How to Disable the 21 Day Timer for SBS 2003, 2008, and 2011

Here’s the process to prevent SBS2003 from shutting down after 21 days of migration have passed. The basic principle is to disable the SBS Core Service (sbscrexe.exe). The problem is when you just turn off the service, it will restart itself automatically. To achieve this goal follow the steps below:

1. Download process explorer from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653
2. Run Process Explorer and SUSPEND the sbscrexe.exe file.
3. Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SBCore
4. Right click the key and click permissions. Give the Administrators group full control on both the key and child nodes.
5. Refresh the key so you can see all of the registry settings for sbcore and change the Start DWORD value from 2 to 4 to disable the service.
6. Using explorer navigate to the sbscrexe.exe file in the C:\WINDOWS\system32 directory and change permissions on the file to everyone deny.
7. Go back to process explorer and kill the sbscrexe.exe process. If it doesn’t start again then you have successfully disabled the file.

"Active Directory Replication is taking longer than expected" message stops SBS installation

SBS 2008 Event ID 13552 and 13555

Today I'm working a migration from SBS 2008 to SBS 2011.  This error came up.  In order to apply a fix I had to do some digging to get rid of this error.  The new SBS 2011 VM could not become a domain controller until this was fixed so here's what I have done.

Once this process is done then click Yes on the prompt from the new SBS server.  Replication will successfully complete and the setup of SBS 2011 will continue.

- Performing an authoritative restore:

1) Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.

2) At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

net stop ntfrs

3) Click Start -> Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

4) Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\NtFrs\Parameters\Backup/Restore\Process at Startup

5) Right-click the BurFlags entry, and then click Modify.

6) In the Value data box, type D4 and then click OK, on the File menu, click Exit.

7) At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

 net start ntfrs