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One of the lessons I have learned the hard-way over the years is to “Never rename a machine/server running SQL Server/IIS or any of the server software”. If you must rename then think twice, tell for yourself the down-time is going to be nothing less than 2 days and then go about formatting the machine, reinstall OS, give the new name and reinstall everything again. If you are brave, then at least uninstall Server Software like SQL Server, IIS, etc. then rename, reinstall everything back. Doing anything else is risky.
Anyways, yesterday I was playing around with one of my VPC Images having Windows 2003 Server, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 & VS 2005. I wanted to install 2007 Office SharePoint Server Beta 2 on this. But I didn’t like the existing Machine Name (Host Name), since it was only a VPC I just went ahead and changed the name. After rebooting, tried working with VS 2005, SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 and everything (Surprisingly!) seemed to work fine. With this false sense of confidence, went ahead and did Microsoft Update, that downloaded and ran the install for SQL Server 2005 SP1. Trouble Started. SP1 install refused to recognize my Authentication for SQL Services (How dare can it do this to me:-) ). After several Internet Searches, I realized I have no other option other than to play dirty.
<PLEASE DON’T TRY IT AT HOME>
Went to RegEdit, I found and replaced all instances of OLDHOSTNAME with NEWHOSTNAME. Did the same with all Groupnames found in Computer management for Groups created by SQL Server 2005. Went and reregistered services using the NEWHOSTNAME in the new “Reporting Services Configuration” tool. Restarted SQL Services. SP1 Install was now happy and went ahead smoothly, but very slowly
</PLEASE DON’T TRY IT AT HOME>
By this time though the problem seemed to be fixed, I realized this is not the best way to do this. Renaming a machine / host is a common problem for which there should be a recommended solution in SQL Server. Thanks to my fellow Microsoft Regional Directors: Kimberly L. Tripp & Scott J Golightly, I got the answer to do this correctly. I tried the following solution given by them in both SQL Server 2000 & SQL Server 2005, everything is now working like a charm now. Thanks KT & Scott.
sp_dropserver oldname
go
sp_addserver newname, local
go
update msdb.dbo.sysjobs
set originating_server = newname
where originating_server = oldname
go
RESTART SQL Server
If you want to check everything is fine and check the machine name registered in SQL Server, use the following code:
SELECT @@ServerName
go
sp_helpserver
go
All the above works the same for both SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. A related problem has a fix at Microsoft KB Article #317241.
Finally the long wait is nearing over.
From last week if you are in an MSDN Subscriber you can download Vista and 2007 Office System Beta 2. I have started downloading them, will install, play around and update my experiences.
Nowadays tons of product teams and folks at Microsoft blog and some of these blogs are excellent resources on a given topic, especially since they are from the horses mouth. The problem has been on how do you discover the existence of a particular blog. If you go to homepage of blogs.msdn.com it does the latest posts and also you to search, but very basic.
Now Microsoft has released Microsoft Web Feeds Home, which is a directory of all Microsoft Product Groups, Teams, Employees blogs irrespective of whether it is in MSDN, Technet (or) in other places. It has got an excellent search (Powered by MSN Search) that allows you to easily discover the blogs on a given topic. I was surprised to see there are more than 3500 entries for “Sharepoint”
If you have been wondering whether your PC will run Vista – Microsoft finally has the answers, they released the Minimum Hardware requirements for Vista. Read this eweek article for details. Basically you need a 1Ghz CPU, 1GB RAM, GPU, 40GB HDD for Vista to run and this should be majority of the PC / Laptops sold in the last few years except for the RAM part which can be easily upgraded.
Personally for me, though my Laptop is 2 years old and time for a replacement; I am not opening my purse yet. I will wait for Vista to get released and Vista Certified Laptops to come out. In the past I have been burned twice, by doing the mistake of buying a new Laptop just before a major Windows launch to find out the laptop doesn’t provide drivers for the new OS. It happened for me with Windows 2000 and then with XP. Hopefully with growing old, I am becoming wiser.
It seems that Indian Airlines, Delays, Lack of Customer Sensitivity all like to often go together in the same sentence.
I am doing this post from Mumbai airport waiting for my Indian Airlines flight to finally start boarding. My flight IC 173 from Mumbai to Chennai was scheduled at 8:30PM, at 8:25PM when few people went near the gate they were told that is delayed to 11PM – absolutely no prior announcement. Then it got rescheduled to 11:30PM. As I write this, it is 11:25PM and no sign of boarding 
It is common knowledge that Mumbai Airport Runway is getting repaired and flights are likely to be delayed by 2hrs; but it leaves me clueless on how the airline didn’t know they are facing a delay before you allow people into Security Check (or) near the gate. On top of all this, like always it follows Indian Airlines tradition of making no announcement till the scheduled minute passes. No use of technology – No SMS, No Signboard alerts not even standard Public Address Systems.
I am a frequent flyer in Indian Airlines and though I love Jet Airways (and rate them as the best Airline in the world in terms of Customer Service) there are lot of things I like in Indian as well; like their A320 Aircrafts and its wide LegRoom, Food, Safety, etc. But incidence like the one today, makes you wonder whether the Airline Staff will ever learn that flying people is all about Customer Service (key being it is a service). So far the Private Airlines getting 75% of MarketShare or competition from half-a-dozen airlines doesn’t seem to have done the magic. May be the government has kept the magic wand to this somewhere and is searching it in the corridors of power!.
Till then Indian Travellers like you and me, have nothing but to pray and thank god for getting the three hours like this to do your pending emails and write useless blogs like this one  (Or) Fly only with Jet Airways (Or) Avoid Travelling to Mumbai / Delhi altogether.
இதுவரை ஆங்கிலத்தில் மட்டுமே வந்த MSN இந்தியா இணையத்தலம் நேற்று முதல் தமிழ் மற்றும் இந்தியில் வெளிவருகிறது. இந்த இணையத்தலம் தரம் செய்த பல தொழில்நுட்பங்களைப் (Unicode, XHTML, DIV only – No Tables, Cross Browser CSS) பயன்படுத்துவது மேலும் மகிழ்ச்சியான ஒரு அம்சம்
It is time of the year for another Tech Ed India – this time Tech Ed India 2006 is happening through out the month of June ’06 across SIX cities – I am sure Microsoft organizers of the event who read this will feel happy for my mention . So if you miss it in one Indian city, you can catch it up on another – New Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad & Bangalore.
This happens to be my Eighth Tech Ed India in a row.
This year I am speaking on a beta product “Office SharePoint Server 2007″ which is already creating ripples of excitement and the topic “Content Management” and “Portals” is something very close to my heart.
The session covers technical fundamentals of the next generation of Microsoft’s Web workspace technology-what’s new, what’s changed, how it works, and why you should deploy it and develop on it. Office SharePoint Server 2007 is much more than an upgrade to SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Content Management Server 2002. This session covers technical fundamentals, feature overviews, new sets of server functionality, and implications for developers and IT professionals alike.
This Tech Ed is full of new upcoming technologies that you don’t want to miss - Vista, 2007 Office System – Client and Server Products, WinFX, LINQ and more…
My earlier blogs on Tech Ed India:
With the huge technology developments happening in Mobile and VoIP today, it is easy to miss out on how it all started. It started 130 years back in Boston, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell summoned his assistant, Thomas Watson, in the world’s first telephone call with his famous words “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you”.
Check this IEEE article that talks about this event in detail.
As I wrote yesterday today is Tamilnadu State Elections and in the first hour of polling itself I voted. Polling booth opens at 7AM and if you go in the early hours, though there will be little crowd you can feel the excitement. So this is my preferred time to vote.
Since I have made up my mind last night itself, I just saw the chart outside for the number of my choice, then quickly spotted the number in the EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) and registered my choice.
[You can see above my Voting Mark. EC marks a line rather than a dot this time]
One of the things I am proud of being an Indian is the vibrant Indian Democracy and Elections. We have enough problems which can serve as good reasons and excuses for not conducting free and fair elections. But in the 58+ years of independence one of the institutions which are living up to the founding fathers dreams is “Election Commission”. This is an autonomous body with guaranteed funding and rights from Indian Constitution. In the last decade, with the path shown by a dynamic Chief Election Commissioner T.N.Seshan, the commission has achieved new heights in its efforts to guarantee free and fair elections. Though there are few anomalies reported like in every election – those are statistically and operationally insignificant for a country with 1.2 Billion People. For more on EC read my earlier post “Need help in Elections? Come to India”
Anyways, coming to the topic – the Tamilnadu State Election which is happening tomorrow May 8, 2006. The election is for electing 234 MLAs for the state assembly. Tamilnadu has been always decisive in its mandate, never an hung assembly has come here. This surprises me on how the people of the state come up with this united mandate every time – this is despite the state having a good percentage of illiterate voters, no serious issue based discussions, only personal accusations and personality based parties. This time the competition is said to be still tougher and my decision has been tough. But with few hours to go to the polling booth I seem to have made up my mind. Let us see whether I remain unchanged when I press the button
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