We were asked to look at a server recently that was reporting problems with the WID (Windows Internal Database) not starting. This is also known as Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition or SQL Server Embedded. The SQL Server instance used by Windows Sharepoint Services was reporting some errors and in this case wouldn’t start.

The event log showed the following error.

The application event log also had a few of the following type of errors.

One of the databases was corrupt and it turned out that the database needed to be removed and re-installed, but Windows Internal Database wasn’t listed in Programs and Features (Add/Remove Software in Windows 2003 Server). If this happens to you try these instructions.

Firstly, run the following command from a command-line if you run a 32 bit server;

and this one if you run a 64 bit server;

This will uninstall the Windows Internal Database. Next you have to re-install it. The easiest way to do this is to run the WSS 3 SP1 installation routine. Choose the ‘Basic’ installation option when installing WSS and WID will be reinstalled and used to store the WSS data.

Choose the basic option

I was in a tight spot one night after I decided to move a Windows 2008 based VM from a VMWare based host server to a Hyper-V based host.

This resulted in most of the hardware changing within the guest VM and in turn forced a reactivation of the OS. The problem was I couldn’t get past the activation dialogue to install the integration tools in Hyper-V to get the network drivers installed. No network drivers meant no network card, which meant no activation.

This article made it easy.

http://www.petri.co.il/bypass-windows-server-2008-activation.htm

Great stuff.

We are great fans of virtual machines here at G2 and we regularly use both VMWare and Windows Hyper-V to virtualise devices, particularly old legacy servers. Both VMWare and MS provide the ability to create snapshots of virtual machines, effectively saving the state of a virtual machine and it’s hard disks at a given point in time.

With MS Hyper-V there are times when you need to manually merge a snapshot back in to it’s parent HD. This is really simple, but be prepared with a cup of coffee as it can take a while.

1) Firstly navigate to the folder containing your snapshots. By default this is;

C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsHyper-VSnapshots

Find the snapshot folder you are interested in. Inside the folder will be a snapshot differencing file with the extension .avhd. Change this extension to .vhd.

2) Open Hyper-V Manager and click Edit Disk from the right-side nav bar

Select Edit Disk

 2) Select Next at the introduction screen.

Introduction

3) Select the file you renamed in step 1. Click Next.

Select VHD file

4) Select the option to merge. This will merge the snapshot with the parent VHD hard disk. You will need sufficient disk space for the resulting file. A good rule of thumb is that you will need enough temporary space for both files added together. Click Next.

Choose Merge

5) The merge will start. This can take some time (we recently merged a 100GB VHD with a 60GB snapshot and it took several hours).

Waiting to merge

That’s it. When the merge has completed you’l be able to fire up your VM in Hyper-V Manager.