Symptoms

ISCSI initiator Software installation version 2.08 fails to install with the following error on a Windows Server 2003 SP2 x64 system, It seemed to install ISCSI service and MPIO software fine but fails when selecting ISCSI Software initiator

“The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an application request”

It would fail even if we are using domain admin account for installing the ISCSI initiator software - fails when using local admin account as well.

Cause

The administrator didn't have full control permission or any other permission assigned on “C:\Windows\Temp” folder

Resolution

Give administrator full control rights and then try to install ISCSI 2.x. This should install ISCSI software without any issues, reason being we need user to have rights to c:\windows\temp folder

This happens because while installation of ISCSI software update.exe queries for c:\windows\temp folder to store installer files temporarily during installation if c:\windows\temp folder doesn’t have relevant permissions the installation would fail, this can be checked and verified by running procmon

Author:Swapnil

Problem

Unable to Install Windows deployment services on windows 2003 Sp2, it goes through fine but when it comes to the final stage, it appears with a Warning

“windows deployment server not yet configured”

When we click on “next” to configure the WDS  it seems to be greyed out. If we try to save the path name, it appears with a warning

The File name or path is too long

The path (C:\test\remoteinstall) is greyed out and doesnt allow us to select different path

Note: Here folder test is a mounted volume

Cause

This issue was caused due to wrong configuration. If we attempt to configure the WDS images folder to a volume mount point on the system/boot partition C drive we would always face this issue as having remoteinstall folder on system volume is not recommended as per TechNet below

Reference article: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc978320.aspx

Resolution

· Since we were trying to configure WDS images folder on boot/system partition we were unable to get WDS working

· We removed mount point located on C drive and gave a drive letter E to the drive

· But still the old path was coded in the WDS settings

· Hence we reset WDS settings using command WDSUTIL /uninitialize-server

· After trying above command we retried to configure WDS server and it was configured without any issues

AUTHOR

Swapnil

Technical lead – Windows Core

Microsoft Corporation

While performing a System state backup using WSB  , the backup fails with following error

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\wbadmin start systemstatebackup -backuptarget:f:
wbadmin 1.0 - Backup command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corp.

Starting to back up the system state [31/08/2010 16:23]...
Retrieving volume information...
This will back up the system state from volume(s) System Reserved (100.00 MB),Local Disk(C:) to f:.
Do you want to start the backup operation?
[Y] Yes [N] No y

Creating a shadow copy of the volumes specified for backup...
Summary of the backup operation:
------------------

The backup of the system state failed [31/08/2010 16:23].
Log of files successfully backed up:
C:\Windows\Logs\WindowsServerBackup\Backup-31-08-2010_16-23-21.log

Log of files for which backup failed:
C:\Windows\Logs\WindowsServerBackup\Backup_Error-31-08-2010_16-23-21.log

There is not enough disk space to create the volume shadow copy on the storage location. Make sure that, for all volumes to be backup up, the minimum required disk space for shadow copy creation is available. This applies to both the backup storage destination and volumes included in the backup.Minimum requirement: For volumes less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 mega bytes of free space. For volumes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space.
Recommended: At least 1 gigabyte of free disk space on each volume if volume size is more than 1 gigabyte.
There is not enough space on the disk.

The failure occurs even if you have plenty of space on the C: Drive and the shadow storage is set to NO LIMIT.

Cause

The system reserved partition  (100 MB) had files from the 3rd party backup application which was taking up the space. We are not allowed to keep any data in the system reserved volume. You should not have anything else than the files below

31/08/2010  19:40    <DIR>          $RECYCLE.BIN
12/08/2009  06:19    <DIR>          Boot
14/07/2009  02:38           383,562 bootmgr
12/08/2009  06:19             8,192 BOOTSECT.BAK
01/07/2010  14:33    <DIR>          System Volume Information
               2 File(s)        391,754 bytes
               3 Dir(s)      73,777,152 bytes free

Resolution

1. Give a drive letter to the System reserved partition
2. Open a Command prompt with Administrative privileges
3. CD into the drive and try dir /a
4. Locate the unwanted folders and move them or delete them out of the system reserved partition.
5. Try a WBAdmin system state backup.
6. If successful , Remove the Drive letter from the system reserved partition.

AUTHOR

Shasank

Support Escalation Engineer – Windows Core

Microsoft Corporation

We get error "object reference not set to an instance of an object copy errors encountered " when we try to update Media content of a media point created using MDT 2010. When we save output log shows errors below

Output error:

Copied: AB001:\Task Sequences with Replace option
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Copy errors encountered, copying will continue: 1 error(s) reported.
Copied: AB001:\Selection Profiles with Replace option
Copied standard folders.
Boot images updated.
Setting up x86 boot image.
Boot configuration editing completed.
Reset read-only attributes.

Starting: "C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\AMD64\OSCDIMG.EXE"  -u2 -m -o -h -b"C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\boot\ETFSBOOT.COM" "D:\share\Media\Content" "D:\share\Media\LiteTouchMedia.iso" > "C:\Users\test\AppData\Local\Temp\Update-MDTMedia.1111\Update-MDTMedia-1000.log" 2>&1

Screen shot:

Cause

This happens if we try to create a media deployment point in same folder as deployment share

E.g. deployment share folder would be in c:\deployment share

If Media deployment folder is in same folder e.g. c:\deployment share\media we won’t be able to update the media point it will fail with error "object reference not set to an instance of an object copy errors encountered”

Resolution

Make sure Media deployment folder is located on a different location

E.g. If deployment share folder would be in c:\deployment share

Media deployment point folder should be created as c:\media.

Try updating the media deployment point now and it should succeed without any issues

If we try to Install Windows deployment services, it goes through fine but when it comes to the final stage, it appears with a Warning

windows deployment server not yet configured.

When we click on “next” to configure the WDS  it seems to be grayed out. If we try to save the path name, it appears with a warning

The File name or path is too long

The path (C:\remote\123reminst) is grayed out and doesn't allow us to select different path

Result

We were unable to get WDS configured on windows 2003 Sp2 server

Cause

This issue can be caused due to incorrect configuration. If we try to configure the WDS images folder on a volume mount point on the system/boot partition C drive this issue can happen

Reference article: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc978320.aspx

Resolution

· Since we were trying to configure WDS images folder on boot/system partition we were unable to get WDS working

· We removed mount point located on C drive and gave a drive letter E to the drive

· But still the old path was coded in the WDS settings

· Hence we reset WDS settings using command WDSUTIL /uninitialize-server

· After trying above command we retried to configure WDS server and it was configured without any issues

Cheers

Swapnil