Microsoft

It has been a while since I’ve spoken about Harry Brelsford, but he was one of the founding lights in SBS and partners.  I’ve attended and presented at several of his events and he is back in the UK on the 5th December.  If you have the time, given the cost is $200, so not a huge amount, come along. London 2008 SMB Nation Europe 2008 - Conference Information Featuring an ''independent'' Small Business Server 2008 event! Speakers: • Harry Brelsford (Bio at www.smbnation.com) • Jeff Middleton (Bio at www.sbsmigration.com) Location: Microsoft London (Cardinal Place) 100 Victoria Street London SW1E 5JL Delegate Registration HERE for SMB Nation Europe Agenda: December 5, 2008 – Microsoft Central London 8:30am-9:30am Delegate Registration 9:30am – 10:00am Microsoft Introduction 10am – Noon How SBS 2008 Saved The Economy (Brelsford) Noon – 1:30pm Lunch and HP (Essential Business Server, HP Partner Program) 1:30pm – 3:00pm Migration Techniques for 2008 (Middleton) 3:00-3:30 Come see how Autotask...

I saw this over at the The Official SBS Blog and thought I had better tell everyone about it given the traffic on the web page. Once you apply this patch you might get an BCM (Business Contact Manager) error if you have installed it - to fix this, go look at My BCM Updates Post and grab the one about "Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager: Prevent error message about version mismatch when certain Office 2007 applications are launched". [Today's post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill] There is a new patch available for Outlook 2007 that fixes performance issues with large PSTs/OSTs. We highly recommend applying this patch on all systems with Outlook 2007 installed. If you are preparing a new installation, this patch should be applied in addition to the steps outlined in http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;926505 . Direct Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c262bcfd-1e09-49b6-9003-c4c47539df66&DisplayLang=en KB article: http://support...

My background covers security and I've started reading this blog ( Security Vulnerability Research & Defense ) - it is excellent and definitely worth a read to understand how vulnerabilities work and how to mitigate them!! MS08-001 - The case of the Moderate, Important, and Critical network vulnerabilities Security bulletin MS08-001 addresses vulnerabilities described by two separate CVE numbers, as you can see in the bulletin. This post provides an overview of the two issues, the affected platforms and notes on the severity. We’ll be following this post up with two further entries that look at each issue in more detail. CVE-2007-0066 describes a vulnerability in parsing ICMP router advertisement packets. These packets are not processed by default on any supported version of Windows. If a computer is configured to process router discovery protocol packets and encounters this type of malformed packet, the Windows kernel will bugcheck (blue screen of death) and reboot. A separate blog post goes into more...

From the TRM Blog at November 2007 - Technical Rollup Mail - SQL SQL 2005 Webcasts and Virtual Labs SQL Server 2005 is data management and analysis software that delivers enhanced security, availability, and scalability to mission-critical data applications—while making them easier to develop, deploy, and manage. Choose from a wide range of live and on-demand webcasts. Or take part in a virtual lab, which allows you to cut your teeth on the new platform by experimenting with its different capabilities. SQL Server 2005 Webcasts TechNet Webcast: Prepare Yourself for Windows Server 2008 (Part 1 of 8): Product Workload Scenarios (Level 300) – Monday, December 03, 2007 9:30 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) In this first session of our series, we discuss how Windows Server 2008 addresses key deployment scenarios for customers. We start with an overview of the key product workload scenarios for Windows Server 2008. We cover as many as 10 different scenarios, and we discuss how each scenario can be categorized into one...

We now have documentation stored in the system, but often we want more than just documents, we need feedback and discussions. SharePoint has many facilities around this. The options are: Discussions Lists Surveys Discussion areas are a very simple way for people to either add comment to a document or in a forum . I don’t consider this anything special, difficult to understand or especially great as far the built in functionality goes. Also, from a business point of view, the only solution that solve is when an owner manager says “I need a solution that permanently records the views people express around a specific area and I do NOT want it to be based on e-mail” – why not e-mail, well a good old public folder will do this for e-mail. Discussions DO work if this is based around a document, but I do not find many businesses asking for this. Lists are special and will be covered in the next WSS posting. Surveys are a special form of list, so lets look at what the surveys will do for us. Whenever a customer asks ...

I have often debated the quality of IE over firefox and I'm not about to stop now, however this is just a simple note (as I am still a 4 fingered typist at the moment) to say that the latest build of IE is out there. To get more info on what this build has, go have a look at " What's new in RC1 " however they key paragraph for those not after the toolkit etc is: improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility. With this build, Microsoft has also made enhancements to the fit and finish of the user interface, completed CSS platform changes, added language support, and included an auto-uninstall feature in Setup, which automatically uninstalls prior betas of Internet Explorer 7, making installing the new build even easier ttfn David

If youuse sharepoint, then this set of tools might be right up your street. You can download them from http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/downloads/components/detail.asp?a1=724 and the tools are as follows: Folder Tool Version Description SPS\SPSAddCS SharePoint Portal Server Content Source Add tool 1.1 Updated in Release 2.5 An example of how to add Content Sources programmatically in SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Added READ option to read current content sources SPS\SPSPropCheck SharePoint Portal Server Indexer Property Sequence Number Checker 1.0 This tool will check the PropSeqNum values for indexes on the index server, and compare the values on all related Search Servers SPS\SPSPropConfig 1.0 NEW to Release 2!! SPS\SPSProtocolHanlder SharePoint Portal Server Protocol Handler 1.0 NEW to Release 2.5!! Writing a Protocol Handler for SPS was a tedious task, possible done by seasoned developers who were fluent in C++. This project example demonstrates creating SharePoint Portal Server 2003 protocol handlers...

I saw this and thought I would share it. As small business partners we need to decide what the "Small Business" means and tell our partners and customers. It is not about sticking a label on something that fits everything, but actually customising it for the real small business customer. And I don't mean the less than 1,000 person business, but the sub 100, sub 50 and even sub 10. It is worth reading the rest of the article to see what is said about brand and laptops. What's In A 'Small-Business' Label? Lisa LaMotta , 09.12.07, 6:00 AM ET It's one of the oldest marketing tricks in the book: Make the same product, but sell it to a new audience. That's what large retailers and manufactures have been doing lately to tap the lucrative small-to-medium-sized business (SMB) segment. Last month, for example, Best Buy (nyse: BBY - news - people ) added a Professional Series label, which signifies products putatively geared for small businesses, though many have mass appeal as well. Dell...

Windows 7 is the theme while I am away and thought I would share this little nugget with you. Windows 7 has a lovely feature where it can mount and read / write VHD virtual hard disks. Now this is good, but you can create one and install Windows 7 inside it. You can then boot it up as normal, but it is portable at this point, so it is easy to backup, copy or examine on another system. How to do this… well, look here - http://www.iishacks.com/index.php/2009/01/11/install-and-boot-windows-7-beta-or-windows-server-2008-r2-beta-on-vhd ttfn David Technorati Tags: Windows 7 , VHD , Windows Server 2008 R2 , Microsoft

If you have Exchange in use then Outlook 2007 may well have the caching of people's calendars turned on. This means that when you open a calendar you have to wait for the cache to populate, which can slow things down a bit sometimes. This is how to turn it back to how it was with Outlook 2003. 1. Go to the Tools Menu and select Account Settings 2. Select your Exchange Account and press the change button 3. Press the more settings button 4. Select the 2nd tab (Advanced) 5. Un-tick the "Download shared folders" option. Note that this will stop cached Sharepoint folders from downloading into Outlook too. 6. Press OK until all options are saved. ttfn David Technorati tags: Outlook 2007 , calendar , Office 2007 performance

Upgrading MSDE 2000 to SQL Server 2005 Express This white paper discusses the new SQL Server 2005 Express Edition features that are important to MSDE users. It covers how to upgrade your existing MSDE installation to SQL Server 2005 Express and presents criteria to help you decide when to upgrade your MSDE installation to other editions of SQL Server 2005. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/msde2sqlexpress.mspx SQL Server 2005 Upgrade Handbook Preparing for a SQL Server 2005 upgrade involves understanding some basic principles that will help you make appropriate decisions and ensure your success. Each SQL Server 2005 component has a unique architecture and life cycle—the two primary areas that will affect your upgrade path. Some SQL Server 2005 components build on a solid foundation to augment, optimize, and stabilize existing functionality. Microsoft has performed extensive, under-the-hood rework of other features to give SQL Server the horsepower and programmability features that your applications...

There is lots of information on how to choose the right Essential solution for you (SBS Std, Premium, EBS Std or Premium. A quick sample can be seen below (there is much more on the web site): Which Solution Is Right for You? Learn how the Windows Essential Server Solutions are designed to fit specific needs for small and midsize business. Find which solution will be the right choice for you and your company’s needs. Remember, each business is unique – consult your Microsoft Certified Partner to help determine the best solution for you. Your Need Windows Small Business Server 2008 Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Standard Edition Premium Edition Standard Edition Premium Edition Company Size and Growth Our company needs a secure network for 250 or fewer users today Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 supports up to 50 users or devices. Microsoft Windows Essential Business Server 2008 supports up to 250 users or devices. Our business is growing at a fast pace and our IT needs are expanding. As your...

Many times Microsoft has been barracked for its "anti-open source" stance, which quite frankly has never existed. However, since we have always made software available under various licenses, it was decided that it was time to get these officially recognise by the people behind the dreaded GPL (that is my humour btw). Not everyone is happy about it as can be read at http://robertogaloppini.net/2007/10/18/open-source-at-microsoft-microsofts-licenses-get-approved-by-osi/ . Microsoft's desire to protect what it considers to be its intellectual property is seen as a threat by some in the open source world. However if you look at MSDN, it has, I suspect, millions of lines of code for people to borrow, use and then sell. I would call that open source of one type as well as codezone for another. In fact, as I have always understood it, Microsoft does not care how you develop or release you code, providing you do it legally! I think Microsoft gets official open-source blessing from OSI for two of its licenses...