THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

Warning -- listening to the music at the beginning of this SBS Podcast may get it stuck in your brain....

I was listening to the SBS Podcast, who's theme is about community and I just loved some of the comments in the show this week about how we all win when we share.

Now I do need to clear up a few things... First off... I'm Lutheran and not Catholic....so .. you can probably skip the ring kissing and just tell folks to give me a hug instead  Now how I ended up not liking Coffee and addicted to Mountain Dew AND raised in the Lutheran church.... I have no idea..... google or msnsearch on the long standing relationship between Lutherans and Coffee...anyway.....and secondly... I'm just one person and one view.  You really want to hear and listen to a lot of people and not just me.  And you know what really rocks about the SBS world?  Is when we realize that we can sooooooo help each other when we reach out to one another.

I'm going to a user group meeting tomorrow night in Fresno.  Now its' not a SBS meeting, it's a IT techy one, so I won't get all that good SBS business processes stuff like Susanne and Amy talk about, but it's still a mini bit of my geek get togethers where I don't have to lower down the tech talk.  And there's usually an added benefit that we techs can play stump the techy sales guy.

Now what Chris did not tell you was how we two really met.  You see we first met virtually.  Both of us had gone to a CPA Tech conference and not met one another there.  But he did meet Anne.  So he, I and Anne started swapping emails post conference and it was finally AT SMBnation that I got to meet up with a kindred spirit.

And that's exactly what the SBS experience is indeed all about.  We are kindred spirits out here.

So point your browser to www.sbsgroups.com and find yourself a group of kindreds.

So are you up on your TLAs?  Three letter acronyms?  Wireless has TONS of 'em.  On the download center a document about wireless was just posted.

Presents two deployment methods for secure wireless access: one for small office/home office (SOHO) networks and one for small organizations.

Here at home I have the wireless on the 'outside' of my network but I am using WPA with preshared key.  I need to bring it inside the network but just haven't yet, mainly because I don't domain join this Tablet PC anyway....

It's mainly used for hotels, travel ...and .... for when the Evil Queen has to man the front door at Halloween.

Well here I am... it's Halloween evening again..... Evil Queen...handing out candy at the door and in between the trick or treaters on the tablet pc connecting wirelessly to the upstairs network.  And sitting here in this garb got me thinking about how yesterday I read a CNN article about how Prince Charles is concerned about the environment and global warming [yes, good] but then he said ......

.....he was worried about the importance of technology in modern life.

"If you make everything over efficient, you suck out, it seems to me, every last drop of what, up to now, has been known as culture," Charles said in the interview, which was recorded last month in Poundbury, England.

"We are not the technology. It should be our ... slave, the technology. But it's rapidly becoming our master in many areas, I think," he said.

Funny because for me, technology has brought me more culture.  It's made me more aware of other countries, other cultures and customs.  It's opened doors for me and introduced me to people that I'd never meet otherwise.  Heck, many a time I've had conversations with people for many months before I ever meet them in person.  

So what about you?  Do you find technology opens more door?

Oh gotta go... I hear the trick or treaters at the door... 

Canada once again is first to the UserGroups for Scott Colson on CRM 3.0!

VANCOUVER: Microsoft Small Business Server User Group - Build stronger customer relationships with Microsoft CRM.  

Sign up here!

Date: November 10, 2005 6:30PM - November 10, 2005 8:30PM

Language: English

Location:

Microsoft Canada

1111 W. Georgia Street, Suite 1100

Vancouver, British Columbia

Canada

V6E 4M4

General Event Information

Products: Microsoft Business Solutions CRM, Small Business Server

Recommended Audience: IT Professional

Description:Microsoft CRM is a flexible and customizable platform

that can be configured to meet unique business needs. Join Scott

Colson of Autonomix Inc. to review the overall structure of

Microsoft CRM, explore its native Outlook experience, learn how to

create custom entities, and set up workflow rules to automate common

business processes. Demonstrations will be performed using Microsoft

CRM 3.0 installed on Windows Small Business Server 2003, with

highlights of new 3.0 features exclusive to the Small Business

Edition.

AGENDA

6:00 PM – 6:30 PM              Registration

6:30 PM – 8:00 PM              Presentation

8:00 PM – 8:30 PM              Questions and Answers

Okay so I feel a bit like Brett tonight.  I had a set back in deploying my new workstation.  You see I've come to the conclusion I'm not a hacker.  Not in the traditional definition.  One that can figure things out.  Because even though there's supposedly a hack to get yourself from a XP pro to a MCE 2004 or 2005, I was like a fellow SBSer Frank and could not get the hacks to work. 

So I flattened my workstation that I've been working on trying to migrate to for months now.

Yup, I repartitioned it and started over.

Not that I had done a whole lot to it... I was in the equivalent of putting together of categories on a blog like Brett is at when I decided to just start over and rebuild the box.  I could not get all the media edition stuff on there.  This is why they really and truly recommend that you only buy it OEM anyway as all the issues I had with finding drivers and WinDVD decoders so the Media edition would play.

So now I'm about back to where Brett is right now.  Media Edition is loaded up, patched up with 32 security patches.  The funny thing is that the Rollup Update wasn't in the section I would have thought it was, but instead down in the recommended section.  But so far it's finding the TV stations and tuning in like it should.

...so exactly what is Squeaky Lobster enabled anyway?

I think a new server should have a “Care and feeding” document for new owners.  You know, those folks that have never seen or used a server before.  I'd make sure it said things like .....

• This isn't a workstation so don't have someone sit and use it as one
• This isn't meant to be turned off at night
• This isn't meant to be reformatted and reinstalled without a plan to recove the active directory.

You know my other concern of what I am seeing?  Underspec'd servers.  We're starting to put a lot on these boxes and we're not thinking at all about drive speeds, controller cards, SCSI versus SATA and all that.  I mean like there's no way I could put CRM [which is another MSDE database] on my home server with is already stressed with WSUS.

We've seen issues with underpowered servers not being able to handle ISA's MSDE database and it will stop the service at midnight.  Flip the logging to flat file and the server will be fine.  Treat the server with respect and it will treat you nicely.  Underspec it and you'll find you get some unusual errors.

Stuck in my monitoring database are ghosts.  I didn't properly remove my usb harddrive so now at 5:50 my alert system hits me via email and IM and tells me I have low disk space.  but I really don't.  See those dates? It's an OLD alert and not a current one.  And I have yet to figure out a way to clear them out of the database other than rebooting the server so it will reset the counter.

So don't worry.. it's nothing to fear.. my server is not possessed... it's just a bit haunted by ghosts that's all.....

From:  <Administrator@domain.com>
To:  <sbradley>Subject:  Low Disk Space Alert on DOMAIN
Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 2005 17:49:10 -0700
>Alert on DOMAIN at 10/27/2005 5:49:05 PM
>
>The following disk is low on free disk space. Low levels of free disk space can cause performance problems and prevent users from saving files on the disk.
>
>Drive Letter: HarddiskVolume6
>Free Disk Space: 0.000000. MB
>% Free Disk Space: 0.000000.%
>
>You can disable this alert or change its threshold by using the Change Alert Notifications task in the Server Management Monitoring and Reporting taskpad.
>
>
>Kind regards,
>Administrator

“I don't want to use exchange because I want to keep my system as safe as possible.“

Heh.  This must be “good enough security“ tonight or something.

The poster on the Lockergnome posting site should understand something about Exchange.  He's thinking that having Exchange running is adding 'insecurity' when I would argue that if you don't install it and use it's power to clean, despam, and protect from viruses, and instead use POP accounts to pull in email directly inside your desktops you are not using the power of the server to better protect you. 

In my network I pull off just about all attachments and only let those attachments that I need for absolute business into the desktop.  Then I ensure that I have an Exchange aware antivirus and it cleans the email before it hits my desktop. 

Bottom line thinking that a part of an operating system not used will make you more secure may not be the right thing.  You need to look at the bigger picture. 

In this case, fully utilizing what you have, I think will go farther to help you be more secure.

What's enough security?  What's good enough security?  We got to talking about this in regards to a couple of blog posts and patching.  I was attempting to remotely patch my SBS box over remote web workplace and because the SMTP service got stuck taking down IISadmin, remote web workplace also got a little smooshed in the process.  We got to talking about remote patching and how you can do it safely and dependably.  A terminal services connection will give you the most consistent and dependable patching connection.  But given Terminal services historial issues [TSgrinder comes to mind] how can you defend a well known port of 3389?

Well one thing that you can do if you add the premium edition is ISA server.  With the addition of the premium firewall you can set it up so that the TS port only responds to you the consultant.  With Remote Web Workplace, the firm's employees really doesn't need access to that straight TS port do they?

But what else can you do to give good enough security?

Passwords/passphrases. 

Today I toured the open house of a hospital with a new treatment center.  And as we were walking through the computer rooms, me being the geek I am, I was looking at what systems they were running.  And there on the screen was ... tapes to the screen.... the user name and password.  And it was quite a sucky password.  I mean ... the whole idea behind urging folks to write down passwords in the first place is to ensure that you choose better ones.  The one I saw today, written down, taped to the screen certainly was not in this category 

A long administrator password helps hugely to better protect that Administrator account.  The human brain has a limit to what we remember.  There's a limit in our brains of how much we can process and remember. 

Good enough security means taking extra precautions.... like passwords.

Hey, I didn't think of that one....

I asked a question on how the SBS Podcast gang felt about reparitioning domain controllers given our new ability to increase Exchange to 75 gigs....and Damian in the podcast recommends to simply 'add a volume' or mount a new drive to an existing space to make that Exchange partition bigger.  That reminds me of the blog poster and he had his Exchange on a Maxtor one touch.  Yes, you read that right, they were running their entire Exchange store on a backup device.  Now I would not consider that an optimal setup, but it showcases that the Exchange store can go just about anywhere.  Obviously it's preferred to be on a nice harddrive and not a usb connected device.

They also recommended when buying harddrives to get a drive that has a 3 or 5 year warranty .... that 'is' your Email, and the gang from the podcast are recommending considering putting it on another controller card if you do grow that database large.

It says they are seeing more performance issues as we start layering on databases... when you spec out and buy your server... consider that.

The other day in the comments to the blog, Greg posted the 'how to get SBA on SBS' and yes, while there is a whitepaper in the works, you know us geeks we want to try everything NOW... so without further ado here it is:

[UPDATE] - SEE THE POST IN THE SHAVLIK FORUM FOR THE ANSWER AND MORE WORKAROUNDS

http://forum.shavlik.com/viewtopic.php?t=2612

Bottom line.. Exchange patches suck.  I can't wait until the next version of Exchange and for the Monad era.  In the patching world, in my opinion, Exchange is the 'drag'.

The other day I blogged about an issue I had on my home test server.  And with the help of the SBS engineers, first in the tier one level and then via escalation, we got it figured out.

So let's recap what was happening in my system.

First off when I installed it on my Dell OEM test system, I had no issues.  But when I came and did it on my home test system, it gave me an error during the install of Active Sync:

Setup failed while installing sub-component Exchange ActiveSync with error code 0xC0070643 (please consult the installation logs for a detailed description).  You may cancel the installation or try the failed setup again.

And when you hit cancel it completed and then sent a Dr. Watson report.

The error message pointed to one file.. MSXML3.MSI and when we went to manually install that I got the next error message of:

A network error occurred while attempting to read from the file:  C:\Program Files\Exchsvr\bin\msxml3sp5.msi

So in working with the SBS escalation team [and by the way, you know you are in trouble when they conference call you in to the Engineer in charge of the case and he goes, “Susan, Susan Bradley?“...uh... yeah...]  and well, it happens to be one of the gang on the SBSPodcast that you just listened to last weekend.  :-)

So we started a series of investigations to figure out exactly what was going on.  Remember the server was still functional, I'm still in 'test mode' so we started this process of swapping emails and me sending log files back and following the instructions [command line stuff...yuck...thank goodness for cut and paste]

And finally in the last set of instructions to build them a debugging log file so they could see what the installer was getting stuck on, we found the answer:

Shavlik HfnetchkPro

You see on this system at home I had installed Shavlik, unlike the Dell OEM and unlike my real baby at the office where it's installed on my workstation.  And because the Shavlik had installed it's own patched version of MSXML3SP5.MSI in a file location, the installer for Exchange 2003 sp2 couldn't handle an installer location differently than what it was expecting.  [Well that's my take anyway].  So the SBS gang had me export out a reg key [backing it up first of course] and we tried the install again.  So first asked me if it had this reg key

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

  \SOFTWARE

    \Classes

      \Installer

         \Products

             \45D60EC31B272B44BA064E72E78CE04F]

Yes it did

If it exists, it should have a value of ProductName set to Microsoft XML Parser.

Yup, and it looking at it you can tell it was installed by Shavlik

If it exists, export and delete the key.  Then reapply Exchange 2003 SP 2 to see if it installs without producing the error regarding msxml3sp5.msi.

It did.

Now because the Gods of computers are with me tonight, of course my SMTP service got stuck and would not nicely stop [which of course hung the Patch reinstallation], so I think when I do this for real, I'm going to be manually stopping that SMTP service 'FIRST', just to be safe.

So for that other guy in the German newsgroup?  You have Shavlik on your box?

"with a second installation on another system I have now the error:  0xc0070643 with the Inst. of the Unterkomponente ActiveSync!?!?"
"bei einer zweiten Installation auf einem anderen System habe ich nun den   Fehler:   0xc0070643 bei der Inst. der Unterkomponente ActiveSync   !?!?"

The moral of this story?

This was a free call because it was an issue with a service pack but honestly... it was an issue caused by a third party software installed on my server.  My real baby at my office, I tend to keep that box lean and mean with a minimum of extra software so I would have never hit this issue.  I have seen others get hit by this issue, like the guy in the German group, so one of the reason why I didn't blow this off and just go “oh well, the box still works, I'll just let it go” was to help the next guy down the road.  This “is” my test box so I could take as long as I wanted to.  Service packs don't need to be installed during lunch [or while you are taking a shower even, geeze ;-)  Unlike Security patches, I can take the time to test them and to understand fully a snag I hit in a test environment.  While this is a real box, I could have done a similar test with a VServer or VPC image.  And now with Exchange 2003 sp2 on the box, that's now officially supported in a virtual environment as well.  So, I now know that this issue will not be one that I'll see on my real baby, and I can let a couple of folks know that pinged me about that blog post to have them check on their boxes for Shavlik as well.

Calling into Product Support Services means that the issue will now be documented, my SRX case will be filed and the next time someone hits this issue it will be known immediately and that person fixed right up.

So the next time you have an issue with a Service pack or a Security patch... call. 

Wow, I didn't realize that someone was the same age as Disneyland.  Today is his birthday.

I mean who knew what started out as this, with a mug shot like that would end up affecting how we communicate. 

I just emailed with some of my friends..... friends that are in Australia and Canada.  I ping on IM a guy in New York.  I have more people on my IM that live outside of my state than in it.  Look at the communication we do that we just now take for granted.

So why don't you use a little bit of technology tonight to wish someone a happy day in honor of someone else's birthday today.

I want to do a very special backup before I install Exchange 2003 sp2.  I'm going to dismount the store and yank a copy of it off to a harddrive.

So how do I do this?

Well first...[it's been a long time since I've done this the last time so someone ping if I'm saying it wrong]  I fire up the Services [or in my case just click on the icon on the desktop as I dragged it out there] and I stop the Exchange store on ExchangeIS and also the SMTP service so mail doesn't queue up and then I'm going to Dismount the stores like this, and copy them somewhere.

I really don't HAVE to do this.  And so far my one test upgrade went absolutely fine....and....I think I know what my prior issue with my test Exchange server box was [stay tuned, will blog on that one next if what I/we think it is, is what it is].

But an offline backup doesn't hurt every once in a while, right?

91 percent of Canadian small businesses see Software piracy as unethical, says the headline.

Unfortunately around the world, there aren't enough Canadians, I guess.  Because there are enough firms, enough folks that are going to screw it up for the rest of us.

What am I talking about?  The Microsoft “Action Pack”.  It's a software kit for Microsoft partners to use and install and LEARN the software.  And it's reasonably priced.  Very reasonably priced.  To the point where there are some folks willing to nit pick their way through the verbage to justify it's use in their business.

Recently on a list serve I'm on, one of these 'oh yes, I deserve it' situations came out.  The firm argued that becaue they devised and deployed Microsoft solutions for their own employees and independent contractors that they qualified.  That's like saying “Gee, because I write Excel Macros in my firm I qualify for Action pack because I deploy solutions”.

Give me a break.  The intent, the goal of the Action pack is to get consultants, resellers, Vars, Vaps more confortable with the product to in turn, drive more sales.  It's not to provide cheap software for some customer who's willing to bend the rules.  In my book, unless you are in the new MPAN program for Accountants, if you are a firm and you have to HAND the box to someone to install it, then you don't comply with the rules of this offer.

So if you are one of those folks that are bending the rules to get Action pack?

Don't.

Stop it.

You'll screw it up for those of us who are legal.

Do you sell SBS boxes?  Sell to small and medium businesses?

Hey there's a blog for you if you do!

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How does one move data from one machine to another? 

A variety of ways...

OEM - Using OEM computers I use the XP file and transfer wizard to transfer settings from one computer to another and then I 'hang' the old drive off the inside of the new system to ensure that in case someone forgot something, I can go back and easily get a copy of that data.

OEM - Imaging - I've used a process of disk or drive imaging to move an exact image of a drive to a larger hard drive.  It doesn't even freak out product activation.

Non OEM - if the speed of the harddrives are the same, [why do I want the same speed?  Because if the newer computer has a faster drive I want to keep the faster drive in a machine and not replace it with a slower one....get it?] I will just image or even just move the harddrives.  If you attempt to just merely swap harddrives between two OEM systems [I was lazy one day... uh... don't do it ... you end up WPA [product activation] freaking out both machines.

Now... all of my critical business stuff is on the server.  All of the gunk that I'm dragging around from desktop to desktop is ...well..it's just gunk... service packs, ISOs, downloads and other crud.  But it's all the stuff I just 'might' need someday ... so I end up dragging it from one computer to another.

So what about you?  How do you migrate the 'stuff' of a high maintenance/packrat kind of a computer user?

You know there's one thing that concern me about those new SATA drives that I am now getting in my office in our new computers..... those cables.  It just seems to me that they seem a heck of a lot flimsier than the old fashioned ones.  In fact on my home PC ....yeah, yeah .... the one I'm STILL building.... I've knocked off the data cable putting in cards a couple of times now.

And I think I need to start carrying spare SATA parts and certainly need to get a SATA ready USB enclosure.  One of the gang on the malware lists said that she was delayed a bit tracking down cables and hardware so she could work on an infested drive.

My normal trick of moving data from one computer to the other and then hanging the old drive off the new system isn't going to work this time without additional cables and connections.  It has no IDE cables inside the Dell Optiplex we just got. 

So how many spare parts do you have lying around?

This sounds so cool [especially the part about afternoon tea]

But look...presentations on ALL the cool stuff... SBS, Mobility, CRM 3.0, Office 12 and Vista.

Presentations by HP [I love my HP server by the way].

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