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  • Exchange 2007 - what is in it and why David got it wrong in Bristol

    Exchange 2007 - what a product :-) I was guilty of underselling it at the Bristol SBS Partner Group. I said some of the features people wanted were only in the Enterprise Edition, but I was wrong, they are in the Standard Edition, but require the Enterprise License (which is a top up on the standard License). Obviously SBS 2003 can work with Exchange 2007, but only on a seperate server as SBS 2003 is 32-bit only and production Exchange 2007 is 64-bit only. The enterprise CAL is only a few dollars on top of the Standard CAL, so if you want the features, definately something to look for. So, what is the difference between the two version? http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/editions.mspx Exchange Server 2007 Edition Offerings Feature Standard Edition Enterprise Edition Storage Group Support 5 storage groups 50 storage groups Database Support 5 databases 50 databases Database Storage Limit No software storage limit; storage limit is hardware dependent No software storage limit; storage limit is hardware...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, Dec 20 2006

  • One word for the 2007 Office System

    This is a really simple exercise - If you have used Office, please summarise it in one word. The word from me is "Stylish"
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Feb 1 2007

  • Why Windows Vista Home can only be Upgraded to Home Ultimate online, but can upgrade via retail media from XP Home to Vista Business (or any other version)

    Following a bit of a discussion on the user groups around this area, I thought I would add my thoughts here. Many home PC users will be getting Windows Vista Home Premium and then potentially discovering that they really wanted the business edition ( SKU ) as they are not just home users. The problem we have is that if you look at the Windows Vista product feature matrix you will notice item like those to the left (click to see larger image) where features are available in the Home edition, but not the business edition. When people "upgrade" within the same release of the OS they expect to not loose features and some of those features include items that Microsoft potentially pays licensing for. Because of these reasons, home users can either "upgrade" to Ultimate, or buy Business in retail and do a full clean install. Now, if someone has any version of Windows XP or Windows 2000 then they can "upgrade" to any of the Windows Vista editions, however the key item to note here is that if someone will loose functionality...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Feb 9 2007

  • Great tools for Internet Explorer: Spell check, Open last closed tab, Auto refresh and more (IE7 Add-ons)

    I love IE7, but it is by no means the perfect browser. Along with every other browser out there it can be heavily customised. Here are the ones I use myself. There are loads at http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/category.aspx?bcatid=834&tabid=1 ieSpell (this is also the spell checker used on the blog site when you are adding something - perhaps into the forums) IESpell is a free Internet Explorer browser extension that spell-checks text-input boxes on a Web page. It should come in particularly handy for users who do a lot of Web-based text entry (Web mail, forums, blogs, diaries). Even if your Web application already includes spell-checking functionality, this utility is faster than a server-side solution. Plus, you get to store and use your personal word list across all your applications instead of having to maintain separate ones on each application. Version 2.5.1 build 106 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes. InlineSearch Inline Search v 1.4.3 (cf. ChangeLog ) is an extremely useful...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, Feb 28 2007

  • Deploying Vista to many desktops from Small Business Server 2003 with SP2 (R2 or R1) using Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) tools

    A nice man named Zack dropped me a mail asking about the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) tools and "real" documentation, which led to Matt in the PTS team writing about all the great tools (see below). I then installed SP2 for Windows Server 2003 and realised that my SBS 2003 system now has the capabilities of BDD to deploy Vista desktops (in my case, pre-configured with Office 2007 too). Wow. I went and checked and the Windows Deployment Services admin controls are there on my SBS SP2 system, so you can use this information to enable PXE deployments of Windows if you want. These can include other programs such as Office and anti-virus products and also be pre-configures to join the domain etc. Business Desktop Deployment 2007 - Resources Posted Wednesday, March 14, 2007 11:43 AM by mattmcspirit For those of you out there who have an interest in the different ways that you can deploy Windows Vista, Office 2007 and your other applications, you may be interested in the Business Desktop Deployment Workbench, or...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Mar 16 2007

  • Changing Vista boot screens and opening yourself up to rootkits (or not)

    I love people who want to customise WIndows Vista and some of my previous posts have covered this, however you can go too far - you can hack the OS. While I understand the desire to "hack" the OS to get customisations, there are better ways. This particular example is where people want to change the boot screen in Vista. The ability to do this will be coming from StarDock soon, but until then people have taken to modifying the existing OS files. THERE IS ALWAYS a change that by downloading someones customised file to your PC and it being loaded so early on in the boot process that it could do nasty things, especially since these files are in now way certified by Microsoft. A classic example of this can be found here when people want to change the boot logo - this could easily be a social engineering attack. The instructions tell someone to remove the access and security permissions from a core system file, overwrite it with one that might make the system look prettier during boot, but who knows what else will...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Mar 26 2007

  • Vista enhancements and utilities (changing the screen savers, adding extra search functionality to the start menu, Objectdock, logon screen changer, Windows Blinds and WIM Image modifier)

    Changing the screen saver settings: http://tweakvista.com/Article39129.aspx (make ribbons fatter, increase the number of them and so on) Start++ - search tools from WDS in Vista: http://brandonlive.com/2007/02/22/new-tool-i-made-for-vista-start/ “clear” aero theme for Winblinds for Vista: http://www.skinbase.org/rate.php?skins=32542 Logon Screen changer (free from StarDock when released, part of Object Dock during beta): See http://www.stardock.com/newsitem.asp?id=942 and skins at http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?libid=65 DreamScenes, Dream Maker and Dynamic Dreams – some free, some charged for, for Ultimate Users: http://dream.wincustomize.com/ and http://www.stardock.com/products/deskscapes/ - these include triggers in the “dreams” vLite – image tweaking tool: http://www.vlite.net/about.html ttfn David Technorati tags: Vista , Dreamscene , Logon Screen Changer , Dynamic Dreams , vLite
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Mar 26 2007

  • View and Search the Windows Vista Registry from the Windows Shell (Explorer) through this Namespace Extensions

    I came across this due to someone pointing it out internally - talk about awesome. The Windows Registry Shell Namespace Extension allows Windows Explorer to view and interact with the Windows Registry data via Explorer windows. It demonstrates existing Shell extensibility points like IShellFolder2 and SHCreateShellFolderView and also demonstrates new concepts in Vista including the property system, property schema extensibility, and content indexing via Protocol Handlers. This project is implemented using C++ and ATL. This release includes all of the latest deltas and addresses the installation issues for systems without VS2005. This is a temporary fix until James finishes the WIX setup. Installation notes: - Download/open the zip file. - If you have VS2005 installed, just double-click RegNamespace.msi. - If you don't have VS2005, run Setup.exe. This will install the necessary VC Redistrubutable. Source: Windows Vista Registry Shell Namespace Extensions ttfn David Technorati tags: Vista , Windows Vista , Search...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Mar 27 2007

  • Where in the world is David?

    Well, some of you will know that I love sailing and this week I am indulging that love. Right this moment I am in a 44 foot sailing yacht anchored just off of a beautiful beach in Antigua. We have caught a few fish (you should have seen the ones that got away), sailed through a squal, briefly seen dolphins and a few other moments that i shall follow up with pictures. Normal service shall resume next week :-) Ttfn David Published with BlogMailr
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Apr 17 2007

  • Alistair likes Vista and found out that the Dell SATA drivers were making is go slow

    I was browsing the UKSBSG Yahoo Group (a group for UK Small Business Partners) when I noticed Alistair 's post in response to slow Vista systems and I thought I had to share: Hi, Just from experience, I had similar issues on Outlook 2007 and, to a lesser extent, Vista in general - especially on boot, which would take an age. I am using a Dell Dimension 9100, 2GB ram and SATA drives. One would think it would be pretty good, but behaved like a dog. The Microsoft fix made some little difference. What made a huge difference though was updating the SATA drivers on my Dell box. These were not listed under updates and I had to search for them, but it is chalk and cheese now. Persevere, once you have it right it's a dream: I have to say I love Vista, it is stable, runs all our legacy apps, line of business accounting apps, remote jobs and managed to blow away our desktop uptime record - still stable at 60 days uptime. XP struggled at 30. I do strongly suspect that naff drivers are a major factor in the bad press...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Jun 28 2007

  • How to copy files to a DVD / CD, Use the recycle bin, Use previous versions for files and Use the built in Vista backup tools - all in a Video presented with Silverlight

    The Video I have delivered a number of Vista and Office demos over my time, so I decided to record a number of them for others to borrow, use, learn from or anything else they choose. This video covers the following subjects in enough detail for people to hopefully understand what they need to know on how to use these tools: Use of the recycle bin Use of shadow copies to undo changes to a document Use of the DVD writing tools to copy and update files on a DVD Use of the built in Vista Backup tools To see the Backup Video played using Silverlight (just try it) click here *. If you want to download it as a WMV file then head over to the new bCentral - the UK Small Business Center on MS.com - It should appear on this page soon. * it will take a few moments to open if you have Silverlight installed and require you to download Silverlight if you don't, but it is a 1MB download How I made it I simply ran through part of my normal demo talking as I went. When presenting to an audience it is easy to correct anything...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Jul 12 2007

  • Upgrading to Office 2007 using retail boxes - what can you upgrade from

    [updated to change blog title to something meaningful] I was asked about this today - for those people with retail copies of Office, what can they upgrade from to Office 2007. Full details on Word, Excel, Access, Publisher and the suites can be found at 2007 Microsoft Office system pricing - Products - Microsoft Office Online . To see if you have a retail box of an earlier version of Office and if it will load without you needing to upgrade onto a new machine with Vista, have a look at http://uksbsguy.com/blogs/doverton/archive/2007/05/09/buying-vista-and-then-installing-an-old-version-of-office-whatare-you-allowed-to-do.aspx 2007 Microsoft Office suites 2007 Microsoft Office Suites Estimated Retail Price /Upgrade Price Qualifying Products for Upgrade Microsoft Office Basic 2007 Available only through OEMs; price not quoted Upgrade not applicable. Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 $149/NA Upgrade not applicable. Microsoft Office Standard 2007 $399/$239 Microsoft Works 6.0–10; Microsoft Works suite 2000–2006...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Jul 31 2007

  • Windows Home Server is coming ... What can it do?

    Unless you have been living under a stone it is probable that you know that Windows Home Server is coming to a shop near you very soon. Home Server is priced very keenly and offers a number of great facilities, but also has some restrictions on it. So, what does Home Server do: Centralised Unlimited Storage Sharing via folders, a web site that can be accesses from any internet connection, with PCs, game consoles and more Protection against failure of your connect PCs, your precious data (photos etc) any disk including the system disk in the home server and against unpatched PCs A platform for add-ins That is it - it is a great file and media home server that has amazing remote access and backup capability. It is still a Windows Server, built by the same team that deliver SBS, but it has some restrictions: It is not designed to be a Domain Controller It is often sold by OEMs as a headless (no monitor or keyboard to set it up) device with no requirement to ever use a keyboard or mouse Some server software might...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Sep 20 2007
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  • Windows Live SkyDrive Updates - 1GB of storage, RSS feeds when someone makes an update and easier sharing of files

    I saw this on the SkyDrive blog and thought I should share it. Updates to Windows Live SkyDrive! These past couple of months since our last release, we asked ourselves, “What can we do to make SkyDrive even better?” The most obvious answer is something that our users have asked us to do: give out more storage. We’re excited to announce that we’re doubling everyone’s storage to 1 GB! Many users told us, “Hey, we want to be notified when someone adds a file to a specific folder,” so we added RSS feeds to public folders. To subscribe to an RSS feed, go to the public folder that you’re interested in, and click on the orange RSS Feed icon at the top right of the page. Then, anytime that folder is updated, you’ll be notified. We love this feature because we get notified as soon as our friends upload new files to their folders. Another thing users told us is that it’s difficult to share a folder with people that aren’t in your address book. People said, “We have to go to Hotmail or Messenger in order to add someone to...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, Oct 12 2007

  • Things that have fixed peoples problem running Office on Vista

    From the blog entry I published on How to get rid of the installer / configuration dialog when running Office 2007 and Office 2003 on the same system - for Vista and other versions of Windows I still get people e-mailing me with problems. While I have not been able to solve them all, but here are some solutions that I have seen success with: Problem: POP3 e-mail starts sending then gets stuck/hangs/stops: I have seen your blog at uksbsguy.com and it seems you are my only hope. Brand new laptop, small sized PST file, Vista Home Premium, Outlook 2007 Ultimate. I set up an account in Outlook 2007 to my bog standard POP3 account that has always worked. It starts to download my first email and slowly reaches 3 or 4KB then just hangs . Surprisingly I can sent (SMTP) absolutely fine. If I use another internet connection (dial up modem) instead of LAN then I can receive POP3 as well. But the same LAN connection works for my old laptop (XP/Outlook 2003) all settings same. I also tried the netsh command and the result is...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Dec 4 2007

  • SBS 2003, Virtual Server and / or Terminal Services and why use virtualisation and the risks to consider

    I need to take my hat off to the PSS guys in India. I "met" Girish on the Microsoft internal aliases and then delivering a Technet chat. I've since seen him post some great blog posts, but also answer key questions in various SBS forums. Alex recently asked the question: They (well I) think it is time to virtualise the three SBS servers that support their three micro businesses (plus a terminal server each). Lower energy costs (down to 1 server from 3), quieter in their office. Girish has recently blogged something that would help implement this: Content Released: Deploying Terminal Services in a Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Environment Deploying Terminal Services in a Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 Environment This document updates and replaces both "Deploying Windows Server 2003 Terminal Server to Host User Desktops in a Windows Small Business Server Environment" and "Installing Virtual Server 2005 R2 on Windows Small Business Server 2003 with SP1." Kudos to...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Mon, Dec 17 2007

  • New Small Business Oriented blog - Microsoft Police (entry on licensing) and Vista bloody Vista (who's fault is it when things don't work on Vista)

    Susanne Dansey pointed this out to me - Dave is doing some excellent blogging! I like both these entries from January. One discussed the rights and wrongs of what to do with a customer who will not license legally. My personal opinion here is that if they won't pay a software company, how long until they will avoid paying the services company for a quality job. Dave's second post is dealing with someone who has been told that Vista is poor and blames anything that does not work under Vista on Microsoft. I'm not saying that Microsoft is never to blame, but it is nice to see posts like this coming out of the woodwork. Microsoft Police There has been a lot of chatter in the newsgroups recently about Microsoft licensing and what to do if you think the legality of clients software is suspect. Here is my opinion. Funny that, it being my blog Simple, get them to become legitimate (or legal) or walk away. Let’s clarify this. Why I said legitimate or legal is because these can be two separate things....
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Jan 17 2008

  • All change - Windows Vista SP1 here now for technical customers - it was delayed. It is still a little way away for non-technical people

    Last week Microsoft announced SP1 for Vista to the world , but then said some device drivers were causing problems so there would be a delay to enabled those to be resolved. That is the device drivers, not SP1. Well, as you can imagine, there was a fair amount of noise around this, so the rollout has been changed to enable technical people who were on the beta and MSDN & Technet Plus people to get it much earlier. Someone once asked me why we could not get things on the web quicker - well, if you have a few million people downloading something at the same time it has a hit, so all releases, even system updates, have an element of staggering. From the blog posting Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows Vista SP1 availability for technical customers some salient points are: On Monday (February 4th), we announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). Overall, people are excited to hear that we have reached this milestone, but some are disappointed they are not able to immediately...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Feb 12 2008

  • SBS 2008 Remote Web Workplace video from Nicholas King – a SBS 2008 product manager

    I’ve been working working with Nicholas King, giving him a bit of a hard time to get all the SBS ducks lines up and I noticed from the SBS Down Under site that they had a link to Nicholas’s first video – a very quick walk through of the new RWW. If you like it, go to Nicholas’s site and tell him what you want to see next: Nicholas King : SBS 2008 Video Tidbit Having spent a fair amount of time with SBS and EBS, I thought I'd put together a series of videos quickly covering some of the cool features of SBS 2008. Here's my first one, the SBS 2008 Remote Web Workplace . Check it out and let me know what you think? I'm planning on doing a series of these to introduce you quickly to several of our cool features. Let me know what you want next? Remote Web Workplace Demo Tidbit See all the other SBS 2008 items at http://davidoverton.com/blogs/doverton/archive/tags/SBS+2008/default.aspx ttfn David Technorati Tags: Microsoft , SBS 2008 , SBS , Tips , SBSC , Small Business , Small Business Server 2008 , Community...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Fri, May 30 2008

  • SVCHOST.EXE taking 100% CPU - Windows Update Service

    We've just had an issue at one of our non-mmanaged clients where they have had a number of machines running at 100% CPU due to the Windows Update Service going bonkers. The solution we have used on all machines is as follows: On the machine in question carry out the following: Log in as administrator. Download updates from step 1 and 2 from KB927891 into C:\ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927891 Go to Start>Run, type net stop wuauserv. Kill the process ‘svchost.exe’ using 100% CPU if service fails to stop. ------------------- Install updates ------------------- Reinstall WUA 3.0 with option /WUFORCE from step 2. Install update 927891 from step 1. ----------------------- Re-register DLLs ----------------------- Open Notepad and copy/paste the following text: regsvr32 wuapi.dll regsvr32 wuaueng.dll regsvr32 atl.dll regsvr32 wucltui.dll regsvr32 wups.dll regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll regsvr32 wucltui.dll regsvr32 wups.dll regsvr32 wuweb.dll regsvr32 wups2.dll regsvr32 msxml.dll regsvr32 msxml3.dll regsvr32 msxml2...

  • Moving SBS 2003 to new hardware or performing a migration – Update (QFE) to give you longer to do it (21 days up from the 7 days)

    From The Official SBS Blog : Small Business Server 2003 Migration Update 943494 Released , a slightly old post, but something work highlighting – how to have 2 SBS boxes on the same network for 21 days. Small Business Server 2003 Migration Update 943494 Released [Today's post comes to us courtesy of Justin Crosby] The software license terms for Windows SBS enforce a limitation that permits the presence of only one Windows SBS server in the domain. However, there is a grace period where you can have a second SBS server in “join domain” type migration scenarios. This grace period is 7 days. In some situations, this grace period may not be long enough to properly complete the migration. This software update extends the allowable grace period for the supported scenarios from 7 days to 21 days. Please plan accordingly, aim to complete your migration within 7 days and only use this update for situations where it is needed. Remember, i f you hit the 21 day limit there is nothing that can be done to extend the limit...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Jun 19 2008

  • Seeing is wanting for Windows Vista (Mojave Experiment) – people having their perceptions changed by actually seeing what it can do…

    I have to admit I really like this – take people who rate Vista as a ZERO, show them a new operating system called Mojave and see them rate it as high as a ten, then tell them that it was Vista and almost immediately you get “Well, I’d not seen Vista before, it’s much better than I had heard”. It just goes to show that a well configured machine (a HP laptop with 2GB of RAM) can do wonders. I also like the stats page that states: Of the 140 respondents polled on a scale of 1-10 where 10 was the highest rating, the average pre-rating for Windows Vista was 4.4. After they saw the demo, respondents rated Mojave as average of 8.5. Many said they would have rated it higher, but wanted more time to play with it themselves. The users used other operating systems – 84% Windows XP, 22% Apple, 14% Windows pre-XP, 1% Linux More information can be found on the Vista team blog or the site above. ttfn David Technorati Tags: Microsoft , Vista , Windows Vista , Mojave
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Tue, Jul 29 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 Code Execution Critical MS06-040 Windows XP Service Pack 2 Remote Code Execution Critical MS06-040 Windows XP Service Pack 3 Remote Code Execution Critical None Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Remote Code Execution Critical MS06-040 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2 Remote Code Execution Critical None Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 Remote Code Execution Critical MS06-040 Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 Remote Code Execution Critical None Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition Remote...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Thu, Oct 23 2008

  • Invalid certificate issued to localhost.localdomain when remotely access SBS 2008 from a Windows PC

    This is another question I was recently asked. One particular user noticed that the certificate they saw when accessing their server from the internet did not match that when accessing from the LAN. The certificate looked something like this: This was a little strange as when the system was accessed from the intranet, all things appeared fine. The culprit for them was the SBS 2003 self signed certificate on the same machine. By removing the certificate and then installing the correct new one things got better. To remove the old certificate, start MMC.exe and accept the UAC prompt. Now press Ctrl+M to add a new snap-in and select Certificates and when asked, add for the user account . The do the same again, but select Certificates and Computer Account and hit OK to accept the current computer. Now expand out Personal Certificates and remove any SBS 2003 self signed certificates. To load the new certificates open a browser inside your SBS 2008 network and point to http://companyweb/Lists/Announcements/DispForm.aspx...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Wed, Dec 3 2008

  • How to upgrade (migrate) from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 on the same system without using a swing migration

    Someone posted this question on a discussion group at work and it got me thinking. If you bought a nice new system over the last 2 or so years in preparation for SBS 2008 (Cougar as was or even SBS v.Next) and had it installed with SBS 2003 you've probably heard that SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 is a 2 box migration and needs the Swing technique to do an on box migration. I've come up with a much simpler solution, but your hardware might need some additions to make it work. So here is what you need: Box with 6GB of RAM minimum (4GB for SBS 2008, 1GB for SBS 2003 and 1GB for Hyper-V server). 1 new disk for SBS 2008 system disk and 1 disk to hold Hyper-V (which could be small if desired or temporary) System that meets the minimum system requirements of Hyper-V ( http://www.microsoft.com/servers/hyper-v-server/system-requirements.mspx ) You need to ensure your hardware is really up to spec and is fit enough that you want your new SBS 2008 system to run on it for the next 2+ years, otherwise this may well be a false...
    Posted to David Overton's Blog by David Overton on Sat, Jan 10 2009
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