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Windows and other products coming End of Support information

Microsoft has an industry leading support lifecycle for it's products with business software generally getting 10 years support and consumer products 5 years, but even then the end of support surprises some individuals and you need to be aware to ensure you are not caught out. Our support also requires people to adopt service packs within 12-24 months of them being released, depending on the products. here along with all the obsolete products here. Why do I mention all this now, after all, this is...

Published Thu, Feb 4 2010 8:26 AM by David Overton

Filed under: Windows 7, Vista and XP, Support and Tools, Windows Server 2003, Microsoft, Windows Client, Windows XP, Partner, Windows 7, Windows Vista and XP, Windows Vista
Active Directory Health Check - Make sure your AD is healthy before you migrate SBS 2003 to SBS 2008

Given the recent comments about AD validation I thought I would share this excellent document on verifying your AD before you begin a migration (or at any other time) Active Directory Health Check - Active Directory This document outlines a basic procedure for validating the health of your domain and is a good practice for iterative maintenance and an excellent pre-check before doing any potentially dangerous domain operations I would add a couple of extra tests to the list in this document, which would be placed...

Published Mon, Jan 19 2009 11:30 PM by David Overton

Filed under: SBS 2003, Support and Tools, Community, Windows Server 2003, Microsoft, SBS 2003 R2, Tips, SBS 2008
SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 migration thoughts and issues

I've been part of a lively debate on the Yahoo UK SBS Group about how to migrate from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 and what the issues are. The information I have so far is good, but I need much more to take it to the product teams. For sure, the issues so far are: Concerns around the "state" of AD before a migration is started - how do you check it - look at this blog post Concerns around the Exchange migration in terms of time taken and failure scenarios - how to remove the chances of this? Concerns...

Published Mon, Jan 19 2009 9:03 PM by David Overton

Filed under: SBS 2003, Support and Tools, Community, Exchange, Windows Server 2003, SBSC, Microsoft, SBS 2003 R2, Small business, Partner, If you only read one post today, Windows Server 2008, SBS 2008
Internet Explorer security vulnerability fix now available – think of it as an early Christmas present… now about Firefox’s 3 issues this week…

I think everyone knows that an urgent security issue has arisen in IE this week and Microsoft has taken the (wise) decision to publish a fix outside the normal 2nd Tuesday release cycle. Some have said switch browser because of this issue, but not only can that be complex, but most browsers suffer security issues so once again the only real protection is to wrap in cotton wool and hide. Or, use the built in features of Vista and IE7/8 which means protected mode and NOT running as admin. You might ask why a Christmas...

Published Thu, Dec 18 2008 9:25 AM by David Overton

Filed under: SBS 2003, Windows 7, Vista and XP, Security, Internet Explorer, Windows Server 2003, Windows Home Server, Microsoft, Windows Client, Windows XP, SBS 2003 R2, If you only read one post today, Windows Server 2008, SBS 2008
Important Microsoft security update – update your machines now!

DavidOverton.com rebooted today due to an emergency security update – an “out of band” release from the normal “patch Tuesday” process. It is worth considering updating and reboot your computers and servers asap. More information on this can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS08-067.mspx . Impacted systems below: Operating System Maximum Security Impact Aggregate Severity Rating Bulletins Replaced by this Update Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 Remote...

Published Thu, Oct 23 2008 9:06 PM by David Overton

Filed under: SBS 2003, Windows 7, Vista and XP, Security, Windows Server 2003, Windows Home Server, SBSC, Microsoft, Windows Client, Windows XP, SBS 2003 R2, Malware, Windows Server 2008, SBS 2008
Performance monitoring tools to go with Windows Vista Magazine article

In my latest article for Windows Vista Magazine I spoke about performance tuning a system and more importantly how to diagnose performance issues. One of the tools I recommend using to do this is the Windows Performance Tools kit. This can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/perftools.mspx . It includes a getting started document. The tools are described as: The Windows Performance Tools (WPT) Kit contains performance analysis tools that are new to the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008...

Published Tue, Jun 24 2008 8:11 AM by David Overton

Filed under: Windows 7, Vista and XP, Support and Tools, Windows Server 2003, Microsoft, Windows Client, Windows XP, Vista, Documentation, Windows Server 2008
Upgrade Windows Search to Version 4.0 and improve your PC (for Windows Vista, XP, Server 2003 and 2008)

If you have have Office 2007 or a Windows Vista or Windows Desktop Search (WDS) then you probably have V2.6 or V3 of this fantastic search product. Version 4 has a wealth of updates, but most importantly, is more stable and faster. One of the things I love about this is that if you put this on a client and server, and then search a network share, if the contents are indexed on the server then WDS uses the remote index to search, making it super fast. It can even be used with SBS 2003 / 2008 to speed up access...

Published Sun, Jun 8 2008 1:41 PM by David Overton

Filed under: SBS 2003, Windows 7, Vista and XP, Support and Tools, Windows Server 2003, Windows Home Server, Microsoft, Windows Client, Windows XP, SBS 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Search, SBS 2008
Mark's Blog : The Case of the System Process CPU Spikes

One of my heroes and guiding lights for all things Windows “internals” is Mark Russinovich. He has his blog at http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich . Before being a Microsoft person Mark ran the very successful WinInternals / SysInternals businesses until he moved across. His tools can still be accessed by http://www.sysinternals.com or are part of the MDOP Software Assurance option. The Case of the System Process CPU Spikes As you’ve probably surmised by my blog posts and other writings, I like knowing...

Published Fri, Apr 18 2008 3:27 PM by David Overton

Filed under: Windows 7, Vista and XP, Windows Server 2003, Microsoft, Windows Client, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008
How to get DNS and DHCP working on a Windows Server from behind the Windows Firewall

I have a Windows Home Server at home and I decided I wanted it to be responsible for handing out DHCP and DNS addresses in the house. All very good, but when I set up the services none of it worked because of the built in Windows Firewall. While I could have just turned off the Firewall I decided to learn how to put the holes into the firewall to make it work with the firewall, thus maintaining better security. A quick search of the web showed me many settings, but it did not seem to cover the whole picture...

Published Thu, Apr 10 2008 9:55 PM by David Overton

Filed under: SBS 2003, Support and Tools, Security, Windows Server 2003, Windows Home Server, Microsoft, SBS 2003 R2, Tips, Internet and Web
Improved searching of Windows Servers (2003, 2008, SBS, Windows Home Server) and Windows desktops (Vista and XP) through the Windows Search 4.0 Preview which improves local and network searching

There is a feature that I 1st found of Windows Home Server that can be applied to SBS, Windows Server, Windows Vista / XP and any other Windows system with Windows Search 3 or 4 on it. This feature is the ability to search the other machine’s index rather than the files, meaning that you can go to a file share and search 100s of GBs of files in a couple of seconds simply by using the Vista search box. The Search V4 Preview extends this ability to more versions of Windows. That is not all it does – see the note...

Published Thu, Apr 3 2008 12:28 PM by David Overton

Filed under: Windows 7, Vista and XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Home Server, beta, Windows Client, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008, Search
Are you a “Wizard bigot”? So you think that SBS is a poor quality, cut down version of Windows Server? Do you think that SBS admins are small in capability?

Unfortunately there are people who answer yes to the questions above, so lets get some things straight – if you think that: SBS is bad. There were dark days in the SBS 4.5 and 2000 time (to a small extent) when people thought SBS did not work, did not perform and was clobbered down with stuff that made people hate it. Now Days SBS 2003 is amazing and is built on top of Windows Server 2003 with lots of good stuff extra too. SBS is insecure . SBS is not only as secure as Windows Server 2003, but since most of...

Published Wed, Mar 26 2008 3:12 PM by David Overton

Filed under: SBS 2003, Windows Server 2003, Fun, SBSC, Microsoft, SBS 2003 R2, Marketing
Latest news, events and downloads in the Security world from Microsoft - Windows Server 2008, Mobile, employee habits, Antigen, IPSEC, ForeFront, NAP, XP Firewall, System Center

Each month the TRM blog product this great summary of the Microsoft world in various product areas. The blog can be found here http://blogs.technet.com/trm/ News Help your customers securely deploy Windows Server 2008 with the Windows Server 2008 Security Guide! http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=92550 Every day, adversaries attempt to invade your customers’ networks and access their servers—to bring them down, infect them with viruses, or steal information about customers or employees. Your customers are...

Published Thu, Mar 6 2008 5:55 AM by David Overton

Filed under: Windows 7, Vista and XP, Office System, Support and Tools, Security, Community, Windows Server 2003, beta, Event, SBSC, Windows Client, Windows XP, Office 2007, Documentation, Malware, Tips, ISA Server, Partner, Service Pack, SharePoint, Windows Server 2008, Office Communication Server
More ways to engage with customers using the Microsoft advertising campaigns

[updated 4th March] Many people congratulated Microsoft after the Mr Busy campaigns allowed partners to drive their customers back to them using a MS campaign. Well, this is now being repeated for a number of campaigns. Today I found the click and go site to get them all ( http://www.campaigns.arvato-services.com/ ). You can get 200 post cards or 1,000 e-mails for free and then a low price for additional cards/ e-mails if required. The campaigns covered include: Business Productivity Customer Acquisition and...

Published Tue, Mar 4 2008 9:00 PM by David Overton

Filed under: SBS 2003, Windows 7, Vista and XP, Office System, CRM, Support and Tools, Business, Windows Mobile, Windows SharePoint Services, Community, Windows Server 2003, SBSC, Microsoft, Windows Client, Vista, Office 2007, SBS 2003 R2, Marketing, Small business, Partner
Technical RollUp : March 2008 - Technical Rollup Mail - Platforms (Windows, virtualisation, Active Directory, Core, Debugging, Terminal Services, Vista SP1 changes / new / implementation guides)

As always, from the Technical RollUp : March 2008 - Technical Rollup Mail - Platforms blog posting. I've removed all the KB article stuff and it is worth pointing out that towards the end of the list are all the docs associated with what has changed with Windows Vista SP1: Blogs and information Windows Virtualization Team Blog http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/ The World Simplified is a Virtual World http://blogs.technet.com/virtualworld/ Ask the Directory Services Team http://blogs.technet.com/askds...

Published Mon, Mar 3 2008 9:37 AM by David Overton

Filed under: Windows 7, Vista and XP, Support and Tools, Virtualisation, Developer, Windows Server 2003, beta, Microsoft, Windows Client, Windows XP, Vista, Documentation, Demo, x64, Partner, Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Terminal Server, Windows Server 2008
Is your network going to be IPv6 ready?

You remember IPv6 - it was that thing that people didn't like in Vista and tried to turn it off? Well it is coming and it is coming quickly. I saw this and thought I would remind everyone that what you know about IPv4 is no longer going to be enough. Is your network technology and software up to the task? Switch To IPv6 On Internet's Root Servers Begins The current version -- IPv4, which can accommodate 4.3 billion addresses -- would have run out of addresses by 2012, experts predict. The switch to a...

Published Tue, Feb 5 2008 11:02 PM by David Overton

Filed under: Windows 7, Vista and XP, Developer, Windows Server 2003, Windows Client, Vista, Internet and Web, Windows Server 2008

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