In the first two parts of this article I have gone over some issues with Windows Small Business Server 2008 and the Server / Exchange version of ESET, let’s pickup where we left off.

Within the next 15 minutes I arrive at the customer’s site, power had come on about 10 minutes before I had arrived. I fired up the SBS server and found and installed the ESET removal tool. Unfortunately that still did not allow the computers to connect to the server.

By this time another tech showed up to lend a hand, praise the Lord! Since the customer had the new router I quickly swapped to it and made sure the router settings allowed DHCP. This prevented me from trying to change the Cisco ASA 5500 settings and it also allowed the customers computers to get on the internet for their cloud based program.

This however did not allow access to email, which was setup to go through Exchange on the SBS machine, they also could not access to their local programs. It turns out that the inexpensive Cisco / Linksys had installed Pure Networks, Network Magic, a program I used to see with AOL (AO Hell for most of us). This program of course would not uninstall in normal or safe mode, possibly because it is junk or maybe due to the canceled install by the previous technician. Revo uninstaller saved the day!

BUT… (Don’t you just hate that word) the network became really instable, machines dropping off the network, locking up all kinds of mischief. Fortunately I just happened to look at the gigabit switch and boy-oh-boy were the lights blinking in a frenzy. One by one I unplugged LAN cables at the switch until the lights went back to the normal blinking pattern. Ok, it was LAN plug 38, now to trace that throughout the building. As luck would have it in the next room was a Ricoh copier / printer / FAX and it was connected to port 38. The yellow NIC light was blinking at a billion and one miles per second and the green NIC light was off. Hmmm, ok, the NIC is upset with all that has been going on. Turn off the copier, wait 3 minutes, turn it back on, SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). No luck, the NIC immediately went back into its conniption fit. Fine, be that way, I just won’t connect it to the network.

Well, the network was stable again, that was good news. The SBS server was still not allowing access, that was the bad news. After delving into the settings John found that the NIC and some network settings were screwy and that was the ugly. After some research it was concluded that the ESET security software had “manipulated” some settings and not released them. Then apparently Network Magic had “manipulated” some other settings and “adjusted” the NIC. He had to manually delete both sets of those settings, remove the NIC from the hardware list, reboot the server and then reconfigure the NIC and some network settings, reboot the server again and presto, it was back on the network and internet.

So we are back to where the customer was 30 hours ago, no anti-virus security on the server but the network was up and running, programs and email could be accessed and work could be performed.