downloading hotfixes from Microsoft (in this case 943545 - storport)

I was attempting to get a hotfix for the storport driver for Windows Server 2003 x86, but the KB page wouldn't give me a link for it. After some research, I found that if you go this link:
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=943545&kbln=en-us

And then adjust the KB number in the URL, it'll take you to the appropriate hotfix. In my case, KB 943545 was what I was looking for.

The KB article gave no clue as to how to download the hotfix. Very annoying.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943545

shrinking the SBSMonitoring_log.ldf file

After taking steps to address the size issue of the SBS 2008 monitoring file as described here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/07/14/sbs-2008-console-may-take-too-long-to-display-alerts-and-security-statuses-display-not-available-or-crash.aspx

I found that my SBSMonitoring_log.ldf had grown to over 30 GB. The proper size is well less than 1 GB. What we need to do is shrink that LDF file. Here is what I did:

1. Open an elevated SQL Server Management Studio Express

2. Connect to the [servername]\SBSMonitoring database using Windows Authentication

3. Expand Databases and right-click on SBS Monitoring

4. Choose Tasks, then Backup

5. Make a backup of the current database

6. After backing up, right click SBSMonitoring and choose Tasks, Shrink, file.

7. In the opening window, choose Log in the File Type drop down list and click OK.

8. Now the SBSMonitoring_log.ldf file should shrink.

** of note, running the backup in step 4 is recommended, but I didn't run it as I was in a hurry to resolve this problem and it wasn't apparent to me where the backup would go. The C drive would be illogical as I had no space on the C drive. Given my time crunch (the low space on C was causing Exchange problems), shrank the file without backup and it did not cause any problems.

SBS 2008 Monitoring Database Fills to Capacity

On one of my SBS 2008 boxes, I began getting a ton of messages in my event log about the SBS 2008 monitoring database filling to capacity. You'll see events like this:

Log Name: Application

Source: MSSQL$SBSMONITORING

Date: 12/16/2009 4:15:47 PM

Event ID: 1827

Task Category: (2)

Level: Error

Keywords: Classic

User: SYSTEM

Computer: xxx.xxx.com

Description:

CREATE DATABASE or ALTER DATABASE failed because the resulting cumulative database size would exceed your licensed limit of 4096 MB per database.

Log Name: Application

Source: MSSQL$SBSMONITORING

Date: 12/16/2009 4:15:47 PM

Event ID: 1105

Task Category: (2)

Level: Error

Keywords: Classic

User: SYSTEM

Computer: xxx.xxx.com

Description:

Could not allocate space for object 'dbo.EventLog'.'PK_EventLog' in database 'SBSMonitoring' because the 'PRIMARY' filegroup is full. Create disk space by deleting unneeded files, dropping objects in the filegroup, adding additional files to the filegroup, or setting autogrowth on for existing files in the filegroup.

This is resolved by using this process:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/07/14/sbs-2008-console-may-take-too-long-to-display-alerts-and-security-statuses-display-not-available-or-crash.aspx

The description of the fix doesn't match the problem, but it works.

VERY IMPORTANT - this will make the SBSMonitoring_log.ldf very, very large. In my case, it made that file 30 GB, which ate up almost all the space on my C drive, which was a huge problem. See my next post on how to fix that.