AD Replication Status Tool killed

Once again our beloved Microsoft Company took care of us sysadmins to not get bored around Christmas. If you have tried to run the Active Directory Replication Status Tool (ADREPLSTATUS) recently you could have noticed that it simply stopped working with the nasty error pop-up:

"The License has expired"

Note the capital letter L! Not ANY license. THE (ultimate) License. Shenanigans!

The problem hides within the license.conf file where – BEHOLD – Feature Expiration="2012-12-08T21:39:37.7614384-08:00" Name="CoreEngine"/>, etc. can be found. The problem is – the file is signed, it wouldn’t do you any good to change the DateTime values there. I am quite certain I didn’t agree upon any expiration when installing…

And since on the official resource page

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/12707.active-directory-replication-status-tool-adreplstatus-resources-page.aspx

you CANNOT leave a comment (and, no, there is NO new version as of 12/09/2012) I decided to post this problem here, probably some of you, dear colleagues, has better connections to the bastion of nitwits there. Until then feel free to brush up your REPADMIN and DCDIAG command line memory.

http://redmondmag.com/Articles/2012/07/01/5-Free-Microsoft-Tools-for-Top-Active-Directory-Health.aspx?Page=2

30 comments

alan says:

2012-12-09 at 23:46

Thanks for posting this. I was using it on Friday to fix and fix a problem, just went to check it over today and found this. Please its not just me 🙂
1. moodjbow says:
  
  2012-12-10 at 08:37
  
  I just wrote to Aidan (http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=13382), see what happens. Probably nothig though, judging from the “MS cutting experience” with other tools and products and from Aidan’s firm determination to wipe my comments from his blog without any explanation 😉
Lethe says:

2012-12-10 at 11:22

Well at least I know I’m not the only one facing this problem, of course this happens in the moment where I need the tool to troubleshoot replication in a complex environment…

Well it seems I will need to go back to the old way of doing stuff, I hate this MS attitude of giving you a good tool and for no apparent reason “removing” it like this…

I don’t remember accepting any “trial” or time limited thing. I doubt MS will take any time to fix this…
1. moodjbow says:
  
  2012-12-10 at 13:18
  
  Hi Lethe, no, actually I downloaded and installed the 1.0 version Sunday on a brand new PC (just to double-check) and noticed that there were no agreements and restrictions whatsoever. Actually you wouldn’t even see the “installation completed” pop-up at the end.
Allen Visser says:

2012-12-10 at 13:17

Ive become so reliant on this great tool and was going to use it as a fast GUI check while I was away overseas over Xmas, to check that all was well on AD.
What to do now? I dont like the old Repadmin/ DcDiag type tools. You could accidentally miss something. What now MS? You guys make us break our bones keeping up with certs, perhaps we need persistent tools? Not cool boys.
Richard Doyle says:

2012-12-10 at 13:41

There is a new release pending for this tool set today. I will post here again when completed. Apologies for the inconvenience the license expiry caused. Thanks.
Richard Doyle says:

2012-12-10 at 16:02

The new release with the updated license file is live on the Microsoft website.

Thanks.
1. moodjbow says:
  
  2012-12-10 at 17:09
  
  Richard, thank you for the quick fix, I hope everyone here appreciates it.
Justin says:

2012-12-10 at 16:23

Thanks to everyone who reported this error. If you encounter this error, please download the tool again and run the installer to fix the issue. An updated version of the tool is posted today to the Microsoft Download Center at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30005.

Justin [MSFT]
1. moodjbow says:
  
  2012-12-10 at 17:18
  
  Justin, thank you for providing the link here.
  To our readers: the version shown is still 1.0, but the license file is “extended” to 2013-06-08.
  We hope until then some release cadence can be agreed upon 😉
sahint@outlook.com says:

2012-12-11 at 11:37

hello, i have download and install the new version today, but the license file status date its the same as before -> 2012-12-08. mhhh….:-(
1. moodjbow says:
  
  2012-12-11 at 20:29
  
  Hello sahint, please try to uninstall, check that there are no files & folders left and then install again. It SHOULD be up to 2013-06-08, otherwize you have downloaded the old version for some reason (cached?). Double check the installated files if you want before that: many dlls and exes have in the new version “date modified” value of 10/12/2012 and the repl.exe has a version number of 2.3.20717.1 instead of the old 2.2.20717.1
sahint says:

2012-12-15 at 19:15

hi moodjbow, the problem was the proxyserver at work :-), j have change/select a another proxy and downloaded again. now is the version number 2.3…and the tool is started. 🙂 …thanks for help….
Fredrik Forsell says:

2013-02-15 at 13:14

Is there a reason for the time limitation of the license? Our security procedures make is a hassle to install a new version, and it seems like unnecessary work if there are no new features.
moodjbow says:

2013-02-15 at 20:46

Better ask MS. I can only speculate on that, but my feeling is that this is a nice mechanism to reserve a possibility to convert it to a commercial product in an unforeseeable future. 😉

Comments are closed.