Backup saves your ass, Microsoft kicks it hard

Today has been an interesting day where I learned that our backup platform is joy.

The basic scenario is pretty simple. Customer server dies and our on call guy says we need to restore.

Drop a clean Win2003 box onto our virtual platform, run a restore, bingo, first time success. Reboot the machine and...


windows product activation kicks in begging for reactivation. Many hours of hassle
later and no help from the so called 'parter critical support line', which seemed bothered
only about making statistics up about why I was calling, I get the issue resolved myself.

the moral of the story? backup exec works fine and Microsoft Product Activation smacks. Again.

So it just died....

About a week ago our Backup Exec CASO box decided it had had enough of talking to Managed Media Servers. Randomly declaring known working servers to be "unavailable".

The usual checks started, and nothing. Patches checked, removed etc. Nothing.

The solution. Search for any msgq*.dat files on your servers. Delete them.

Voila. Everything works... I'm not happy...