SQL 2008 R2 ISO and VPC

I had to upgrade a SQL 2008 instance on one of my VPC’ and about halfway through the install, it crashed with unknown exception, and complained about error code 2337.

After a bit of digging, I found the 2 links below that basically explain that the problem isn’t actually with the ISO, but with VPC’s ISO reader.  Therefore, if you do have this problem, there are a number of alternatives:

1. Extract the ISO on your local machine and copy the files to the VPC and install from there
2. Install a 3rd party ISO manager on the VPC, copy the ISO to the VPC or allow it to be accessed from the VPC and use the 3rd party tool to mount the ISO
3. Burn the ISO to DVD and mount the physical DVD into the VPC

As far as 3rd party ISO tools go, I usually either go with PowerISO or Virtual Clone Drive, both of which have a free version.

As promised, here are the 2 links that I mentioned above:

• http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/550502/r2-rc0-install-problem-on-virtual-pc-2007 – Microsoft Connect
• http://www.sqlskills.com/BLOGS/BOBB/category/SQL-Server-2008-R2.aspx – Bob Beauchemin’s Blog

Filed under: SQL, SQL 2008, VPC

Enabling Trace Logs in CRM 4.0

Quite often there will be a time when you need to dig a little deeper to find out what’s the problem.  The following link takes you to the full kb article from Microsoft, but a quick summary to get it up and running quickly follows.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907490

1. Run regedit.exe
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\MSCRM
3. Add DWORD TraceEnabled, set to 1
4. Add STRING TraceDirectory, set to whatever you need it to be ~ note that this makes little difference as in CRM 4.0 the trace logs are stored in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Dynamics CRM\Trace
5. Add DWORD TraceRefresh, set to between 0 and 99, I just go with 50

Filed under: CRM 4, tracing