB26 service on Local Computer started and then stopped.  Some services stop automatically if they are not in use by other services or programs.”

This is happening because of contention over port 55333. The DNS server and the QuickbooksDB service both want to use it by default. If the DNS Server service starts before the QuickbooksDB service, DNS grabs it and QuickbooksDB doesn’t choose another available port and just stops.

You can manually resolve this by stopping the DNS Server service, then starting the QuickbooksDB service, then starting the DNS Server service.

To fix permanently,

1. Stop the DNS Server and QuickbooksDB services
2. Reserve the port using netsh from an elevated command prompt:
netsh int ipv4 add excludedportrange protocol=udp startport=55333 numberofports=5
3. Start both services

RRAS loses SSTP certificate binding

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Server 2012 Essentials stopped accepting SSTP connections after automatic certificate renewal using Win-Acme. Found many services weren’t starting.

The fix was to:

  1. Via MMC, copy new certificate from Web to Personal.
  2. In elevated CMD, go to c:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin
  3. WSSPowerShell.exe
  4. Add-WssLocalMachineCert

The process takes a while and may produce errors at the end. However, after it finishes and the server is restarted, all was well.

This was developed using this very helpful blog post:

https://windowsserveressentials.com/2013/04/29/windows-server-2012-essentials-an-error-prevented-the-dashboard-from-opening/

 

 

Activation trouble with O’Print from Oprintware

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The Oprintware product O’Print is an excellent Airprint printer server for Windows and is well worth its modest price (under $20 as of this writing.) We have installed it at many locations and it’s reliable and well-liked.

Upon initial installation, it runs in fully-functional trial mode for 30 days after which you must enter an activation key purchased from Oprintware. However, their activation mechanism frequently goes down, sometimes for months at a time.

If you find yourself unable to activate the program because of the activation service being unavailable (usually an error 12029,) you can perform the following procedure to reset the trial period for another 30 days during which their activation machine may be back online.

This is not a “hack” in the sense that you should do this to avoid paying for the product. It is well worth its very modest price and the developer deserves being paid for such an excellent product. But it will get you out of a situation where a needed function isn’t working anymore and you have to get it working again.

  1. Quit O’Print
  2. Delete the following registry keys and their sub-values:
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\OPrint
    HKCU\AppEvents\EventLabels\option
  3. Delete the following file if it exists:
    C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\settingenv

Now you can re-open OPrint and the 30-day trial will have been reset.