Tag Archives: Windows 2003

How to reset an administrator password on a Windows 2003 server

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I found an old server under a desk at work and needed to determine if there was any usable data on it before disposing of it. It was a standalone Windows 2003 r2 server which was a member of a workgroup and not our domain so I could not use a domain password. I asked around, and nobody knew the password and none of the old passwords given to me worked either.

I had a copy of Hiren’s boot cd which I booted the server from, and chose the password tools. In there is Active Password Changer which was able to find the SAM file, and get the user names from it. I was then able to set the Administrator user to have no password.

You do need physical access to the server to perform this, but I had reset the password to blank in about 3 minutes with the help of this free tool.

Cannot log into Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager Console after a fresh install

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I have had this problem from day one with Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager and am yet to find a satisfactory solution. When Symantec Endpoint Protection first came out I was very excited as I had heard a lot about it at Symantec vision, and they had worked hard to improve the product and make it less system intensive and with a smaller footprint than previous versions of Symantec corporate and enterprise antivirus products.

The first time I installed it was on a Windows 2003 server running Lotus Notes Domino server. After installing it, I had the issue with being unable to log into the console, so I checked the event logs and found the “The Java Virtual Machine has exited with a code of -1, the service is being stopped” error , and noticed that the SemSrv service would also stop.

I would restart the SemSrv service, but each time I tried to log in, it would stop the service again. I uninstalled the software, rebooted, re-installed and had the exact same problem. I installed it using the default database each time as we would only have less than 50 users which was well within the limits and chose all the default port settings.

After 3 hours of troubleshooting different install methods, I gave Symantec support a call. They went through all the same things as I had already done, changing ports, using a custom website, making registry changes and changes to IIS. After around 4 hours of troubleshooting over a few days, they told me that I should uninstall Lotus Notes and try it (not possible due to the fact that we need to get email!!). This was the end result for me, you can’t have Notes and SEPM software on the same server.

We also had a Sharepoint server available, so I tried to install it on that with no luck either. I also thought I would give it a go on a Server running WSUS, again a no go after lots of installs, and re-installs.The only way I got it to install was on a fresh, bare bones Windows 2003 install with nothing else installed. This is my recommendation, just get a fresh install of Windows 2003, or even Windows XP and put the console on that. You could easily virtualise it anyway, so you woudn’t need to buy a fresh server.