Alexander’s Blog

A client of mine recently had the following issue. They had an HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise edition. The server had 8GB of RAM but in the System Properties in Windows it displayed only 3.25GB of RAM. The CPU type and speed were displayed correctly and the BIOS showed the correct amount of RAM at boot.

You see memory below 4GB due to a limitation in the 32-bit operating systems. It is not specific to any brand (HP, Dell, etc.) The Physical Address Extension (PAE) is what can allow the operating system to address more than 4GB of memory. In Windows Server 2003, PAE is automatically enabled if the server is using hot-add memory devices. If you don’t have hot-add memory support then PAE is not automatically enabled and you would have to manually add the /PAE switch in the boot.ini file to take advantage of memory over 4GB.

The PAE switch needs to be added to all versions of 32-bit Windows that have more than 4GB of memory. The boot.ini should look like this.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS=”Windows Server 2003, Enterprise” /fastdetect /PAE

When you reboot the computer after adding the /PAE switch, you will notice that the General tab of the System Properties lists Physical Address Extension at the end of the Computer section.

Note: On x86 systems, Windows Server 2003 Standard edition only supports up to 4GB of RAM but the Enterprise edition can support up to 32GB of RAM. Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard edition also supports up to 4GB of RAM but Windows Server 2003 Enterprise R2 edition supports up to 64GB. For more detailed system requirements check out this link on Microsoft TechNet’s Web site.

Have you noticed that when you use System Manager in Exchange Server 2003 to browse Mailboxes that the “Last logged on by” column frequently displays incorrect account information? For example, you may have noticed that your mailbox account shows other people listed in the “Last logged on by” column. This is often very confusing for the administrators. They are concerned about the security and finding several people being logged in to other people’s mailboxes is not very comforting. Rebooting the server won’t make a difference and even if your server is up to date with all the patches and hotfixes, the behavior still remains the same.

The reason for this “feature” displaying other users as “Last logged on by” in Exchange is that the other users are querying free/busy time. You can test this easily with a meeting entry and query someone else’s mailbox for free/busy time. You will notice that your name will show up in the “Last logged on by” column.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Solution Accelerator is an agentless tool that will find computers on a network and perform a detailed inventory of the computers using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Remote Registry Service, or the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Using the inventory data, the tool will assess and report whether computers can run Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Application Virtualization (SoftGrid), and Windows Server 2008. This includes assessment of device driver availability and recommendations for hardware upgrades that may be required.

System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista; Windows Vista Service Pack 1; Windows XP Professional Edition

Hardware Requirements:

• 1.6-GHz or faster processor minimum
• 1.5 GB of RAM minimum (2.0GB for Windows Vista)
• 1 GB of available hard-disk space required
• 10/100 Mbps network adapter required

Software Requirements:

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition for storing inventory and assessment data. Microsoft Word 2003 SP2 or Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Excel 2003 SP2 or Microsoft Excel 2007 for generating reports.

CPU Architecture:

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator can only be installed on 32-Bit versions of any of the supported operating systems.

Click here to download this free tool.

Check out these MSDN Virtual Labs and TechNet Virtual Labs if you haven’t already. These are a series of guided, hands-on labs which can be completed in 90 minutes or less. The best part is these labs don’t require any installation and are available to you immediately for FREE. Here are the topics that are currently available to you.

MSDN Virtual Labs

ASP.NET 2.0
ASP.NET
BizTalk Server
Commerce Server
Fritz Onion’s Intro to ASP.NET
Internet Information Services (IIS)
JPlusN (J+N)
Microsoft Expression
.NET Framework 3.0
Soup to Nuts
Visual Studio
Visual Studio 2008
Visual Studio Team System
Visual C#
Visual J#
Visual Basic
Visual C++
Connected Systems
Data Access and Storage
Office
Security
Smart Client
SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2005 Upgrade
Visual SourceSafe
Web Services
Windows Embedded CE 6.0
Windows Live
Windows Mobile
Windows Vista
Windows XP Embedded
TechNet Virtual Labs

TechNet Virtual Labs

Antigen
BizTalk Server
Configuration Manager
Enterprise Search
Exchange Server
Forefront Security
Groove Server
Identity Integration Server (MIIS)
Internet Information Services (IIS)
Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server
Office Communications Server
Office System
Operations Manager
SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2000
SharePoint Server
Systems Management Server (SMS)
Windows Mobile
Windows Rights Management Services (RMS)
Windows Server 2003 R2
Windows Server 2008
Windows SharePoint Services
Windows Small Business Server
Windows Vista

With every new version of Windows the number of Group Policy settings are increased. In Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Microsoft increased to the number of Group Policy settings to approximately 1,800. In Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 the number has been increased to approximately 2,500. That’s a whopping increase of about 700 new policies that you can use to manage your company desktops, security, and some other aspects of your network.

Here are a couple of useful links related to Group Policy:

• Deploying Group Policy Using Windows Vista

• Group Policy Settings Reference Windows Server 2008 Beta 3

• Group Policy FAQs

• Windows Server Group Policy Home