Bob's Blog

Virtual Tech·Ed Site Launches!

2007-02-09T03:53:00.000-05:00

The Virtual Tech·Ed site launched (http://www.virtualteched.com/Pages/VTEhomepage.aspx) and it is definitely worth a good look. One key item to note is that the authors have taken the time to document the past Tech·Ed information that is spread across Microsoft sites, including webcasts and virtual labs.

If you get the chance, take the time to give it a good look.

Microsoft TechEd 2007

2007-01-18T18:07:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year again. Registration for Microsoft Tech·Ed 2007 (TechEd 2007) opens up on 22 January 2007, or next week. It appears that the fee to attend TechEd has not increased this year. If you are the early bird that catches the worm, your early registration (by 6 April 2007) will net you a $200 discount off of the conference fee.

This year TechEd 2007 will be hosted by Microsoft and their technology partners at the Orange County Convention Center (www.occ.net) in Orlando, FL. This new convention center is located on the SouthWest Corner of Orlando, FL.

For attendees of last year's TechEd, there is a lot that Orlando brings to the table that Boston does not. Orlando is much more friendly to tourist buses. Most of us remember the bus fiasco last year where the cab drivers in Boston mutinied and several of the bus providers had their drivers go on strike. In fact, one of the bus lines had their VP of HR doing some bus driving. In addition, the streets are a bit wider in Flordia. After all, Orlando did not start as a small colonial town as Boston did. ...and, let us face it, the folks in Florida may be a bit happier since it is warmer and has better weather than Boston. Granted, Boston is a very interesting city with great historical value. It is also an excellent walking city and has some absolutely wonderful buildings and parks.

The plans for TechEd 2007 originally included New Orleans, LA. With the rebuilding in process, the $200 hotel rooms, and the crime issues that have plagued NOLA for years, both pre-Katrina and post-Katrina; it is likely better that the folks at Microsoft made the decision to not bring the party to New Orleans this year. However, if there is a TechEd in the future of New Orleans, it would definitely be worth going to that city.

The TechEd 2007 site (http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2007) is not up yet, but you can review additional information at the TechEd 2006 site (http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2006).

Cheers,

Bob

TechEd 2006

2006-06-11T21:03:00.000-04:00

After my first day at TechEd 2006 and the pre-Con, I can say a few things...

Virtual TechEd 2006 is awesome!
Here is a link to Virtual TechEd 2006. This is a great resource for participants as well as folks who can't make it this year. It does not bring the whole experience to bear, but does bring some of TechEd to everyone who can't attend.

FREE DRINKS!!!
Before the SWAG has even started to be passed out there is free water, free soda, free ice cream, free labs, free resources, free free free (well, of course there is a cost to TechEd...but this stuff could have been $1.00 per water, $1.00 per soda, etc.)

The show flat-out ROCKS!
Yes, yes, I was kind of curious as to why someone would plan a show in Boston, where hotels rooms are limited, very expensive, and where there are lots of questions regarding the financial efficacy, or severe lack thereof, regarding the city's spending on The Big Dig.
...and I have the answer. The BCEC (Boston Convention and Exhibition Center) is HUGE and it is just beautiful inside. There is a TON of floor space, hundreds of little presentation rooms.

The people are GREAT!
In the past 6 hours I have had the distinct opportunity to meet several hundred folks ranging from participants, staff, crew, assistants, and experts.
The experts

The Hands On Labs are GREAT!
The Technical Learning Centers are GREAT!
Okay, okay, so maybe I am biased here. The HOLs and the staff manning the HOLs in the Technical Learning Center are just really nice people and add a lot of value to the TechEd Experience. The experts are very happy to answer questions.

The weather cleared up!
Last night the weather was really crappy. Today the weather is just amazing and beautiful. Partly Cloudy, 70 degrees, a light breeze, and crystal clear with no smog!

The weather is beautiful, hope you are here!

-Bob

My Take on Windows Vista

2006-06-08T01:32:00.000-04:00

Spoiler - Okay, under my MVP non-disclosure agreement, I can't talk about anything that is not public. I can't talk about any bugs that I did or did not find. I can not talk about applications and their performance or functionality.
So, here is the public information:
Windows Vista: The Features

However, it does not note anything about me giving an opinion that I can find.

Windows Vista is one slick, functional, feature-rich and beautiful operating system. Some of the features that I have found really nice is the AeroGlass feature. This is just beautiful. The new Windows Flip features are great, such as the ability to see information while tabbing through Windows, and the ability to see what is running when I mouseover items on the task bar.

...and the Sidebar...I miss the old Pointcast days so the customizable RSS feeds in the sidebar are great to see.

What I am looking forward to trying is the new Speech Recognition features. I used this a little bit in Windows XP and Microsoft Office Word 2003. It did make typing a bit less mundane. However, my southern drawl did make for some grammatical errors. What would really be nice is the ability to record items and save the recording with the paragraph so that I could dictate and then go back and fix it once I have completed the whole document. Since I haven't played with it, I am not sure if this feature is in there or not.

Great work to the MS Devs, testers, customers, and Beta team.

Neat Air Travel Website

2006-06-08T01:28:00.000-04:00

Those that know me know that in the past few years I have travelled quite a bit, racking up 200,000+ miles in 3 years. The downside to this is that I need to be a bit more cost efficient. The upside is that I learned about a neat website that checks quite a few of the other travel websites for good deals on flights.
SideStep - www.sidestep.com

My gosh, this sounds like a spam e-mail. The downside for SideStep is that I have performed some searches, but I have not yet used their site.

Office 12 - NEW UI Layout Preview ( Office 2007 )

2006-06-05T23:06:00.001-04:00

Microsoft, in an attempt to try and make Office even more user friendly (Hey, I am happy with Office 2003 and RPC over HTTPs for Outlook), has updated the User Interface for Office 2007, known as Office 12. Recently, on Channel 9, one of the program managers spent just shy of an hour discussing and demonstrating the new UI.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=114720

McAfee Groupsheild - Late Night System Maintenance Amusements

2006-04-08T02:02:00.000-04:00

In the process of installing and configuring McAfee Groupshield 6 I found this little Easter Egg:

Normally I would not blog about a grammar error, but I have a guess how this grammtical error got in there. Well, I have two guesses and one of them is not a spell checker. It's funny that a company spends millions of dollars protecting a brand only to find out that the brand is now "Networks Associates".

...and that is all I have to say about that.
...but it will be corrected once I customize the error messages for my client.

ITSec Quote of the Year (so far)

2006-04-06T16:56:00.000-04:00

Microsoft Says Recovery from Malware Becoming Impossible
From within the second paragraph:
"...there really is no patch for human stupidity"

This has to be the best IT Security quote thus far this year. Having made plenty of mistakes myself, and even one in my college days that did an rm /r on my home directory...I can attest that there is no patch that will correct human stupidity or naivete.

TechEd 2006

2006-04-04T14:44:00.000-04:00

...finally finished making my arrangements for TechEd 2006, which is being held in Boston this year. For those of you on the left coast or those that live in the Deep South, Boston is a little teeny tiny city with a lot of residents. Frankly, I think Savannah, GA is larger than Boston, MA. Google returns that Savannah is 78.11 square miles and Boston is 48 square miles. Both are colonial cities with a ton of history. Disclaimer - Home is Savannah, GA AND the Washington, D.C. metro. ...and I have spent time working in Boston, too. Boston is an amazing city and is just gorgeous.

For 2 years of my career BrainShare, Novell's premier technical event for IT folks, seemed like the best place...until Microsoft technology paid better than Novell. ...Microsoft just marketed themselves better...Novell had a better directory services product.

For the past 5 years, I have wanted to go to Microsoft TechEd because learning new stuff is fun, that information can be used to teach others and empower them (Thanks Steven Covey...that is a great Habit), and Disney would be fun. TechEd had been held in Orlando in past years. This year it is in Boston, home of the $200 hotel room as there are so few hotel rooms in Boston and even less land.

*Self-Promotion Warning*

It's been a long road getting there, but I finally made the decision to go to TechEd this year. On top of that, I figured that asking my current employer to allow me to expense it was going to be difficult, at best. So, I cleared it with my wife and budgeted for it. Having the MVP and MCT netted a discount of nearly $750 off the normal registration fees. Getting there is not inexpensive, but we caught a $254 flight deal, and used our $99 companion tickets (Thanks USAir and Bank of America) to take Becca and her friend Liz.

After completing my registration, hotel, and flight arrangements, Microsoft Learning and the Microsoft MVP program put out messages for volunteers. Positions were as Speakers, Technical Learning Guides, Ambassadors, etc. There really is a lot of opportunity for folks with their MCT certification and/or MVP award.

Based upon credentails, and that I do a fair amount of 1 and 2-day cross training in my field, Exchange and LCS, working the show was a goal. Volunteering was cleared with my VP as we was happy to let Microsoft foot part of all of the bill, and for me to take vacation for training. My new employer (starting 17 April) is excited that I have the opportunity as well.

After applying, and a month wait, I recieved the notice that my name had been selected as a TLG and I am totally stoked. This is a GREAT chance to learn, a great chance to teach, and an excellent opportunity to gain exposure to the new technology as well as excite those around me working on the technology. Plus, my wife may let me spend the money that I would have spent on the registration,

So, this year, I will be a member of a great team working the Technical Learning Center at TechEd. That is going to be so AWESOME! See ya there!

Bob

VMWare Server and MS Virtual Server - Free?

2006-04-03T18:06:00.000-04:00

It took a few months...but soon after EMC's VMWare division started giving away GSX server as VMWare Server, Microsoft had to answer and is now giving away Virtual Server 2005 R2. Not a bad deal.

It is important to note that Microsoft's product will have Linux support as well!

VMWare Server
http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

Details here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/default.mspx
Download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6DBA2278-B022-4F56-AF96-7B95975DB13B&displaylang=en

Kellie Pickler, the Mynx, and the Calimari

2006-03-08T19:17:00.000-05:00

Kellie Pickler, the Mynx, and the Calimari ...it almost sounds like a C.S. Lewis chronicle...

Kellie is likely on the top of the world after "Simon" gave her the brightest compliment that I have heard vibrate forth from his scathingly bitter vocal cords. Yes, I personified Simon's vocal cords.
http://us.video.aol.com/video.full.adp?mode=0&pmmsid=1475337

However, I damned near fell out of my seat when Simon called her a Naughty Little Mynx, to which she responded "What's a Mynx?" ...and then it sounded like Paula and Randy "baited" her with "Like Calamari".

It was hilarious and cute to see her perk up say in her chippy twang "Like a Calamari!"

...and with that, I must stop laughing, pick myself up off the floor, and get back to daily life.

Google Video back up

2006-02-25T03:19:00.000-05:00

Well, it would seem that Google Video is back up and running. It appears to be a bit cleaner, but now Jessica Simpson is gone *sniff*. I feel like Nick Lachey all of a sudden. I guess that is better than feeling like K-Fed. WTF is Kevin thinking anyway? The former Ms. Spears has/had one of the hottest careers on the planet, not to mention that she seems pretty sweet and a little naieve. Anyway, this chump is out there supposedly fooling around on her. Granted, a tiger can't change it's stripes...but at least the big cat knows what hand feeds it.

...anyway, back to Google Video. It definitely looks like there have been some major improvements and I may actually end up buying an old episode or two of SCRUBS. Don't worry, there is plenty of free stuff, like the webcam idiot who bastardizes all of the Guns 'N Roses songs.

Last, but not least, some of the popular items pull up what I can only term as Japanimerotica videos. Being a big kid having grown up with "The Transformers" and even "Ranma 1/2", I can definitely appreciate Japanime. While I sit here wondering "Why does someone make Japanime charachters scantily clad, or clad in nothing but long flowing locks?" I suddenly think back to some of my friends who went gaga over "Jessica Rabbit" and then I am quickly reminded of the raunchiest cartoons that I am drawn to like a train wreck "Drawn Together" and "South Park". As an aside, I will choose to drool over the real life equivalent of Jessica Rabbit, Miss Nicole Kidman. Specifically Nicole's role in Days of Thunder. Congrats on the wedding to Keith on the 11th...you two should go great together. Please note that any marital problems may make for some great country songs by the Austrialian Cowboy. I digress...it has been many years since cartoons were truly kid safe and since Nicole had those stunning red locks.

Back to my short obsession over inventing a word. I did a quick Google search on the word Japanimerotic and found that it does not exist. Either that, it it has been blocked by some foreign government. So, there it is...at 3:23 Eastern Standard Time on the 25th of February, Bob Christian coined the term Japanimerotica to describe erotic and pseudo-erotic Japanime videos and pictures. I guess I could have made up Japanimeerotica as well, as it does not appear to exist in the ether, either. Maybe Cybernanny will use this word to allow parents to block potentially disturbing cartoons. Granted, kids nowadays do more disturbing things than we would have ever thought of doing back in the late 80's and early 90's. Sheesh, I am starting to sound like my parents did when I was younger. ...and there it is, I am officially grown up. *kidding*

Well, being nearly 4AM, it's time to finish reading my Exam Cram book and then turn into a pumpkin.

Cheers,

Bob

Google Video Up and Down

2006-02-25T00:42:00.000-05:00

It appears that Google is in the middle of making some major changes to it's video application. Within the past few hours it has been down, up, down, and back up. It looks like the new UI will have the possibility to rank things by popularity AND it appears that they will have videos for sale. That's interesting to say the least.

In addition to the up and down, it also appears that they are applying new certificates to the site (https for secure transactions maybe?)

The downside is that the top 2 videos are Jessica Simpson's Pizza Hut "These bites are made for poppin' video" and some guy showing his girlfriend's kitty, and I am not talking about the pretty little furry animal. ...not exactly what the internet is meant for... Then Again, this World of Warcraft video spells it out right...and I laughed my @$$ off the first time I saw this video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L854AFW7GhU

Disgusted - Injured Soldier Charged $700 for body armor

2006-02-08T19:52:00.000-05:00

The Charleston Gazette - Injured Soldier Charged $700 for Body Armor

Talk about turning my stomach. LT. Eddie Rebrook IV from Charleston, WV was nearly fatally injured in a roadside explosion in Iraq when his in a battle a bit over a year ago. His $700 body armor was cut off as medics were saving his life. Due to the blood, the body armor was a biohazard and had to be destroyed. The Army is now charging the soldier for this body armor.

What is our country coming to when we are charging a soldier for the body armor that saved his life while he was performing his duties and protecting this country.

What is next - Charging a soldier $100,000 when his or her HMMWV (Humm-Vee) is destroyed because it was not properly equiped with enough armor to protect the engine and gas tank.

One thing I remember from my High School civcs teacher was a cartoon... Wouldn't it be funny if schools had a billion dollars to develop a good ciriculum... and the Air Force had to hold a bake sale to develop a new bomber.

Don't get me wrong...I love the U.S., I love the Army and happily served in West Virginia before being discharged due to a multiple fracture of my foot. I live and work between Georgia and D.C. However, it disgusts me to see the mistreatment of our "grunts".

Bob

A bit stale... SYMANTEC TO ACQUIRE IMLOGIC

2006-01-15T01:39:00.000-05:00

SYMANTEC TO ACQUIRE IMLOGIC

This is old news, but I thought it was interesting to note. Symantec has noted their intention to acquire IMLogic.

Now, on to the blog part of this. I used to be a HUGE Symantec fan back in the late 90's. Prior to that I was a huge Norton fan, then Symantec acquired them. Norton's disk defrag and their disk doctor was the leading disk utility back in it's day. Norton's anti-virus products, and F-Prot's (different vendor) anti-virus products, were absolutely amazing. I fell in love with NAV Corporate Edition back in the 7.x days due to it's ease of use, east of administration, and low performance impact on the workstation.

Now that we are into the 9.x version, called Symantec Anti-virus, I really don't see as much in way of major revisions as I would expect. It's still on the front-edge of technology, but it is not as great as it could be. Even after the dot-com bust, there should be a significant amount of development going into the product line. However, it may be that SAV has reached it's maturity stage and the code is just being maintained without a major effort to improve it. Granted, Symantec has had a lot of heat lately over their "rootkit" issues. Oddly enough, the security vendor F-Secure (see my F-Prot comment earlier) found the hidden directory.

Anyway, since the early to late 90's, the quality of software in general has diminished significantly. Companies want to turn a profit, but don't necessarily want great or near-perfect code. They just want to get the software out the door. In this case, I am not referring to Symantec.

In their defence, since NT4, 2000, and XP, we have chkdsk. The decent built-in disk defrag really started in Windows 2000. The Windows 98 tool was crummy, but it was free and it worked. Maybe this lead to the downfall of improving upon the defrag tools and disk tools that Norton has.

Who do I feel has the best disk defrag tool? Hands down it is Executive Software, makers of Disk Keeper...well, now their company is called Diskeeper corporation. We see their product as the defragmenter in Windows. Maybe Symantec will acquire Diskeeper Corp. next since they are a best-of-breed.

Symantec has absorbed some other personal favorites, such as PowerQuest (Partition Magic), Veritas (Backup Exec and NetBackup). They can't get Sybari since MSFT made that purchase a little while back. Sybari was a definite up and comer in the messaging market, and had developed quite a nice product.

The oddity is that I do not feel that Symantec has put as much into R&D to improve it's core products. Granted, one could argue that acquiring a company and recoding the product to have the Symantec name and symbology is R&D. Sorry, it is not. One could argue that acquiring the people that could improve Symantec is R&D. Quite possibly it is borderline, but it is part of M&A and not R&D.

However, when a company like Sybari comes in and starts winning over large customers, including several large goverment contracts, it's time to take note. Commvault is doing much the same thing in the backup technology realm. Commvault is a spin-off of Lucent, if memory serves me correct.

Ultimately what it boils down to is that Symantec has money and stock to burn and has been acquiring some great companies. Let's hope that Symantec takes an opportunity to integrate their acquisitions and improve on all of their product lines.

Cheers,

Bob

XBOX 360 Bugginess Part 2

2006-01-15T00:08:00.000-05:00

I have been playing Call of Duty 2 on the XBOX 360 for several weeks and it reset my game progress. More on that in a minute.

Normally I play a PC game as they are about the same price, come with free updates (for the most part) and the saved games save locally to disk, which makes it easy for me to keep game progress when I rebuild my PC's OS. However, I will say that I have enjoyed the XBOX 360 even though it has not been the most reliable game console.

I had just completed the D-Day mission (Silo) on Veteran. It even shows it as complete. However, when selecting "Next Mission" it takes me back to Russian training. D-Day shows "In progress" even though I have completed it. Both the coastal Guns mission and the Pointe mission no longer show as having been completed. However, the silo is showing as having been completed. That' odd because you can't start another mission within the level until you have completed the previous mission.

I have 8 of the 13 achievements and have completed the game on easy and some on hardened. When selecting Next Mission I get kicked back to Russian training. That should not happen.

It seems that I am not the only one experiencing these problems:
My Secret Game: Call Of Duty 2
http://www.mysecretshame.co.uk
games/2005/12/call-of-duty-2_11.html

Blogging Goals for 2005

2006-01-06T01:26:00.000-05:00

After looking at my stats for last year, I posted 58 times, 6 more than I had desired. As for reaching goals, I did miss some of my goals, but I did make other goals. I am on the Vista and Office 12 betas. I have had invites to other Betas, such as the Istanbul beta, and even made a few bug reports.

Fortunately, I am learning more about being an MVP and how my work can benefit the LCS and Exchange communities as a whole. My grammar has improved considerably as a result of this process. Overall, it has been fun and interesting.

My blog gets between 8 and 60 hits per day, which is not bad, I guess.

Randall, Rebecca. and The Apprentice

2005-12-16T01:35:00.000-05:00

From day 1 I have been saying "Randall, Randall, Randall!"
Tonight, at 10:57PM Eastern I regretted that decision. RANDALL IS A SELFISH JERK WHO THOUGHT ONLY OF HIMSELF! HE HAS ALREADY FAILED THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION BY LETTING A GREAT POTENTIAL CO-WORKER SLIP THROUGH THE CRACKS! There, it is off my shoulders.

Randall went from this great, loveable, wonderful, and educated businessperson to this blithering adolescent "I won and you aren't stealing my thunder" little brat. He and Rebecca got along so well, were such good friends, right up until this episode where Randall got cocky and arrogant and selfish.

Only 1/2 of the Apprentice candidates in the back stood up when Randall noted for them to stand up if they supported him. That had to mean that the other 1/2 supported Rebecca. Look, she did what few people did, working on crutches with a weaker team. Randall was 3 and 0 only because he had an AMAZING team in all tasks. When she and Randall worked together they were seemingly unbeatable!

Trump had already made his choice, and it was clearly evident that he wanted to hire them both. Anyone could have seen and heard the setup, even the overeducated Randall. Maybe there is a direct correlation to education and street sense. Trump, without a doubt, recommended that Yahoo! save face from those evil executives. Those three seemed like they really wanted a tax write-off for a Yahoo! party. The CEO of Yahoo, however, made the win a balanced win for Randall and Rebecca. He orchestrated what could have been an amazing conclusion in that he showed the firing of 4 people and the firing of 2 people, which is outside of the "rules" that we have become accustomed to in past seasons. Trump had a perfect setup to hire both of them, even saying "You made my decision easier!" Trump made the statement that Rebecca was "Outstanding", and then said to Randall "You're Hired!"

Trump asked Randall what he thought, about hiring Rebecca, almost seemingly as a rhetorical question. Trump seemed surprised when his new employee sunk the proverbial Battleship(TM). Randall, being this nice guy, already a winner, a man of God (think - Do unto others...), and a friend of Rebecca, should have done the nice and right thing, giving her a chance to work in the Trump organization.

This sentiment echoed throughout the audience. Ranlall, the latest Apprentice was BOOED on live TV when he could have noted that she would have been a great loss if Trump did not hire her, and he would have been applauded. It's a bit hard to cut that out, as it was difficult to cut out "The Donalds" disappointment. In less than 30 seconds Randall fell from being "The Apprentice" to being a petty little brat. He destroyed what Trump had set up in the videos, in the Yahoo! donation, etc.

Personally, I think that Trump should have hired her anyway and undermined Randall, showing Randall that Trump is still boss!

Trump lost what he can never regain...a perfect ending to a great Apprentice season. ...and Randall cost Trump that Victory.

Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access Overview

2005-12-14T00:35:00.000-05:00

Microsoft released Office Communicator Web Access on Monday. The great thing about it...it is
made available at NO EXTRA CHARGE for folks who own LCS 2005 with the appropriate CALs.

For more information see here:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/livecomm/communicator/webaccess/prodinfo/overview.mspx

My "beef" with Exchange E12 ramblings...

2005-11-27T16:03:00.000-05:00

Okay...I think I have heard it all...
"However, as the first time Microsoft has abandoned the 32-bit server, this announcement represents an important milestone."
end paragraph
"The change will make the typical Exchange version migration slower and more complex. "
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=136041

Gartner is addressing the Microsoft Exchange E12 announcement that Microsoft is abandoning continued development for Exchange E12 on 32-bit architecture.

Personally, I think that attributing slowness in a migration to the hardware differences between x32 and x64 is a bunch of bull puckey. Granted, there will be greater cost for the organizations.

I can't imagine that a hardware migration would be any more difficult than a hardware migration today. The Move Mailbox Wizard is pretty easy and makes Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003 a cakewalk as well as hardware upgrades pretty easy (KB822931 baby!!!)

Migration of Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 and Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 is pretty complex and can be really involved, dependent upon the size of the project. Upgrading 2000 to 2003 is a cakewalk compared to 5.5 to 2003 and 5.5 to 2000 upgrades. Moving between like 2000 and 2003 versions is also easy.

Regardless, there are some features, such as E12 following the lead of Active Directory Sites and Services for routing group connections, that will cause headaches. One one hand, it would be nice to have to worry about a single routing infrastructure. On the other hand, it is nice having different routing infrastructures.

Bob

XBOX 360 BSOD

2005-11-27T01:23:00.000-05:00

chamisool, a Flikr.com user, posted this photo of an XBOX360 or XBOX 360 Blue Screen of Death. Actually, it is a Black Screen of Death if you want to be technically correct.

However, the BSOD was common in the NT4 days, and dwindled as Microsoft improved the system AND as manufacturers improved their drivers.

Note - the BSOD on the XBOX 360 has only been noted for a few systems. Microsoft has not noted whether it is a video card problem or a software problem.

Midnight Reading - You had me at EHLO! and DSProxy

2005-11-08T23:03:00.000-05:00

While most of the Eastern US will be asleep tonight at midnight, I will be happily reading the "You had me at EHLO!" blog, specifically Ross Smith's article regarding the DS Proxy Referral process changes in Exchange 2003 SP2. This will definitely help out some of the segmented environments that I get to work in!
http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2005/11/04/413669.aspx

Well, that and the 75GB (18GB until you change a reg key) Priv update!

Hats off to the Microsoft Exchange team!
http://www.cafepress.com/ehlo.11672598

Thanks,

Bob

Microsoft Exchange Server: Microsoft Exchange Server Analyzer Tools

2005-11-07T19:03:00.000-05:00

Yet again, Microsoft is providing us with tools to make our jobs a little bit easier. THANKS!

ExBPA has been updated to version 2.5 and two new tools have been added to the fray.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol
/exchange/downloads/2003/analyzers/default.mspx

Microsoft Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool v2.5
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/
details.aspx?familyid=dbab201f-4bee-4943-ac22-e2ddbd258df3

Exchange Server Performance Troubleshooting Analyzer Tool v1.0
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=55884

Exchange Server Disaster Recovery Analyzer Tool v1.0
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54760

Information on the Exchange 2000 Exchange 2003 .stm file.

2005-10-22T13:46:00.000-04:00

The .STM file, or streaming file, holds non-MAPI information while the .edb file, or the Exchange database (essentially a large JET (Access-type of technology) database holds the messages and the MAPI information. If someone sends e-mail or accesses e-mail from a non-MAPI client (POP3, IMAP4, Web), that e-mail is stored in the .stm file. Mail from the internet is also non-MAPI and comes in a format called MIME. This information is also stored in the STM file. It may be converted to MAPI when a MAPI user (Outlook) accesses it and it is also converted to MAPI when the Move Mailbox wizard is used. There also may be pointers in the .edb to information in the STM.

Here are a few links that help to demystify the STM file:

http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/8955/8955.html
(about 1/3 of the way down in the document the STM is discussed)

Native Content Storage in Microsoft Exchange
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/232323
(Good article...communicates the idea behind the STM very well)

What causes a large .STM file?

Several things can cause a large STM file. One of those could be that your server is open as a relay. Sembee, an Experts-Exchange expert, and a Microsoft MVP, has produced some concise information.
http://www.amset.info/exchange/smtp-relaysecure.asp
http://www.amset.info/exchange/spam-cleanup.asp

Another thing that you could have in your system is a loop. Leaving Exchange up (and getting an outage approved), unplug the network cable temporarily. Take a look at your queues and see what gets queued up. Look @ both the SMTP messages and the messages in your MTA. Another thing to do is to enable message tracking and see who is sending a large amount of messages.

Look at your mailboxes and see what the largest mailbox is.

If you have a very large STM and a small EDB, something is wrong. Examples of exceptions are if you have an inordinate amount of OWA users, run a business that receives a lot of Internet e-mail, have a lot of POP3 users, who leave messages on the server, etc.

Some anti-virus scanners have even been known to cause problems with Exchange, both a the file level as well as Exchange-aware AV apps.

Please see this Experts Exchange question, and answer, regarding file-level AV scanners and Exchange:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Q_21300420.html

Regarding mailboxes:
One thing that you can do is look at the mailbox sizes, add them all up, and see if they are over xx GB. If they are, then you are fine. Even though Exchange has a single instance store, the user’s mailbox shows what they are using, but does not note the single instance storage info. So, in theory, if some users share documents, etc. then the store will be smaller than the total of the mailboxes in the store. So, if 2 mailboxes have a 1GB attachment (unrealistic, I know), they will total 2GB but the database will be 1GB (and change) (this is provided a new server with only 2 mailboxes).

Regarding the amount of free space in your Exchange database, and what you can expect to recover, check for 1221 events noting how much free space is in your database.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/186291

Do you have enough room for an offline defrag, if needed? (Some good resources)
http://www.petri.co.il/
defragment_exchange_2000_2003_server_databases.htm (links are wrapped)
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/
techinfo/tips/defragmentation.asp (links are wrapped)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/254132

This may help, if you are using NAV/SAV for Exchange:
http://bobchristian.blogspot.com/2005/02/symantec-mail-security-settings.html

There have been a few E-E topics where it was noted that AV applications bloated the STM file.

If you are not running Exchange-aware backups, but you shut down the Exchange services for your backup and do a brick-level backup, this will not clean off old mailboxes or clean up items that have been emptied from the deleted items. Another bad thing about this is that the Transaction Logs will not be flushed, which causes disk usage to increase, unless you have implemented circular logging for each of your storage groups (*shudder*). Usually you don’t notice this until the disk space is significantly small and you have several thousand 5MB files on your drive. If you have a third-party backup utility and did not purchase the Exchange bits for it, at least run an NTBackup on the Exchange server and back the Exchange databases to disk. You can back up that .bak file with your normal routine, and then remove the large .bak file.

While this is a lot of information, and it comes in a somewhat “throw it to the wall” manner, I hope it helps.

…and if you are limited to 16GB, running Exchange Standard Editions, and you are in your 1GB buffer, you will want to reset the key back to zero (0) from one (1) so that you don’t hit 17GB and end up with a server that won’t start the IS:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
\MSExchangeIS\Private\Temporary DB Size Limit Extension

More information regarding this key can be found in KB813051
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813051

Big Brother Watching - Electronic Frontier Foundation decodes printer tracking dots

2005-10-19T20:17:00.000-04:00

For years we have all been hearing that the government had manufacturers put a copier serial number on every printed page and require copiers to detect that money was being copied and create an off-set as well as log it.

For a while I never believed that a serial number was printed and there was no way to print one tiny enough to go unnoticed. I have been in IT for ~12-13 years, I have worked with computers for the past ~20+ years (TRS80, TI-99/4a, and Apple II), and I have worked on dot matrix (9-24 pin), Inkjet, LED, and Laser printers as a hobby and profession as well as a few Black&White copiers, though not by choice. The "dollar bill" offset was confirmed for me a long time ago before I touched a printer or copier...about 15 years. I figured that there was some way that our printouts could be tracked from Kinkos, etc. but I did not think that my corporate printer's printouts could be tracked.

So, I am all smug and stuff in my thinking... well, where there is a will and law enforcement, there is a way. Take a look at the Washington Post, TGDaily, and EFF article links below. This is downright scary when you really think of the implications. Anonymous letters are not so anonymous anymore, and the list goes on.

So, being all smug and stuff, I decided to print a page on a 4000 series color Laserjet and a Laserjet 5SIMx black and white dinosaur that is still working after all these years.

I flipped on the handy-dandy blue LED light on the end of my pen (thanks to Insight...they have really good prices and really nice pens as swag) The black and white, obviously, did not have the yellow dots mentioned. The color printer, however, did show a pattern that was easily noticed. Under the blue LED they show as light brown specs. ...can't wait to take it home and get it under a blacklight and a magnifying glass.

The rule of thumb is...don't even think of sending a letter to your Congressman or Congresswoman complaining about high gas prices if it is printed on a color printer!

Electronic Frontier Foundation decodes printer tracking dots
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/19/eff-decodes-printertrackingdots/

Sleuths Crack Tracking Code Discovered in Color Printers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801663.html

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php

Shamless Gloating - Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional)

2005-10-17T01:13:00.000-04:00

Microsoft has awarded me their Microsoft MVP in Microsoft Office Live Communications Server. Thanks to all of you who nominated me.

You know you, or a product, is getting old when...

2005-10-04T20:10:00.000-04:00

...you have to go searching support.microsoft.com to validate that you can't delete a public Folder through the Exchange 5.5 Administrator application.

XADM: Cannot Delete Public Folders Using Administrator Program
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/152745

That is what happened today... Having used ESM so long I was spoiled by being able to just go in and whack a public folder when it needed to be whacked, shunning the Outlook appplication. However, today was a trip down memory lane...

Top 10 and Worst 10 products - CNET.com

2005-09-28T21:06:00.000-04:00

Can't say that I disagree with CNET's selections. It's a shame that Microsoft Bob did not take off. *sniff* However, I really wish that they would have listed the Amiga in the top 10.

The Amiga, back in it's day, was "the shiznit" and really improved gaming. Psygnosis had some excellent games and had some awesome anti-piracy built into their games. Eidos bought Psygnosis' Europe division in 1998. Sony's 989 Studios took over the US operations. ...and, in 2000, Psygnosis was no longer in operation. Maybe Psygnosis will make the listing of top tech companies.

Top 10 Products
http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6312246-1.html?tag=txt

Worst 10 Products
http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6313439-1.html?tag=nl.e501

...and, yes, it is sad to think that I am mentioning something that was developed over 20 years ago as a "best" product. Guess I am that old...

with that I will sign off.

Cheers,

Bob

Changing Store Limits in Exchange 2003 SP2

2005-09-26T02:26:00.000-04:00

How can I change the store limits in Exchange 2003 SP2?
http://www.petri.co.il/change_store_size_limits_ex2003_sp2.htm

I just came across this article this evening and wanted to share it. Apparently, according to what Daniel wrote, the 16GB limit in Exchange 2003 is upped to 18GB in Exchange 2003 SP2. Most of us know that one of the major improvements with Exchange 2003 SP2 is the ability for a mailbox store in Exchange 2003 standard to grow to 75GB instead of 16GB. In order to recieve the full functionality of 75GB, one will need to tinker with the system.

Obviously, this will result in other issues, such as organizations having to purchase larger tape drives and more tapes. However, the one thing they will not have to do is shell out $3400+ for Exchange 2003 Enterprise Edition.

Moving Exchange Mailbox Stores ( Databases )

2005-09-20T22:05:00.000-04:00

Before moving any Exchange Mailbox Stores, or Exchange databases, I suggest that you perform a good Exchange-aware backup. This ensures that the transaction logs are flushed AND you have a backup, should something go wrong.

Another frequent recommendation is the act of double-checking the NTFS permissions (security tab) on the directory where the files are currently located and the permissions on the folder to where the files are going to be moved.

Last, but not least... Make sure that you turn off your file-level anti-virus and make sure that you make the proper exclusions once the files are moved or prior to moving them.

Daniel Petri, an Exchange MVP, has a great site that has visual tutorials regarding moving your database and transaction logs.

How can I move Exchange Databases and Logs from one disk to another in Exchange 2000/2003?
http://www.petri.co.il/move_exchange_stores_to_a_different_disk.htm

Microsoft also has a KB article that touches on moving these databases and logs to another disk on the system.

XADM: How to Move Exchange Databases and Logs in Exchange 2000 Server
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257184

How to move Exchange databases and logs in Exchange Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821915

Techworld.com - Symantec patches simple-text password hole

2005-09-06T22:53:00.000-04:00

Did you ever have one of those days where you wish you had access to old e-mails?

About 4 years ago, when working for a large IT security .com (which still exists) as a sysadmin, I discovered that the username and password for the Symantec system account was stored in clear text in the registry. It was subordinate of a LANDesk key, if memory serves me correctly. We brought this to Symantec's attention and they were surprised, but did not seem to be shocked. They did indicate that the problem would be addressed. I wish that I had the original e-mail.

Now it seems that they have moved from a registry to a text file...and someone found that little error. Now, hopefully, the problem has been completely resolved.

Symantec patches simple-text password hole
http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?NewsID=4342

Exchange Server 2003 Operations Guide

2005-09-01T13:12:00.000-04:00

About once a week someone will inevitably ask the question about writing an Exchange 2003 Ops manual. Fortunately, Microsoft has done a lot of the footwork and presented it here:

Exchange Server 2003 Operations Guide

The high level list, which I try to recommend:
1) Backups...backups...backups
These are extremely important. The flush the transaction logs and they allow the online maintenance to recognize that a backup has been performed. You know, that while deleted item retention time thing. Actually, there are a LOT of maintenance tasks that are dependent upon the backups.

2) File Level Anti-Virus Exclusions
These are extremely important...find someone who had a problem caused because of a lack of exclusions.

3) Active Directory
Treat your directory servers just like you treat your Exchange Servers. They are not a forethought until they crash and you realize that most of the important config information and authentication information is stored in the directory.

4) Run the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer
The ExBPA is a great tool and can help you resolve issues related to Exchange before they happen. Does it have metrics for everything? No. It does, however, have metrics for about 95% of what an organization needs.
Recommendations would be to read the exclusions, last database backup times, etc.

5) Operations Checklist or Monitoring
Develop an Operations Checklist or guide and go through it daily.
or
Implement a monitoring tool, such as Microsoft Operations Manager.

XADM: Security Tab Not Available on All Objects in System Manager

2005-08-22T03:00:00.000-04:00

I will write some nifty comments about the Security tab (Permissions tab) not showing, by default, for the Exchange Org (Exchange Organization). It's a simple setting and it needs to be made in HKey_Current_User (HKCU) and not HKey_Local_Machine (HKLM).

Until then...this is a good link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/259221

Cheers,

Bob

The nefarious bootcamp question...

2005-08-07T14:33:00.000-04:00

Occasionally I get asked about MCSE bootcamps, mostly by people who desire to break into IT or expand their IT horizons.

I recommend grabbing the Microsoft MSPress training kit. If they can read through all 2100+ pages without getting bored to tears, then a bootcamp might be something that may work. Bookpool has it here:
http://www.bookpool.com/sm/0735619530

Remember that there were a lot of boot camps and Microsoft Certified Technical Education Centers (CTEC) that tanked in the early 2000's, taking many a student's money without completing the training for the student. So, there are several thousand folks out there, who went through desktop and server, but never even had a chance to take their networking and design courses.

My recommendation to career changers is find a college or university that has an MCSE course, such as Armstrong Atlantic (http://www.aasu.edu/) in Savannah. Or, find a reputable and stable CTEC in their area after they read through the MSPress kit. Friends in IT can generally provide guidance.

Bootcamps can be a great waste of money for career changers, but can be an okay investment (note I do not say good) for folks who work in IT and need to upgrade their NT4 to 2000/2003 in an environment where they can consistently learn and not be interrupted every 15 minutes. ...and it is hard to learn when you "work" 8-5 and continue to get support calls at 8PM, 9PM, a call about a non-corporate PC crashing at 10PM, ad nauseum. However, there are a lot of free and low-cost resources out there to start with. In addition, for a few thousand dollars you can put together a nice lab with two workstations, a switch, and a couple of VMWare licenses. The issue there is that you have to be driven to remove yourself from life's complications.

Regarding bootcamps:
Intense School, http://www.intenseschool.com, is one in the U.S. Global Knowledge, http://www.globalknowledge.com/, is another bootcamp that friends in IT have recommended. No, I have never attended a bootcamp, but I have attended a CTEC.

Remember that a bootcamp is somewhat like college...it is a certification to learn after you leave. Just because you come out of college with your degree does not mean that you are "ready". Unlike college, it crams a lot of learning into a very short amount of time. There are many folks who could pass the CPA exam right out of college...but they have a 2-year experience requirement in their state, including auditing experience. Some states do not have this requirement. However, the certification is one of the many steps on the path. Certification, paired with college and/or good experience is usually a solid foundation on which to build your career.

Yes, per RFC 1855, I am yelling...JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CERTIFICATION, AND HAVE BEEN THROUGH A BOOTCAMP, THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT IT WILL LEAD TO A JOB. ...and it is rare when someone, with a fresh MCSE, gets one of the coveted high-paying jobs. Usually that takes certification, experience, a good reputation, and willingness to work hard.

Bob's Blog: Problems with vxfiVspCacheFile files

2005-08-03T11:59:00.000-04:00

Why am I blogging my own page? That is a good question... What impresses me is that this page is the most viewed page on my blog:
Bob's Blog: Problems with vxfiVspCacheFile files

It has had over 80 hits in the past few months! Wow! The techs that have accessed it appear to be home users (likely fellow IT chaps and lasses researching from home), mid-sized corporations, educational companies, a few small mom and pop shops, and even someone from Brazil. Most of the hits were referrals from a Google search. Approximately 3 of the hits came from Yahoo! (I feel sorry for Lycos...that used to be my favorite search engine. However, how many times have we heard "I Lycosed it" or Lycossily Bear (Think Googley Bear off of Monsters, Inc.)

Hit information courtesy of FreeStats (a paid subscription provided me with a greater analysis than the standard Free stats).

Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP

2005-07-26T20:36:00.000-04:00

The Core Inftrastructure team appears to be developing a solution, the Shared Computer Toolkit, which is similar to products such as Full Armor. Best I can tell, this does not completely replace the third-party tools, but provides a Microsoft-based solution for places where there are desktops out in the open. They call these "shared computers".

By shared computer they are not referring to a system that is sharing files, but a system where multiple unknown, untrusted, or unknown and untrusted users have access to systems. Examples are libraries, internet cafes, gaming centers, university computing centers, etc.

They have developed a product that allows an administrator to easily lock down the system wihout having an Active Directory Group Policy infrastructure. It also automatically makes the policy settings.

This tool appears to apply registry hacks to the system, which would normally be applied manually, through a local policy, or through GPOs. It also appears that the system will revert to the previous profile. Windows uses a temporary copy of the profile. So if someone figures out how to "POwn"
This feature is similar to the Mandatory windows profile that is used as part of the roaming profiles.

It appears that they can also set mandatory session times...but there is no note as to whether or not a user can just log back in (and get on their Mud, MUSE, etc.).

This apparently will not be a free tool, but the Beta is, of course, free.
Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP

Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP (Beta)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7256D456-E3DA-42EA-857D-92B716077A84&displaylang=en

Windows Messenger and Ports

2005-07-24T00:04:00.000-04:00

A lot of folks have asked about Windows Messenger ports. Below is a KB, released last week, which touches on the ports, what they are used for, as well as the protocols. There is some base information regarding firewalls included, too.

Description of the Windows Messenger client basic protocol port usage for instant messaging, file transfer, audio, and video

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/903056

Normally I also post the information below when folks ask about WM ports:

Microsoft has provided some excellent documentation, which reviews peer-to-peer communication. While this documentation is a little old, it is still relevant to your situation. Granted, the information contained in the links below require a significant investment of your time, they are worth the effort.

You cannot make phone calls or start voice or video conversations with Windows Messenger
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324214

Windows Messenger in Windows XP: Working With Firewalls and Network Address Translation Devices www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/worki01.mspx

The note here is that IM is initiated on 5060 and 5061 for Live Communications Server rather than 1863 or 1893.

Search Engine Craziness

2005-07-20T21:31:00.000-04:00

About 6 months ago I blogged about my wife's search for Ashleee Simpson and her new haircut ...and how that search for Ashlee Simpson returned a page which installed some pretty nasty spyware.

Well, today I have noticed that people are coming to my blog from Yahoo...most of my folks come from Google or Google groups. What is even more scary is that these individuals are getting here when they perform this search:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=ashlee+simpson+new+haircut

It would seem that my blog is #26 or #28 on the list when they search for Miss Simpson's new haircut. Well, at least the search was not:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=ashlee+simpson+new+haircut+spyware

I am #1 on the list for that nifty little search. So, once they are infected, they might search and find that nifty little link.

CNN.com - Ex-officers: CIA leak may have harmed U.S. - Jul 20, 2005

2005-07-20T21:17:00.000-04:00

Ummm... DUH!
CNN.com - Ex-officers: CIA leak may have harmed U.S. - Jul 20, 2005

A slip of the lip can sink the ship.

Clusters and Volume Mount Points

2005-07-11T20:26:00.000-04:00

Okay, so you are familiar with assigning physical disks to your Exchange cluster. With Windows Server 2003 you also have the option of creating a mount point and tying it to your server. This is great, particularly with Exchange clusters, which can eat up your remaining allocation of 22 disk letters (assuming A, B, C, and D are already taken), dependant upon how you configure your logs and your mailbox stores.

Unfortunately there are items which must be remembered when using mount points on a cluster. As you would create a clust resource (type Physical Disk) with a physical disk, one should also create a cluster resource (type Physical Disk) for the mount point.

The mount point should have a dependency upon the Physical Disk resource's drive letter to which it is mounted. This ensures that the drie letter is available before the mount point connects.

As with the physical disk and drive letter, the services which depend upon the physical disk with the drive letter and the physical disk mount point should be configured that they depend upon all of the appropriate physical disk resources.

Microsoft has a great article detailing this right here:
How to configure Volume Mount Points on a clustered server

Well-known security identifiers in Windows operating systems

2005-07-11T17:32:00.000-04:00

The topic is not as much about the well-known security identifiers in Windows operating systems as it is trying to find the SID for "LOCAL SERVICE".

Off I went today in search of what the SID for the "LOCAL SERVICE" account actually was...mainly because some information was not enumerating as fast as it should enumerate. Through the information below I was able to discover that it was S-1-5-19. Short SID, but the one I needed, nonetheless.

Well-known security identifiers in Windows operating systems

Redirect http://owa.company.com to https://owa.company.com/exchange

2005-07-06T12:12:00.000-04:00

A co-worker and good friend called me the other day asking how to configure their OWA (Exchange 2003) server to automatically redirect to the /exchange site. He already had the answer regarding how to redirect http:// to https://

The following articles should provide an overview of how to redirect the HTTP connection to the HTTPS connection as well as redirecting to /exchange.

How to: Redirect an HTTP connection to HTTPS for Outlook Web Access (OWA) in Exchange 2003 Server.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555126

Sembee's site has text documentation and screenshots regarding the redirect to /exchange.
http://www.amset.info/exchange/default-web.asp

The Exchange MVPs have created a text-based site with this information regarding the redirect to /exchange.
http://exchange.mvps.org/owaredirect_frames.htm

If you have not noticed, I am starting to turn my blog into a FAQ of sorts, one primarily for my own questions. Granted, it works very well as it allows for some laziness. No longer do I have to retain this information in RAM, I just remember that I cached it on my blog. Ahh...if only it were that easy.

BetaNews | MS Readies Web-Based Communicator

2005-06-22T14:20:00.000-04:00

BetaNews | MS Readies Web-Based Communicator

Finally Microsoft has released official information regarding their Budapest client!

Not taking the wind out of Microsoft's great big sails, but this is not the first web client for Live Communications server. Approximately 1 year ago a company called eDial, now a Alcatel subsidiary, produced an awesome web-based instant messaging server. This provided great support for Mac users, Linux users, and the hopeless few who are still stuck with Windows 95. Don't laugh...I met an IBM consultant that had 95 on his Thinkpad just 2 years ago.

Around November or December of 2004 eDial quit selling this product. That meant that one of several things had happened:
1) eDial decided to discontinue the product due to lack of interest
2) Alcatel decided to discontinue the product as a separate piece, requiring companies to implement their Instant Messaging server.
3) There was a patent fight over AOL's Web Messenger, Microsoft's Web Messenger, or something similar.
4) Someone quietly bought the rights to the product.
5) Microsoft had decided to develop their own web-based IM client for Live Communications Server

...and it may very well be that several of these factors impacted eDials decision to discontinue this product. It was definitely a great product.

Does anyone really read my blog? =^)

Bob

Microsoft scrapping MCSE?

2005-06-09T12:55:00.000-04:00

Apparently Microsoft is kicking around the idea of scrapping the MCSE certification. There have been ~6 posts and 2 blogs related to this. The information appears to have been pulled from the Internet due to NDA concerns, so I won't post it here.

However, this is a link, with cached information, that has ~5 sentences on it:
http://www.developerfusion.com/blogs/detail/248

Exchange Server 2003 Performance: 10 Things to Think About

2005-06-08T17:51:00.000-04:00

Microsoft TechNet: Exchange Server 2003 Performance: 10 Things to Think About

I took the time to read this nifty little Top 10. It's pretty interesting and chock full of good information.

What I would like to note is that Microsoft has gotten much better at supporting the community, in general. It is us geeks that push their wares to our management. It's great that Microsoft is trying to make things easier and providing good resources.

Granted, MSExchange.org has produced a lot of good information and their folks share some great information with the Exchange community.
In light of the topic of this e-mail I wanted to provide the following topic-related information/links:
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Optimize-Exchange-2003-Performance-Part1.html
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Optimize-Exchange-2003-Performance-Part2.html

Now if we can just learn to RTFM, or, in this case, RTFWWW

Bob

SQL 2005 Released for Public Testing

2005-06-08T16:06:00.000-04:00

http://www.ftponline.com/channels/net/reports/tech-ed/2005/flessner/

WOW! It's hard to believe that, 5 years later, the next release of SQL is about to hit public testing. I am not sure which lived longer...NT4 or SQL 2000.

Regardless, congratulations to Microsoft. Touche' to Oracle! From the testing, it appears that Oracle has some work ahead of it to improve their numbers. Granted, that should not be too hard considering it is platform-diverse.

Which leads me to ask the question...if SQL is so good on Windows, how much better would it be on Linux?

How many subfolder deletions does it take to crater Exchange?

2005-06-06T13:35:00.000-04:00

I came across information, in an Experts-Exchange posting.

When you try to move or to remove a folder that contains many subfolders in Outlook, the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service stops responding, and event 9673 is recorded on the Exchange Server 2003 computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891504

What interests me is that Outlook is vastly improved and it is much more robust in the amount of data that it can contain...but just how much can it actually contain before causing a problem with a workstation or even the Exchange server. Likewise, how much data can be removed at a single time without effecting Exchange? Does the amount of RAM in a server make a difference? Is there a different effect if the server has smaller drives, larger drives, faster spindles, slower spindles.

My experience has been that Exchange is pretty robust and can handle most anything on a properly configured server.

So...we are all left wondering...
How much can we load into the cart before the horse/mule can no longer pull it...or no longer stop it once the inertia is built up?

Linux faces Setback

2005-05-25T19:09:00.000-04:00

This takes me back to remembering how tough it was to keep versions of code and documents in order before Visual Source Safe or even Sharepoint...
http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/05/25/cz_dl_0525linux.html

Essentially what the article says is that the developer of the source code repository has been absorbing $500,000 in support costs and just wants the costs paid...and he will continue to let Linux developers use it for free. Nope, 1/2 mil is a bit much. Thus, the Linux folks are developing their own open source toolset called "git". Good luck, chaps!

...I thought Linux was supposed to be free. Guess someone has to feed and clothe the developers and their children. Where is all of the fresh blood, who will take on the development of this free software?

Good luck, folks. It's tough to give things away for free...somewhere someone is paying a price and giving their life to make this a better socieyt. And, no, I am not comparing Linus Torvalds to Jesus.

Exchange 2003 Ogranization Security Tab

2005-05-18T16:30:00.000-04:00

Though many things can be configured by GUI, there will always be a need to dig into a system registry and make a tweak or two. If you are missing the security tab on the Organization in your Exchange 2003 environment, this should help you set sail:

Under the Key:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\ExAdmin
Add the REG_DWORD value ShowSecurityPage and assign it a value of 1.

Additional information and instructions are available at:
XADM: Security Tab Not Available on All Objects in System Manager
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/259221

Windows Messenger 5.1 Update (Not "R2")

2005-05-16T10:52:00.001-04:00

Microsoft has updated Windows Messenger 5.1.
No, it is not Windows Messenger 6.
No, it is not Windows Messenger 5.2.
No, it is not Windows Messenger 5.1.1.

Yes, that's right. It is still Windows Messenger 5.1. It's not even Windows Messenger 5.1 R2

The "old" Windows Messenger 5.1 is version 5.1.0639 with a 2004 Copyright.
The "new" Windows Messenger 5.1 is version 5.1.0680 with a 2004 Copyright...nope, not even a 2005 copyright..still the 2004 Copyright.

The link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=A8D9EB73-5F8C-4B9A-940F-9157A3B3D774&displaylang=en

A TinyURL for you:
http://tinyurl.com/59f97

Interesting article on Exchange Alternatives and Migration from Exchange

2005-05-13T12:26:00.000-04:00

This is a pretty interesting article covering a few of the larger Exchange alternatives that have collaborative features similar to Exchange. It is well written and pretty informative.

Feb 05 - Microsoft, Linux square off in InfoWorld's Exchange migration challenge
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/02/11/07FEexchange_1.html

New KB Article KB898150 "The following message could not be delivered to all recipients"

2005-05-11T14:22:00.000-04:00

Just as side commentary...this one has been a long time coming.

Many people often overlook the need to do the following, even though it is documented:
1) Configure an A record in DNS for the LCS 2005 Enterprise Pool(s)
2) Use the Pool name with LCS 2005 Enterprise Edition, even in a single-server deployment.
(Note: For LCS 2005 Standard Edition and LCS 2003 the pool name is the same as the server name).
3) Configure MTLS/TLS when more than 1 server, even two servers in the same pool, are implemented in their LCS environment.

The article:
You receive a "The following message could not be delivered to all recipients" error message when you send an instant message to a user in Live Communications Server 2005 Enterprise Edition http://support.microsoft.com/kb/898150

Here is another good article related to LCS connectivity issues:"
An HTTPS or TCP connection could not be made” error message when you try to connect to an Office Live Communications Server 2003 Home Server or to an Office Live Communications Server 2005 pool by using Windows Messenger http://support.microsoft.com/kb/898153

My unintentional hiatus

2005-05-11T14:18:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since I blogged. From all indications presented, I do not get too many hits to my blog. Thus, the goal over being a bit more helpful may not be what I intended it to be. Maybe I am partially to blame since I do not post as often as I should.

Through my interaction with the LCS newsgroup (microsoft.public.livecomm.general) I may be accomplishing my original goal, but I may be utilizing a different medium to accomplish that goal.

Who knows? In the famous words of the Family Circus cartoon series "Not Me"

Bob

Missing Live Communications Tab in Active Directory Users and Computers Console

2005-03-27T02:04:00.000-05:00

Well, I am *finally* doing what I have set out to do...
Start some documentation for LCS 2005.

Below is a semi-formatted example. I plan on posting a formatted example on my website (www.bobchristian.com) and on Meni's LCS Guides (www.lcs-guides.com).

Question:

I have installed Live Communications Server 2005 into my environment. The Live Communications tab is not showing up on Active Directory Users and Computers on my domain controllers or my administrative workstations. It does show up on the Active Directory Users and Computers console on my LCS 2005 Server.

Answer:

Much like Microsoft Exchange, you need to install the Administrative Tools onto your domain controller, or administrative workstation, in order for the Live Communication tab to show up under the user’s properties in Active Directory Users and Computers.

Instructions:

It is assumed that all open applications which can be closed have been closed.

Insert your LCS 2005 CD onto the domain controller or administrative workstation on which you want to install the Administrative Tools.

It does not matter if you utilize the LCS 2005 Standard Edition CD or the LCS 2005 Enterprise Edition CD. The administration tools are the same for either install.

Note: It is possible to share this CD on a server and launch it via the UNC path. If you attempt to install via the UNC path (usually \\server\share\Setup\I386\Setup.exe) you may receive a File Download notification. This is due to the security features of Windows 2003. Simply click the Open button and continue as noted below.

If the CD does not Autolaunch, Launch the Setup application from your CD-Rom. This is usually D:\Setup\ I386\Setup.exe

The Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 Deployment Tool will launch.

On the right-hand side of the Deployment Tool screen there is a tools box.

Click on the Administrative Tools link.

Note: If you accidentally try to re-install the tools on your Live Communications Server the following notice will pop-up:

“Microsoft Office Live
Communications Server 2005 Administration Tools is already installed with with
Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 on this machine.”

You may notice the Windows Installer launch. If you want to cancel the installation, press the [Cancel] button. Otherwise, allow the Windows Installer to continue it’s process.
The first screen to come up for the “Live Communications Server 2005 Administration Tools” setup is the Welcome to the Setup Wizard for Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 Administration Tools.
Click [Next >]
The second screen to come up is the License Agreement.
Please read to the License Agreement and select the radio button that is most appropriate to your agreement stance.

If you have clicked “I accept the terms in the license agreement”, click the [Next >] button.
If you have left the “I do not accept the terms in the license agreement” selected, you may not continue and need to select the [Cancel] button and discontinue the installation or find a member of your IT, management, or Legal staff that is authorized to agree to the terms and bind your organization, company, agency, etc. to the terms of the licensing agreement.

On the next screen you will input your User Name and Organization.This screen may be pre-populated with existing information. Once the correct information has been entered click [Next >].

The “Ready to Install the Program” dialog box is the last to come up.

Note: It is not possible to change the installation path of the tools from C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft LC 2005\ .
Note: The installation will also install the rtcclient.adm template into %windir%\inf. This is generally
C:\windows\inf on most servers and Windows XP administrative workstations.

Once the installation is complete click the [Finish] button.
The Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 Administration Tools are now installed.
Launch Active Directory Users and Computers.
Open a User Account.
Verify that you can now see and select the Live Communications tab.
Perform, as needed, on other servers.

I wanted to note that the teams I have had the privilege to work on have not seen any conflicts between the LCS 2005 Administration Tools and the Exchange 2000 or Exchange 2003 admin toolsets. This is not to say that it has not happened.

Cheers,

Bob

Hi newbie, you want to post on a forum? this is what you need to know!

2005-03-22T18:27:00.000-05:00

Hi newbie, you want to post on a forum? this is what you need to know!

OMFG! This is hilarious!

Free Virtual Labs for Learning

2005-03-17T03:35:00.000-05:00

It used to be that when most of us wanted to learn a new technology we fired up a few old workstations and loaded the server OS and other bits and bytes onto the system. Then comes VMWare and Connectix (now Microsoft). You could load your whole lab onto one powerful system (or two) and work with virtual servers.

Now, Microsoft has one-upped this. No longer are you tied to creating your own lab. Microsoft has a lab environment for you and it is free of charge (for now and hopefully for a while).

TechNet Virtual Lab: Exchange
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/traincert/virtuallab/exchange.mspx

Microsoft has provided a 7 module lab environment where you can perform tasks ranging from configuring RPC Proxy, Migrate from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003, and even monitor Exchange and Active Directory with MOM 2005

Microsoft Technet Virtual Labs
http://microsoft.demoservers.com

Microsoft has provided a lab environment with 10 modules. SQL Server 2000, Exchange Server (mentioned above), Windows Server, Systems Management Server 2003 (SMS 2003), Security, Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 (MOM 2005), Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA), Desktop Deployment, Office Live Communications Server 2005 (LCS 2005), and Sharepoint Portal Services 2003 (SPS 2003)

Ashlee Simpson, her new haircut, and spyware / adware language warning

2005-03-06T19:29:00.000-05:00

Granted, if you have been reading my blog you will notice that I try to keep my professional and personal lives out of the technical life. It is rare when these cross over.
So, here I am in Oklahoma City getting off the plane. My sweetheart wife (she is really a gem and a beautiful Southern gal) says, Umm, Bob (That's a clue for something is wrong)... "I think I broke the computer".

What had happened was that my wife Googled "Ashlee Simpson haircut" and somehow clicked yes to allow this program to install. Now there are all of these pop-ups. It was pretty bad from what she said. IF PEOPLE JUST QUIT BUYING OFF OF POP-UP ADVERTISEMENTS THEN THE ADVERTISERS WOULD HAVE TO EXPLORE NEW ROUTES OF REVENUE. Yes, I am screaming, yelling, and jumping up and down a la Steve Ballmer or John McCain.

So, we unplug the PC from the network...easy enough. We run Symantec Antivirus (current version) and it does not find squat. We boot into safe mode and start cleaning stuff out of HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Winodws\CurrentVersion\Run

Three hours later we had all of the basic stuff cleaned up by editing the registry and performing manual deletes, including about 6 big trojan applications. Guess what? Symantec Antivirus (current and up-to-date) did not catch a single one of them!

So, we left it where the computer was operable ahdn I worked on it when I returned home. There was one file (and corresponding run entry) that I could not get rid of C:\Windows\System32\hiibzhgh.exe . This is also tied to THNALL2R. There was another file I removed, farmmext.exe. These applications download themselves from a website and perform an installation. When I booted into Safe Mode on my XP box I was able to remove them, the traces of them from the file system (file locations and Temporary Internet Files), and remove the run key.

Trend Micro has a free online virus and security scanner available from http://housecall.trendmicro.com. You have to tab through some of the menus when you boto into safe mode, but it worked great. It nailed 11 Trojans and 8 pieces of spyware. Some of these were remnants from what was cleaned.

I booted into the Normal mode and ran Spybot Search&Destroy from http://security.kolla.de and http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html. ***NOTE: I did donate to them a while back. Please donate to these folks.*** It found nearly 26 problems, which I corrected. I also downloaded Ad-Aware SE from the folks at Lavasoft (www.lavasoft.com). It is about ready to whack around 111 files, registry entries, etc. Again, I recommend a donation to these folks for their work on the free product.

To summarize.
Trend Micro's HouseCall (free) for a Vrius and Security Scan (you have to tab through the menus when in safe mode):
http://housecall.trendmicro.com

Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://security.kolla.de
or
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Ad-Aware (Personal Edition)
http://www.lavasoft.com

My sweet Southern wife's famous words, once we were done... "I don't know how the fuck you do this for a living." Spoken like a true Georgia Peach.

Work and hobbies

2005-02-27T01:46:00.000-05:00

Realizing that computers are both a work and a hobby, the stark realization that the hobby part of it has to be slowed down is a bit duanting. If there were only 30 hours in a day and there were time enough to perform the tasks that one would like to do...

Problems with vxfiVspCacheFile files

2005-02-18T13:20:00.000-05:00

Well, my initial goal of this blog was to note information related to LCS. Obviously, the drivers of my career also seem to drive my blog. My career had me working on a client's system this morning.

After performing an install of NetBackup and Symantec Antivirus yesterday a client noticed the following files on Disks 0,1, and 2:

_vxfiVspCacheFile_1.tmp
_vxfiVspCacheFile_2.tmp
_vxfiVspCacheFile_0.tmp

These files were taking up over 43GB of space. One of the files almost filled up the C: drive. Fortunately, for this client, their database folks are really sharp and caught it ahead of time.

This issue had reared it's ugly head on a previous client's file server and again today. The issue was that, best I can tell through Googling (www.google.com), a lock of the file by an anti-virus application. McAfee seems to be a culprit as well as Symantec.

Apparently NetBackup uses these files as a Volume Shadow Service cache. Apparently the anti-virus application locks these files open, which makes sense if real-time scanning is enabled. NetBackup is designed to remove these files at the end of it's backup cycle. Unfortunately, with the files locked open by the AV app, it can not remove them.

This is a short procedure that I performed in order to clear up the issue without a reboot:
Thanks to http://www.mcse.ms/message524179.html for most of this informtion.

Using filemon.exe (reskit tool) I verified that the file was locked. This is not a necessary step because you will recieve an error when you try to delete the file manually.

I stopped the Symantec Anti-Virus services as well as the NetBackup services. Using process explorer, a non-installing freeware app from SysInternals(www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml), I searched for and killed the handles locking open these temp files (_vxfiVspCacheFile_1.tmp , _vxfiVspCacheFile_2.tmp , and _vxfiVspCacheFile_0.tmp) on C, E, and F.

After that I verified that the files were still hidden, using dir /ah at a command (cmd.exe) prompt and cd \ to the root of the drive. If you are a sysadmin you know a little about this and how to navigate your way around a command prompt. This was not a necessary step, however.

I used the command attrib -h *.tmp command to unhide the file since it was the only temp file at the root of the drive. A visual verification through Windows Explorer verfied that this was the only temp file showing on the root of the drive.

From a command line I deleted _*.tmp (or *.tmp) since this was the only _*.tmp and *.tmp file on the root of each drive. It was not shift-deleted through the explorer GUI in order to keep the GUI overhead low.

I started the NetBackup and Symantec services once I was finished.

Carly is out of HP...

2005-02-09T10:54:00.000-05:00

Carly has resigned the coveted CEO spot at HP....

http://weblog.infoworld.com/techwatch/archives/001078.html

Honestly, this does not surprise me. They are still a very heavy technical products company. With margins of 1-2% on the desktop segment, 7% on the laptop segment, and 8-10% on the server segment, there is just not room to grow. HP makes some of the best computer products, particularly the Compaq Proliant servers. The problem is that America wants cheap crap and will complain about quality. Dell's servers have kept me up many late nights, particularly when clustering with the d@mned Broadcom NICs. Getting the SNAP pack to update these servers is terrible. HP's servers have not kept me up late at night, are easy to monitor, and easy to update (easy to obtain the PSP updates).

I have said this time and time again...America is outsourcing darned near everything. If you make a product in America, you are still going to need services even if people are buying cheap plasic crap!

It would behoove HP to expand their Federal Services business and work on projects with larger margins. Eventually these prices will come down. For now, the prices and margins will stay high and they should take advantage of this!

Bob

Symantec Mail Security Settings

2005-02-01T16:10:00.001-05:00

Recently I have started working with Symantec’s Mail Security product. Below is a compilation of items that I have obtained from other technicians, support staff, Gold Support, and my personal experience with the product.

The Symantec Mail Security product is not cluster-aware product for any clustering solution (Microsoft MSCS, Veritas VCS, and Legato AAM). Settings configured on one node need to be configured on the partner node. Note: I have only used this product in an Active/Passive or Active/Passive/Passive (N+1 and N+2) cluster environment. I have not tried it in an Active/Active/Passive, or N2+1 cluster.

Symantec has 4 base services that start. These are the job manager (SAVFMSSJM, or “Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange” service), the definition engine, the serial scanners, and a service that is in the format SAV*SP.

The serial scanner services will start with the following format:
(#P*2)+1
The number of processors installed (or physical processing cores) x 2 + 1
4 proc system = 9
8 proc system = 17
single proc, dual core = 5
single proc, hyperthreaded = 3

While a hyperthreaded processor is reported as 2 logical processors, Symantec counts a hyper-threaded processor as a single processor instance, or two processors in the thread count for Symantec. This is not the same as a processor which contains 2 cores, also known as a dual core processor, but a single core processor with architectural changes; thus, it's two logical cores vice two physical cores.

We found that performing a ‘net stop “Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange”’ will perform the functions desired to gracefully shutdown the services and threads scanning the databases. It is also possible to create a dependency on the Information Store, so that Symantec Mail Security shuts down when the IS shuts down.

Sybari handles this a bit differently by creating a dependency so that the IS depends on the AV app. This practice bothers me for the simple reason…if the app crashes, or hiccups, down comes the Exchange server. This is simply a side note.

Symantec noted that we should stop the SMSMSE service. We found that this stops cleanly when the “Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange” service is stopped with the “net stop” command listed above.

The Symantec SPAM Statistics service is set to manual by default. Leave it that way.

Symantec Mail Security apparently makes zero changes to the Exchange database. The changes made to the Exchange database are made through the Microsoft VS API for Exchange. This was confirmed with Symantec Gold Support.

According to Gold Support, when performing a manual scan it takes approximately 1GB per hour to scan the Exchange database, depending upon the processors, RAM, disk speed, etc. “The Symantec SMSMSE 4.5 application averages approximately 1GB scanned per hour.”
My assumption is that this is on an average exchange server. Obviously results will vary based upon hardware architecture (processors, RAM, disk types, disk sizes, SAN storage, disk spindles, spindle speeds, drive head types), threads used, load on the exchange server, etc.

Exchange places a VS date stamp on the e-mail, similar to an incremental scan. If the e-mail is changed the Exchange VS API will remove the date stamp. When the mail is scanned again the VS API updates the e-mail with a new date stamp.

By default, when the definitions are updated it kicks off a manual scan and resets all the Exchange VS API date stamps.
It was noted that this can wreck the backups.
This can be changed through the GUI (See notes below)
As a best practice, it is advisable to uncheck the option to force a rescan. This setting can cause problems with backups as well as adversely affect clients attempting to access the server. This setting is enabled by default.
Changing this setting is performed through the Symantec console (https://server:8081)
Expand Scan Jobs
Select the Auto-Protect menu.
Check the checkbox for “Enable Exchange background scanning”
Uncheck the checkbox for: “On virus definition update, force rescan before allowing access to information store.”

There is a bug within Symantec Mail Security that can cause Exchange to “crater” when utilized with MS Clustering Services. Essentially what happens is Symantec could start prior to the Exchange IS starting and this will lead to Symantec “chewing up” all of the RPC threads until there are no more threads. This will cause the Exchange IS to crash. If you set dependencies in other clustering products the same issue will not occur. This will be corrected in the next revision of Symantec Mail Security.
In order to set the dependency browse to: HKLM\System\Current Control Set\Services\SMSMSE
Open the DependOnService string
Add the following (case sensitive) after the LmHosts entry: MSExchangeIS
Close the DependOnService string window.
Symantec verified that “This will force the Symantec Mail Security process to wait on the Information Store service. Otherwise, there is a possibility that SAV SMSMSE could come up early, chew up all the RPC calls, and cause the server to crater.”
Note…Sybari is just the opposite, it starts prior to the Information Store service and the IS depends upon it.

NOTE 1: If this is in violation of any copyrights or agreements, I will promptly remove it. Just e-mail me or post a response with your contact information at Symantec. Or, if you want me to include an inline advertisement, I will be more than happy to do that as well…just send me the HTML in a .txt attachment, from your Symantec address. (Note: Same applies to other vendors mentioned)

Note 2: If you own an anti-virus product, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND…HIGHLY, purchasing the Gold support and maintenance package (usually 20-30% of retail on a yearly basis) from your vendor.

Note3: Symantec’s Gold Support is excellent.

Trademark information:
Microsoft, Windows, Exchange Server, Windows Server, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Outlook are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, in the United States and/or other countries.

Sybari and Sybari Antigen are trademarks of Sybari Software, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

Symantec and Symantec Mail Security are trademarks of Symantec Corporation in the United States and other countries (including California =^) ).

Other product names mentioned in this document may be copyrighted, trademarked, or registered trademarks of their respective companies and are hereby acknowledged. Other brands, product names, company names, trademarks and service marks are the properties of their respective owners.

Windows XP SP2 and Outlook Web Access ( OWA ) problems.

2005-01-23T14:30:00.000-05:00

For those of us that run Exchange 2003 organizations (or consult on Exchange 2003 organizations), the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 can cause a few nightmares. Fortunately both MSExchange.org and Microsoft's support site provide

OWA 2003 Caveats when Deploying Windows XP SP2 in Your Organization
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/OWA-2003-Caveats-Deploying-Windows-XP-SP2.html

Description of the known issues with using Outlook Web Access on a Windows XP SP2-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883575

Programs that are known to experience a loss of functionality when they run on a Windows XP Service Pack 2-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884130

I would like to say that XP SP2 makes me feel a little more comfortable regarding the hacker threat. If Microsoft can't get their software to work with XP SP2, then the malicious coders of the world are going to have to work a little harder, right?

Sometimes I wonder...If the malicious coders aligned with the Open Source community and used their skills to make Linux better, they may do more of a favor to the Linux and Open Source community than by destroying Microsoft workstation and server operating systems. Then again, their work keeps people like me in business and does bring the flaws of the MS OS to the forefront. And, as such, strengthens Microsoft's product and further harms Linux.

Note: I purposely coded the HTML so that the link addresses would show.

How to set size limits for messages in Exchange Server

2005-01-18T16:42:00.000-05:00

How to set size limits for messages in Exchange Server

I am glad that Microsoft has a KB article that reviews setting size limits on the Exchange Server. Wishlist: One place (or a script) to put a setting and override all other settings.

Granted, this should not be something that is needed often.

Hosting Your Own SMTP Mail Using Exchange 2000

2005-01-17T02:14:00.000-05:00

Hosting Your Own SMTP Mail Using Exchange 2000

This is an excllent article for those newbies to the Exchange world.
I set up an Exchange Server.
I can send to the Internet.
I can't recieve a reply from the Internet.
Why?
This answers that question and provides a solution for those new to the Exchange (and SBS) world...and for that matter, those new to the mail world and the world of A records and MX records.

Rewrite Windows Messenger Warning

2005-01-17T01:40:00.000-05:00

Rewrite Windows Messenger Warning

I wrote this a few weeks back. It is a relatively easy way, placing the RewriteMessage.vbs file into a GPO, to rewrite the message "Never give out your password or credit card number in an instant message conversation" that is the default in Windows Messenger.

In most cases this will be used within a corporation to meet their notification requirements. The script can be placed in a Workstation Group Policy in Active Directory. This is convenient since AD is required in order to implement Live Communications Server.

This script works for Windows Messenger 5.0 and Windows Messenger 5.1 on Live Communications Server 2003 (LCS 2003) or Live Communications Server 2005 (LCS 2005).

Bob

Administering the Offline Address Book in Outlook 2003

2005-01-16T21:59:00.000-05:00

Administering the Offline Address Book in Outlook 2003

Outlook 2003 and Cached Exchange mode have to be the neatest feature making life a little easier for mail administrators with limited hardware resources. The downside...dealing with the Global Address List.

The problem is that a mail admin will generally make a change during the course of a day, but the change does not appear until around 8-9AM the following morning.

Microsoft has finally published a KB article regarding these issues and here it is above.

Download details: Live Communications Server 2005 Resource Kit

2005-01-16T15:38:00.000-05:00

Download details: Live Communications Server 2005 Resource Kit

The Live Communications Server 2005 Resource Kit was released recently. I had the chance to work with it when it was in Beta and am definitely looking forward to working with the released product.

LCS Group Membership

2005-01-15T03:23:00.000-05:00

LCS Group Membership

FINALLY! I got the time to polish this up a little bit. This is some information that I compiled in my spare time. It is a listing of the Domain Global groups, Server Local groups, and SQL groups/permissions for Live Communications Server 2005. Granted, it could still use a little polishing (I need to tet the proxy permissions).

Bob

Email Archive and Storage

2005-01-13T00:14:00.000-05:00

Email Archive and Storage

MSExchange.org has some pretty nifty sites. This one and the anti-spam site they host is pretty good. With all of the fun new laws (SarBox, HIPAA, etc.) many companies are scrambling to find journaling and archiving solutions for their e-mail.

These solutions are Exchange-oriented. My favorites are KVS and EAS.

Bob

Download details: Windows Messenger 5.1

2005-01-11T20:33:00.000-05:00

Download details: Windows Messenger 5.1

I just wanted to blog (and bookmark) the download site for Windows Messenger 5.1

- Bob

Live Communications Server 2005 with Windows Messenger 5.1

2005-01-11T20:06:00.000-05:00

I came across this MSDN Blog, which was pretty good and well-written. It documented some settings for disabling features within Windows messenger. Live Communications Server 2005 with Windows Messenger 5.1.

I also want to note that a company can also utilize the rtcclient.adm template and a GPO to perform a similar function. The RTCClient.adm template comes with LCS 2003 and LCS 2005.

The LCS 2005 server install and the LCS 2005 administrative tools install place this in the %windir%\inf (generally C:\windows\inf) directory. You can then build an Active Directory GPO for this and apply it to the machine or to the user. Granted, it won't affect a user with a home PC...and you can't easily touch a home user's registry settings.

Bob

Disgusted at the Jets game

2005-01-08T23:49:00.000-05:00

I attended Marshall University in Huntington. During my time as a student I watched Chad Pennington play. He played well, he played smart, and those around him played much the same.

There is 6:35 left in the 1st Overtime and San Diego is about to take away Chad's hopes at the Superbowl this year. Why? Because of an idiotic stunt (late hit to the head) by NY Jets #50 Eric Barton with just a few seconds left in the 4th quarter.

Now that we are talking about dumb stunts: The Charger's coach decided to put his rookie kicker in on 4th down instead of 3rd. Listen...you just need the score to win! Once you are within range you can try for the end-zone on the first or second down. However, when it comes up to the 3rd down, put in your kicking team and take the win!

We shall see what happens with the game.

Download details: Live Communications Server 2005 Management Pack for MOM 2005

2005-01-06T10:23:00.000-05:00

This may be of help for folks that have Microsoft Operations Manager implemented and want to keep an eye on their Live Communications server 2005 environment. It was released in mid-December. I may update this post once I have had the chance to use it.

Download details: Live Communications Server 2005 Management Pack for MOM 2005

--

Bob

New goal: Compile some of my LCS 2005 answers into a guide/FAQ.

2004-12-28T01:20:00.000-05:00

I spend a lot of time in the Live Communications Server Usenet (newsgroup) board microsoft.public.livecomm.general .

Over the past few weeks our colleagues have been implementing LCS 2005 since it became available to the channel on 1 December. Over these past few weeks there have been some issues come up that can be related to DNS, SIP Domain configuration, and many questions about certificates. So, one of my goals is documenting these two gotchas as well as a few others.

Microsoft and the Real-Time Collaboration team, which developed LCS, has been very good to us and has provided an excellent document on LCS 2005 and configuring certificates.

So, over the next week or so, I want to take some of my newsgroup responses and document them into something that someone may pick up on Google. Then again, it is always great to see a new face in the newsgroup. Sometimes these new faces stay around and field questions.

What has been seen lately is a lot of issues when my colleagues setup a single (and occasionally multi-server or three-server) LCS 2005 Enterprise Edition server in an LCS 2005 Enterprise Pool. The clients are connected directly to the server via the DNS name rather than the pool name, which must be entered in DNS.

Another item I want to document is configuring the forest to handle SIP domains. When clients have an Active Directory domain as, say, domain.forest.local or domain.local and an SMTP namespace of company.com, two things happen. LCS 2005, on install, picks up the domain name domain.local and uses it for the initial SIP domain. When Exchange is installed (haven't tested any other mail systems with LCS), the Recipient Update Service (RUS) gives the user an SMTP address. When the users are SIP-enabled their primary SMTP address will be picked up and used for the SIP: address. This information is easy to put into the domains that the LCS environment handles.

Ex:
SIP DOMAIN FOREST CONFIG:
In LCS 2005, right-click on the forest name and select Properties.
Click on Add and add the emaildomain.com for your SMTP namespace if it isn't in there. You will probably see ADFQDN.local or whatever in there...but the sip users are enables as EmailAddress@company.com versus Username@company.local

What I have to figure is if I want to include pictures or if I want to include just the text. Generally it is much nicer to have the graphics beyond the text. I started as a command-line and shell type of guy ...but the LCS 2005 graphics are so much prettier.

My guess is that it will depend upon my schedule...

I should probably say this now:

Microsoft, Active Directory, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, Office Live Communications Server, Windows, Windows NT, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

I should also probably say this as well:
I DO NOT work for Microsoft, though I have had several grueling interviews over the past 5 years. We all know the saying...There will always be someone better than you.

I am not an MVP, but I have talked to 2 out of the 3 Microsoft MVPs for LCS. Both are wonderful chaps and have provided good guidance.

My opinions are just that...My opinions. Anything I write is not representative of any employer, past or present, or future, for that matter. While I try to keep things on a professional level, I may toss a few jokes in there.

(and I would never say this, though I wanted to after a friend said that they did not need backups)
No backups ...hope you have an e-mail trail denying the P.O. purchase for the disk/tape/backup software. If you don't have any backups, you might want to spend some spare time polishing up the resume.

likely, I would say this:
Dude, that sucks. Let's see what we can salvage.
In two cases I have actually had colleagues send drives off for data recovery and get back 100% of the data on the server. Dude, don't be down, let's see what we can do. In one case we were able to shake the server, get the drive to spin up and make a backup of the drive. One service call and one day later we replaced the drive (and ordered another drive to mirror it (poor RAID-1)).

Anyway, this is enough rambling.

Start

2004-12-27T20:48:00.000-05:00

When starting a new project there is always a need to define the goals of the project and how the team will go about accomplishing those goals.

I already had a website (www.bobchristian.com), just a holder page of sorts. It was started without a defined beginning, it did not have a goal, and there was not really a defined schedule for it. I was not publishing to the site as much as I would have liked. Honestly, there was very little publishing to it.

So, my goal here is to start with the blog, publish to it at least once a week, and occasionally create a few resource pages of helpful information related to Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Office Live Communications Server (LCS). I am my own team for this project. The success (or failure) of this project is solely dependent upon me. So, within the next year there should be just over 52 posts to the blog, with God's blessing.

Bob's Blog

Virtual Tech·Ed Site Launches!

Microsoft TechEd 2007

TechEd 2006

My Take on Windows Vista

Neat Air Travel Website

Office 12 - NEW UI Layout Preview ( Office 2007 )

McAfee Groupsheild - Late Night System Maintenance Amusements

ITSec Quote of the Year (so far)

TechEd 2006

VMWare Server and MS Virtual Server - Free?

Kellie Pickler, the Mynx, and the Calimari

Google Video back up

Google Video Up and Down

Disgusted - Injured Soldier Charged $700 for body armor

A bit stale... SYMANTEC TO ACQUIRE IMLOGIC

XBOX 360 Bugginess Part 2

Blogging Goals for 2005

Randall, Rebecca. and The Apprentice

Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access Overview

My "beef" with Exchange E12 ramblings...

XBOX 360 BSOD

Midnight Reading - You had me at EHLO! and DSProxy

Microsoft Exchange Server: Microsoft Exchange Server Analyzer Tools

Information on the Exchange 2000 Exchange 2003 .stm file.

Big Brother Watching - Electronic Frontier Foundation decodes printer tracking dots

Shamless Gloating - Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional)

You know you, or a product, is getting old when...

Top 10 and Worst 10 products - CNET.com

Changing Store Limits in Exchange 2003 SP2

Moving Exchange Mailbox Stores ( Databases )

Techworld.com - Symantec patches simple-text password hole

Exchange Server 2003 Operations Guide

XADM: Security Tab Not Available on All Objects in System Manager

The nefarious bootcamp question...

Bob's Blog: Problems with vxfiVspCacheFile files

Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP

Windows Messenger and Ports

Search Engine Craziness

CNN.com - Ex-officers: CIA leak may have harmed U.S. - Jul 20, 2005

Clusters and Volume Mount Points

Well-known security identifiers in Windows operating systems

Redirect http://owa.company.com to https://owa.company.com/exchange

BetaNews | MS Readies Web-Based Communicator

Microsoft scrapping MCSE?

Exchange Server 2003 Performance: 10 Things to Think About

SQL 2005 Released for Public Testing

How many subfolder deletions does it take to crater Exchange?

Linux faces Setback

Exchange 2003 Ogranization Security Tab

Windows Messenger 5.1 Update (Not "R2")

Interesting article on Exchange Alternatives and Migration from Exchange

New KB Article KB898150 "The following message could not be delivered to all recipients"

My unintentional hiatus

Missing Live Communications Tab in Active Directory Users and Computers Console

Hi newbie, you want to post on a forum? this is what you need to know!

Free Virtual Labs for Learning

Ashlee Simpson, her new haircut, and spyware / adware *language warning*

Work and hobbies

Problems with vxfiVspCacheFile files

Carly is out of HP...

Symantec Mail Security Settings

Windows XP SP2 and Outlook Web Access ( OWA ) problems.

How to set size limits for messages in Exchange Server

Hosting Your Own SMTP Mail Using Exchange 2000

Rewrite Windows Messenger Warning

Administering the Offline Address Book in Outlook 2003

Download details: Live Communications Server 2005 Resource Kit

LCS Group Membership

Email Archive and Storage

Download details: Windows Messenger 5.1

Live Communications Server 2005 with Windows Messenger 5.1

Disgusted at the Jets game

Download details: Live Communications Server 2005 Management Pack for MOM 2005

New goal: Compile some of my LCS 2005 answers into a guide/FAQ.

Start

Ashlee Simpson, her new haircut, and spyware / adware language warning