BE 12.5 - How to remove servers from "Connect to Media Server" list?

[dfosbenner]

I am running Backup Exec 12.5.

When I start the remote administrator, and the "Connect to Media Server" box appears, the "Server" drop down list displays two old media servers that are no longer in use.  Also, once I am connected to a functioning server, when I click the "Network" menu, there's a list of media servers in the menu, some of which are no longer used.  I would like to remove the old unused servers from both lists.

The only documentation I can find that explains how to do this is http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/230872.htm.

This document explains two steps, removing the old servers from the registry, and removing the BESERVER object from Active Directory.  I've used the steps in this document in previous versions of BE with success, but now with BE 12.5 I've followed these steps exactly, trying 3 times, but I am unable to remove any of the old servers.  With BE 12.5, the "Menu Server List" registry key contains only "15,", and no server names, so that part of the document doesn't seem to apply anymore.

As for the BESERVER object, I've deleted it, replicated the changes to all domain controllers, then restarted the BE services.  The BESERVER objet is recreated, but this process has no effect on the list of media servers.

It appears that with BE 12.5, Symantec has changed the way previously used servers are stored.  Does anyone have any info on how to remove these?

Message Edited by David Fosbenner on 01-06-2009 09:25 AM

[Kevin_Cotreau]

I JUST did this exactly on BE 12.5 and it worked perfectly. I would stop all services on every BE server you have, CLOSE any media server applications anywhere, delete that BESERVER ad object, force replication, and wait a few hours, then try to restart the BE services.

If for any reason those objects are not really gone from AD when you start BE, it will probably find them and repopulate the list, or if the application is open, I suspect it may write the list back as you exit.

[dfosbenner]

The old entries I'm seeing in the connect to list don't appear to be coming from Active Directory, but seem to be on my local PC only.  I say this because another PC I use the Remote Admin on do not have these entries, and neither do the media servers.  Only one PC has them.

I attempted to uninstall BE Remote Admin from the PC in question, and this didn't succeed.  it didn't produce any errors, but the entry for BE is still in Add/Remove, and there's still a ton of files in the BE folder.  I used the latest doc from Symantec that I could find to manually remove BE.  (Doing a reinstall and another uninstall didn't work).  Even having done the manual uninstall, there were still a LOT of old entries in the registry for Backup Exec, going back a few versions even.

After wiping out as much as I could, and doing a fresh install of BE RA 12.5, and then LiveUpdate, I'm back where I started, with 2 extraneous entries in the connect to list.

I guess I'll just have to add this to the growing list of things that just aren't right with BE, and put up with it.

[Kevin_Cotreau]

That is actually good news regarding AD. At least you know it is local now.

Is there a chance you had a local version of SQL Server or SQL Express that could be holding the entries?

I can't tell for sure from what you said, but did you search the registry for the string containing the non-existent server name? I could interpret your comment two ways.

I would also do an advanced file search by hitting F3 for *.* containing text "servername" (minus the quotes). Check out the files that are returned.

[dfosbenner · Accepted solution]

Kevin - it's FIXED !!

Ready for this?

I did a Windows search on a few folders, the only criteria I searched for was that files were modified on today's date, figuring that the list of recently used servers is probably updated each time the BE Remote Admin is started.

I found a file called "user.config" in this location:

C:\Documents and Settings\(my user name)\Local Settings\Application Data\Symantec_Corporation\BkupExec.exe_StrongName_qlwvfcithy432w2rcmd1dn0kfn1fr5rb\12.5.2213.0

I opened the file with notepad, and voila, are all the entries in the Connect to list, including the ones I want to get rid of.  I deleted the lines for the entries I want to remove.  (They are in two places, so search the entire file).

I then restarted BE, and the old entries are gone.

Oh Symantec...if you could just document some of this stuff and make our lives easier!!!

Message Edited by David Fosbenner on 01-06-2009 02:01 PM