Shoretel DID hitting Voicemail Directly

I was experiencing an issue with a phone where when someone called a user's DID it would hit their Voicemail.  Checked all the settings and the Call handling and everything was setup correctly where the the call should hit the Voicemail after 5 rings.... Confusing!!

Workaround to fix the issue, was to create a new Route Point in the Director.   First I had to remove the DID from the user's profile.  Then I created a Route Point for the DID and under Call handling I Call Forwarded the DID to the user's extension.  This seemed to have resolved the issue.

Steps

1. Login into the Director
2. Under Call Control Go to Route Point
3. Click on Add New 
4. Type in a name for the Route Point
5. Accept the default extension number or type one that is not in use
6. Enter the user's DID that is giving trouble
7. Under Call Handling  Call Forward Always to the User's internal Extension.

Please note, this is a workaround to get the problem resolved.

How to Telnet into a Shoretel Phone

Yes, there is a way to telnet into a shoretel phone?  Well, when would you ever use this useless piece of information?  Probably never.  I had to do just this yesterday at a site where the phones were setup using Static IP addresses as there is no DHCP server.   User complained that the date and time on the phone was wrong and I just knew that the tech who setup the phone probably put the wrong IP address for SNTP server, so i had to figure out how to fix the issue without standing in front of the physical phone.

When you need to telnet into the phone it has to be done from the ShoreTel HQ server.  You will also need to have the IP address of the phone that you need to telnet into.  This information can easily be gathered from the Director.  Login into the Director and on the Navigation go to IP Phones => Individual IP Phones.

Once you have the IP address of the phone that you need to Telnet into

1.  Login into the ShoreTel Server
2.  Open up a Command Prompt, and change the directory to x:\Program Files\Shoreline Communications\shoreware server  (x is the drive letter where your Shoretel Software is installed to)
3.  Type "phonectl -pw 1234 -telneton xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx".  If you kept  the default password then it is 1234, otherwise type the password that you are using in your environment.   (Please note xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the IP address of the phone that you are trying to telnet into.
4.  You should now be telnetted into the phone, if the telnet fails try Steps 1 through 3 again.

If you found this Post useful please use like button below ( is that too much to ask) and or +1 on Google+.  Thank you!!

Unfortunately, I was not able to set the SNTP server on the phone via telnet, there is no command for it.  If anyone knows a command to set or change a parameter via telnet please post here.   If you just want to simply view the configuration on the phone, after you follow steps above and have telnet connection type:

printsysInfo, this will show you the running config of the phone.

Sophos detecting itself as Virus Shh/Updater-B

Starting Wednesday evening we received numerous phone calls and also automatic alerts regarding Sophos antivirus detecting its own update as malware.

All the PCs running Sophos started throwing alerts generating false positives reporting SHH/Updater-B malware.  We were getting slammed with alerts by email regarding the issue. In panic we called Sophos support but I guess we were not alone as every single Sophos customer was hit with this issue and their phone lines were hijacked with these customers.  We could not get through to them.

Sophos later posted an apology and a  knowledgebase article on how to resolve this problem which can be read here.

Citrix Error: The server certificate is out of date. Connection dropped

You may receive an error "The server certificate is out of date.  Connection dropped."  If you login into your Web Interface server and check that the server certificate is still valid then you will notice that the clock on the computer (client) is set incorrectly.  When the computer first connects to the Xenapp server there are checks to make sure that the security encryption certificates are current by comparing their expiration date to system time on the computer.   This can happen if the date is set in the past or into the future.

To fix this issue, double click on the system time in the taskbar on the bottom right of your screen, click on the "change date and time settings"  then change the date and time to current date and time.

You can now try to connect again.  If it still does not connect, you may need to reboot your computer before making the connection to Xenapp server.

Adobe Acrobat X "Invalid Serial Number" error during install

Experienced an issue when installing Adobe Acrobat X for a client.  We downloaded the software from Adobe Licensing website.  During the install when we entered the Serial Number that was listed on the Licensing Website, we received an error "Invalid Serial Number".  This was Odd because both the Software and the Serial Number was downloaded from Adobe Licensing website. 
We discovered later after speaking with Adobe Customer Service that Adobe had posted wrong installer and that this was an issue.  If someone purchased a license for Adobe Acrobat X Standard, their Licensing website would post an installer for Adobe Acrobat X Pro version instead.   So anyone else experiencing this issue will need to contact customer service.   I was told that Adobe Engineers are working to resolve the problem by posting the correct version of the Installer on the Licensing Portal.

SQL 2008 R2, cannot connect to database from Client

During installation of SQL Server 2008 R2, we were not able to connect to the SQL database server from the client PC.  The error that we would receive is posted in the screenshot below.
After much research we came across this post which was very helpful.  There a few things to look for in the Management Studio and Configuration Manager on the SQL server and this post covers all of the them.  Very helpful.  Thanks to Daniel_Wazenbach.

Error Message:

Please check the post at: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/walzenbach/archive/2010/04/14/how-to-enable-remote-connections-in-sql-server-2008.aspx?PageIndex=2&CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

SPF Records Help

If you need to create a SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record in your DNS and not sure how to do it, I ran into a nice wizard based tool on Microsoft's Website.   I have put the link to the tool here.   One should be familiar with DNS before working on this tool.