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  • Diagnosing connectivity problems to Exchange and Office 365

    I was asked today about an Outlook synchronisation of the address book over the web (RPC over http) and did some digging and found this excellent diagnosis tool - https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com .  The nice thing is that it tests many products – Exchange, ActiveSync and Office 365 . Once you start the tool you have to choose what diagnosis you want: or After you have completed your sign-in details, you get the results.  In the example below it shows that my certificate is not publically signed and a number of other issues that I could address if they were the cause of connectivity issues (but I don’t need to as I get the functionality I want with the current setup)   ttfn David
  • Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP) not working or slow with SBS 2008

    I’ve been working with the Microsoft support teams to diagnose non-connection and very slow syncing for someone who uses SBS. The team came up with a fix and while there is no KB article on this yet, below is a link to a workaround that made logging on go to a few seconds from what was about 5 hours :-) Slow Connectivity for Outlook Anywhere and Sites that use the SBS Web Applications App Pool [Today's post comes to us courtesy of Wayne McIntyre, Justin Crosby, and Damian Leibaschoff] We are currently investigating an issue where connections to Outlook Anywhere are extremely slow or fail completely. This issue also affects other sites that use the SBS Web Applications app pool. If you notice these symptoms and wish to verify you are experiencing this problem, open IIS management console and check the worker process queue for the SBS Web Applications app pool as shown below. The Official SBS Blog : Slow Connectivity for Outlook Anywhere and Sites that use the SBS Web Applications App Pool ttfn David Technorati...
  • Catalog of Windows Small Business Server 2008 Installation Error Messages

    So there I was talking about migration issues and Chris Pucket pointed to this GREAT store of error messages and resolutions for SBS installs.  I've copied the links for now, but expect them to be updated over time!! Still let me know Migration issues on the link above! Catalog of Windows Small Business Server 2008 Installation Error Messages This topic links to information about errors that you might encounter while installing Windows SBS 2008. If you encounter an error that does not appear on this page, see “Troubleshooting Windows Small Business Server 2008” in the Windows Small Business Server Technical Library (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111318). Click a link to view information about that error message. An error occurred while installing or configuring a Windows SBS 2008 application An error occurred while promoting the server to a domain controller Anti-spam agents for Exchange Server 2007 cannot be installed Anti-spam automatic updates for Exchange Server 2007 cannot be configured...
  • How do I take a public folder offline

    I seem to have been asked this a number of times recently, so here is the answer. To take a public folder offline, simply add it to your favourites and then enable synching of public folders. Mark the public folder as a favourite (right click on the folder and select make favourite Go into your account settings and ensure that public folders are enabled for caching Tools / Account / Properties for the Exchange Account / More Settings / Advanced - then tick the box Now, when you sync the favourite public folders will be copied too. That is it ttfn David Technorati Tags: Offline , Public Folders
  • May security updates for Server DNS and Office 2003/2007 and IE7. Also Quicktime needs an update

    I did a quick scan and it seems that this month Office is the main target of updates, along with one critical one for Windows Server (for DNS RPC attack) and one for IE7. Worth a quick download and install :-) I also got this in the mail today: Apple QuickTime 7.x must be upgraded to 7.1.5 or higher. On the security updates: Microsoft is releasing the following new security bulletins for newly discovered vulnerabilities: Bulletin Number Maximum Severity Affected Products Impact MS07-023 Critical Microsoft Excel (all currently supported versions) Remote Code Execution MS07-024 Critical Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 (Mac) Remote Code Execution MS07-025 Critical Microsoft Office (all currently supported versions) Remote Code Execution MS07-026 Critical Microsoft Exchange (all current versions) Remote Code Execution MS07-027 Critical Internet Explorer - all current versions on all currently supported versions of Microsoft Windows Remote Code Execution MS07-028 Critical CAPICOM, BizTalk Server Remote Code Execution...
  • How to add external contacts to the GAL (global address list or the list of names found by default in Outlook) by adding them to Active Directory

    So you may remember the call for help that led to the article How to add public folders to the list of contacts in Outlook : We currently have several public folders which contain email address and contact information for people outside of our company that we want to keep up with. I would like to put these in the All Contacts list on the server, so everyone can open it and reference it when sending email. The only thing I can find it to put them in Active Directory so they can be on the list. Surely there is another way to get this done, but how. I also am not opposed to manually typing them in (and weeding out old contacts), but don't feel very comfortable putting 800 outsiders in my AD. Having proposed the solution in the above link, I then got back the following reply: Thanks David for the reply. I have some address books in the public folder that I have done that to, but was trying to move away from the public folder and have the addresses included in the "All Contacts" under the "All Addresses" section for...
  • How to add Public Folder Contacts to the list of Address Books in Outlook so anyone can send e-mail to a shared contact

    I was recently asked by someone how to do this. Considering the fact that there are pre-defined public folders in SBS, including those for contacts I thought it was worth sharing this with a wider audience. Set this up for a customer using SBS and they can easily share contacts across the whole business. Add the contacts folder to the favourties list and they are also cached offline :-) I found the answer by experimentation, but then this article describes it well too. The magic tab in Office 2007 (and 2003) is pictured below from my system. How to add Public Folder Contacts to the list of Address Books First thing you need to make sure that the public folders has a contact list created. Also, double check the permissions so that your users can view the contact list. To setup the Contact List in the Address Book navigate to your public folder and find the contact list you want to add. Right-click on the Contacts Folder and click properties . Click on the Outlook Address Book tab. Check the box next to “Show...
  • Do you want to trial Exchange Server 2007, perhaps talk to the server? If so, look at the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Hosted Trial

    I saw this over at Henrik's blog and throught it might be of interest to the SBSC community. I like this. While I discovered that demoing something like this using a free VoIP service was a bad idea, using OK quality phones delivers an amazing experience. Obviously we will not see Exchange 2007 embedded in SBS until Cougar ships, it can still be provided as a hosted service, on a 2nd machine or for a partner internally using the Action Pack copy that should ship next month (fingers crossed). For more information, pop over to Henrik's blog on the subject, including the link to the trial. Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Hosted Trial Like it was the case right after Exchange 2003 RTM, you can also sign up for an Exchange 2007 tempoary account… “Welcome to the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Hosted Trial web site. You can create a temporary account to experience the features of Exchange Server 2007 which will stay active for 5 days. Your account will be pre-populated with sample messages, calendar appointments and a...
  • Microsoft, BT hook up for hosted apps | Tech News on ZDNet

    Given the recent good moves forward with Office Live (UK web site - http://www.officelive.co.uk , partners getting excited - Tim Long , bCentral information on the products and 5 amazing case studies ) I thought I would share this further advancement in the online world. There will always be a place for the small business products that rely on physical servers, but the business by Vlad and many others shows us that the SaaS (Software as a Service and Software AND Service) work well for a business model. The difference between SAAS and SaS, IMHO, is one is rich in both client and web based tools, the other is ONLY rich when connected. Take Exchange and Outlook - Outlook is a great client when connected to Exchange. OWA is a great client too, however Outlook's offline ability is what sets it apart. You can get get great online and offline experiences with SaS. Microsoft and BT are to launch an online marketplace for hosted applications, with small-business customers as the target. The BT Applications Marketplace...

(c)David Overton 2006-23