For future reference the DHCP settings are:

OPTION 66 = IP OF WDS Server
OPTION 67 = \boot\x86\wdsnbp.com


1st I tried changing the group from distribution to security, but, I still got the same error.

Then I found this post. Turns out the GUI doesn’t completely change the object. You need to run the following command from the Exchange Management Shell (Exchange 2007 for me):

Set-Distributiongroup–identity

In my case it was:

Set-DistributionGroup -identity AmbCare

You can read the linked post for the command for Exchange 2010.

To get the GUID of the dangling SR’s run this command from any host in the pool:

xe sr-list –minimal params=uuid host=”<not in database>”

Then run this command using the GUID’s from the above command to remove them:

xe sr-forget uuid=%dangling-SR-GUID%

Repeat the command to remove each of your dangling storage repositories.

You will need to have access to a FTP server to host your own Xmarks files. You can host your own FTP server with Filezilla Server or use space on a web server if you have FTP access to it. (Setup of Filezilla is beyond the scope of this post. I may add a tutorial on this in the future.)

Here are the steps we will follow to use Xmarks BYOS:

1. uninstall Xmarks
2. create a folder on your FTP server
3. install Xmarks BYOS
4. configure Xmarks to use your FTP site

Step 1: Uninstall Xmarks

• Open Firefox
• Click on Tools
• Click on Ad-Ons
• Highlight Xmarks
• Click Uninstall
• Reboot Firefox

Step 2: Setup your FTP server

• Create a folder on your FTP server called “Xmarks”

Wow that was easy wasn’t it?

Step 3: Install Xmarks BYOS

• Head here for the installer
• Click on the Continue to Download button
• Click the Download button
• Accept all prompts and reboot Firefox to complete the install

Step 4: Configure Xmarks BYOS

• Enter your FTP site username and password in the appropriate fields.
• Enter the URL to your FTP site
• i.e. ftp://ftp-server-address/xmarks/bookmarks.json
• i.e. ftp://ftp-server-address/xmarks/passwords.json
• Click Synchronize now
• If you want to sync your passwords click on the Sync tab and check the passwords check box
• Enter the password you want for your passwords file. This cannot be the same as your Xmarks BYOC password.
• Click OK to finish

You can repeat steps 3 & 4 on as many computers are you require. Just make sure the settings are exactly the same or sync will not work.

If you’re using your own FTP server make sure to make backup copies of your .json files.

UPDATE 29/09/10:

Thanks to Jonathan & Alicia we see that BYOS will not work with Firefox 4.0, whenever it is released. However, Alicia reports that these instructions do work with the latest Xmarks release, which you can find info on here.

I was at my wits end with the updater and was contemplating exporting the WordPress MySQL database and installing it on to a new install folder. My best guess was that the issue was related to a core file that wasn’t overwriting correctly from my FTP upload, as it has happened before but with other side effects. After I exported my SQL file I noticed it was 6.3MB, which is huge. I dug into the SQL table and noticed that wp_options was about 6MB alone. Further inspection showed a bunch of RSS files that turn out to be cache files that are supposed to be purged. There were also lots of references to old plugins that I no longer used. My initial thought was to manually delete these entries but there were 300+ of them and that would have taken way too long. It could have also lead to me deleting an entry that was needed. A quick Google search turned up this plugin. I deactivated my current plugins so I could activate the Clean Options Plugin (internal server errors after enabling plugins were another symptom I was seeing) and ended up cleaning up over 350 orphaned entries! The wp_options table is now down to 50KB.

Now my plugin and core updates all work correctly. My dashboard also is able to load more than just a couple widgets and in general the admin interface just works better.

The Fix:

The Aspire One has a built-in BIOS recovery routine, making it possible to flash the BIOS even if the system doesn’t boot anymore. It’s only meant for emergencies and may void your warranty, so use at your own risk.

• First format an USB stick with FAT.
• Download the latest BIOS, and put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the stick. Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD, that’s important.
• Insert the USB stick into the net book.
• Turn the Aspire One off, make sure both battery and AC adapter are connected.
• Press Fn+Esc, keep it pressed and press the power button to turn the AA1 on.
• Release Fn+Esc after a few seconds, the power button will be blinking.
• Press the power button once. The Aspire One will now initiate the BIOS flash, do not interrupt it under any circumstances. After a while the power button will stop blinking, and the AA1 will reboot shortly after.
• The BIOS has been flashed and all settings reset to default.

I followed the process and the Aspire One did exactly what it was supposed to do. I`d day the entire fix took 20min, from beginning the search to finishing the boot into XP.

I had created a couple generic Win2k8 R2 VMs last week with 25GB OS drives. I hadn’t decided which services would be running on the boxes and 25GB would be more than enough for most applications. The only problem was that I had decided to install Sharepoint 2010 Foundation on one and SQL 2008 R2 on the other and both require 80GB of disk space. Good thing XenServer 5.6 and Window Server 2008 R2 make it easy to increase the disk size.

In XenCenter 5.6 select the virtual disk from the storage tab of the virtual machine, click Properties, select Size and Location, then increase the size of the disk.

Super simple, eh? This feature has been available for quite some time, v4.1 I believe, via the CLI but was exposed to the GUI in v5.6.

Now you need to extend the partition in Windows. Right click My Computer select Manage, select Disk Management, right click on the disk you want to extend, and select Extend. This starts the Extend Volume Wizard. Follow the prompts to complete the process. By default Win2k8 R2 extends the partition to the maximum available space available. So this wizard is just about clicking next, next, finish.

Take a look at the Citrix KB article for more info and additional instructions for the CLI procedure and how to extend a partition in Linux operating systems.

Note: Windows 2003 and XP are not able to extend the partition while the OS is running. You need to attach the disk to another VM and use DiskPart to extend the volume.

To work around this behavior and display devices when you click Show hidden devices (source):

• Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
• At a command prompt, type the following command , and then press ENTER:
  • set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
• Type the following command a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
• start devmgmt.msc
• Troubleshoot the devices and drivers in Device Manager.

NOTE: Click Show hidden devices on the View menu in Device Managers before you can see devices that are not connected to the computer.

• When you finish troubleshooting, close Device Manager.
• Type exit at the command prompt.

Note that when you close the command prompt window, Window clears the devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 variable that you set in step 2 and prevents ghosted devices from being displayed when you click Show hidden devices.