THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

The Official SBS Blog : Reclaiming Disk Space Lost to IIS Logs on SBS 2003:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/02/28/reclaiming-disk-space-lost-to-iis-logs-on-sbs-2003.aspx

I had a siutation where Excel 2007 would like blow up but not completely.  It would never Dr. Watson, it would just indicate 'out of resources'

And then the screen would look funky like this:

It turned out to be caused by Adobe add ins

Here is a summary of the key points of the case for your records.

Action: Customer upgraded to Office 2007.

Result: Users get errors in Excel such as 'Not Enough System Resources'.

Cause:

1) This may have been from Com Addins.

2) Customer also made changes to the firewall on the machines in question.

Resolution:

1) Com Addins are removed by setting the LoadBehavior of the addin to
Zero (0) in the registry.

They can be loaded at two locations:

a) HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\<Addin
Name>\LoadBehavior

b) HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\<Addin
Name>\LoadBehavior

So I'm googling on a topic and hit no hits.  I mean ... NO hits.... and on this Vista machine I have Live Search in the corner and so I try MSN Live search.

Wow.  I got two hits on Live search.  Google got no hits?  That's a first.  Truly.  But it points out that every now and then you should try different search engines just to make sure the one you are current using truly does give you what you need.

(just call this a post about a girl blogging about google -- an inside joke with Vlad)

The Official SBS Blog : The CEICW Certificate Generator Will Be Out Of The Office On February 29, 2008:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/01/15/the-ceicw-certificate-generator-will-be-out-of-the-office-on-february-29-2008.aspx

Marina reminded me of this....

Interesting email in the case regarding "Vista capable" and this section from Steven Sinofsky caught my eye (taken from http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/132891.asp)

"So far I am surprised at the low call volume in PSS [Product Support Services]. I think we have a lot of new PCs which helps and the hobbyist people who bought FPP/UPG [Full Packaged Product or upgrade] just know what to do and aren't calling, but I know they are struggling."

When I was struggling in early January with my Sister's Dell OEM Vista laptop with Vista on it and trying to find a video driver that would work in the docking station and not screw up with the 22 inch widescreen monitor NOT ONCE did I call.  Not once did I call Dell. Not once did I call Microsoft.  If there is one message that I wish the executives at Microsoft would get through their heads is that for the vast number of people I interact with that have computer issues, not once do they consider calling up Microsoft.  Not a single solitary time.

Why?  Because especially on the consumer side they don't know the experience they will get for one... will there be push back to take the issue to the OEM support?  Will it involve a long distance call to the overseas equivalent of 1-866-pcsafety?  They don't have the time for the wait on the phone call and don't have any patience for any vendor finger pointing for sure.

That edit of selected emails in that post on the SeattlePI blog points out the 'evil' side of corporate Microsoft that I don't see at the bottom of the employee rungs, but sometimes glimpse at the top.  Your employees shouldn't have to plead such things as "Please give this some consideration; it would be a lot less costly to do the right thing for the customer than to spend dollars on the back end trying to fix the problem."

Do the right thing, Microsoft.

It does cost less in the long run.

But yeah, listen to your customers.

Network Security: The ancient art of defence:
http://www.microsoft.com/emea/spotlight/sessionh.aspx?videoid=667

In this video by John Craddock/Microsoft on the ancient art of the attack, he talks about how firms can be driven out of business with a security incident. But is that the reality?  We know that TJMaxx is still in business.  We know that their stock prices haven't been impacted.

 So why hasn't the fact that they've had one of the largest breaches on record translated into a greater economic impact?

I'm doing an AICPA presentation on Server 2008 and I'll be putting up the Server 2008 slide deck here after it's done

Stay tuned!

http://www.sbslinks.com/Windows.zip

February 27, 2008, 9am-10:30am (Pacific Standard Time)

Join Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer as he kicks of a series of global events to launch Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. Ballmer will introduce new software and tools designed to help IT professionals and developers make a difference at work and in their communities.

Can't be in Los Angeles in Person?  No problem!

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualevents/

Sign up for the virtual event.

Heroes Happen Here :: Events:
http://www.microsoft.com/heroeshappenhere/events/default.mspx
 

Rss feed --  

https://members.microsoft.com/partner/RSS/heroeshappenhere/rss.aspx?region=1001&product=111

In a moment of brillant timing that at the time I didn't even think about.... I'm doing a similar "launch" event

The title bar displays "non-commercial use" when you start an Office 
Home and Student 2007 program:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937676

If you happen to purchase a computer and it says "for non-commercial use", this is a tale-tell sign that this is the Office Home and Student version.

While the Office Home and Student version can be installed on three home machines, it's not meant for business use.

Recent announcements about the whole so-called cloud revolution where supposedly we're going to move out entire data structure lock stock and barrel to the cloud has me wondering if some folks are a little too wrapped up in something I'm going to call the Dot-Com effect.  It's a condition where you live a few years or centuries in the future of the rest of the Universe, live a little too close to the world of start ups and melt downs, and in general are dealing with businesses that spend other peoples' money and not their own. 

Lately I've been involved a lot in a cloud based accounting system and before one sells you any "air/cloud/space is the place to be" one needs to look long and hard if the cloud truly is a complete replacement for the more traditional desktop/server environment, or a major compromise.  When shopping for cloud solutions, consider the offline story.  Many don't have a good one.  And I'm not just talking about how one should consider the Internet might be out or something as mundane like that, I'm talking about the times you want to freeze the data for whatever reason and job one should be that whatever cloud based solution one has allows such things.

Next is the issue of full comparative features.  Currently the cloud based solution of a major small business accounting package (hint it starts with the letter "Q") only allows you to keep in the online version the past month's bank reconcilation.  If the bookkeeper did not print out these reconciliations, you only have the last one.  This is a huge step backwards in functionality between the desktop version and the online version. 

Next is it truly scalable?  Some of the online versions only allow two to three people, whereas the desktop version is more functional. 

Bottom line I still see a lot of folks getting more and more confortable with something being backed up in the cloud.... but in all the small business clients that I deal with, very few have moved their business to the cloud.  In fact it's quite rare.  Oh sure some 'parts' are in the cloud, but the vast majority of their daily operations can't be moved to a cloud solution.  I'm not seeing a .dot com enterprises being built out here in the backwards part of the world called Central California.  We're still a lot of brick and mortar multi million dollar enterprises with lots of workers, a few office staff.

Go into the cloud with your eyes wide open.

There's differences.  And in some cases a lot.

Recently I had an issue where my default printer kept flipping to the OneNote printer.  No matter what settings I did in a few days I'd find it flipped to that printer.

In the Vista managed newsgroups I happened to spot this post which was very very similar....

Thank you for your post here.

From the description, I understand that you are unable to set default
printer on Vista client. If I am off base, please feel free to let me know.

As the default printer is Microsoft OneNote, please check if you can switch
to any newly-installed printer.

Also, please tell me if there's any error message displayed when you try to
set default printer.

This issue can be caused if OneNote printer driver is corrupted. If you do
not use OneNote, you can simply delete the printer from Printers folder. If
you do use OneNote, you can follow the steps below to reinstall OneNote:

1. Quit all Windows programs.
2. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
3. In the list of installed programs, select Microsoft Office 2007, and
then click Change/Remove.
4. In the Office Maintenance Mode dialog box, click Add / Remove features.
5. Select Microsoft OneNote 2007 and click on the option that say Not
Available.
6. Click on Update, this would Uninstall OneNote 2007.
7. Reinstall OneNote 2007 from Maintenance Mode, follow the steps above and
to install OneNote 2007 select the option that says Available in step
number 5.

Recently Nick (the naked) MVP reported on an issue where no matter what he or his staff did they could not set a default printer in Vista.  No matter what it would revert to the Microsoft XPS driver.

Told Nick to delete that XPS printer and see if that did the trick.  So far it seems to have.

When you log onto your Remote Web Workplace, that screen at the bottom that says what connection speed you are isn't there to take a survey.  There's a reason that it's asking for that and you may want to lie to it and tell it you are running a dial up modem speed of 28.8

Remember what it's doing?  http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2006/07/25/443383.aspx

It's doing exactly what the Remote Desktop does --

The slower the speed you choose, the more it optimizes performance.  So when you are over a slow connection that's still a DSL line, lie to your Remote Web Workplace.  And tell it you are running a 28.8 modem. See if it makes the performance better.

VMware vuln exposes the perils of virtualization | The Register:
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/25/vmware_critical_vuln/

CoreSecurity says: 

"A vulnerability was found in VMware's shared folders mechanism that grants users of a Guest system read and write access to any portion of the Host's file system including the system folder and other security-sensitive files. Exploitation of these vulnerability allows attackers to break out of an isolated Guest system to compromise the underlying Host system that controls it.

Successful exploitation requires that the Shared Folder's feature to be enabled which is the default on VMware products that have the feature AND at least one folder of the Host system is configured for sharing." http://www.coresecurity.com/?action=item&id=2129

 Vmware response:

"By default, the shared folders feature is disabled in Workstation 6, Player 2, and ACE 2. In order to exploit this vulnerability, the virtual machine must have the shared folders feature manually enabled and at least one folder configured for sharing between the host and guest. Given the requirements of the vulnerability, it cannot be exploited by default in Workstation 6, Player 2, and ACE 2.

Workstation 5, Player 1, and ACE 1 enable the shared folders feature by default, but exploiting this vulnerability still requires at least one folder to be configured as shared between the host and guest. Given the requirements of the vulnerability, it cannot be exploited by default in Workstation 5, Player 1, and ACE 1."  http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1004034

Notice the default setting of my VMware 6.0.2 workstation... shared folders disabled...NOT enabled as VMware states.

Notice the "Dude, you do this man, and you are soooooo screwed" warning in the Folder sharing GUI.

At first I too fell for the "Virtualization is full of perils" headlines ...and then I stopped to read a bit more and then went...hang on... those shared folders are off...those shared folders do expose you to risk... those shared folders SHOULD NEVER BE turned on if you think that you can't trust the guest to the host.... so exactly where is the default vulnerability here?  Am I missing something?

SANS Internet Storm Center; Cooperative Network Security Community - Internet Security - isc:
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?n&storyid=4021

So? Do I trust this?

Do I trust this?

I think I'm supposed to?  But man it's getting horrifically hard to know what emails from businesses are good ones and which ones are phishing attacks.

SBS 2003 open relay... - microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs | Google Groups:
http://groups.google.co.nz/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs/msg/119ac4800213708c

So that I remember where this is... a reminder of how SBS is not an open relay and why it has the settings that it has.

Steven Sheif reminded me tonight that I posted that.  He also reminded me that make sure you remove the mailbox limits before you start exmerging mailbox contents into a newly set up SBS box, otherwise you'll find that the Exmerge 'barfs' because there's not enough room to fix the exported mailbox contents.

Thanks to Chris Lanier, I'm using the Fluid theme but this time it doesn't put 'snippets' of content on the blog but the full post.

Let me know if it's readable for folks.  I don't think it cuts any content off either like some I've been playing around with in the past.

Resource Kit Done! - Jesper's Blog:
http://msinfluentials.com/blogs/jesper/archive/2008/02/14/resource-kit-done.aspx

As you can tell I kinda already pre-ordered the book.  In full disclosure I wrote the chapter on small business issues and kudos of course goes to Dr. Jesper Johansson for thinking about, and including the issues of security that impact small businesses. 

A recent Incidents.org post about security in the Small Biz space http://www.incidents.org/diary.html?storyid=3991 and points out one of the biggest impacts... knowing what regulates this space.  For me and my industry, I'm impacted primarily by the State of California laws covering disclosure breech notification.  But for everyone looking for a silver bullet, a checklist of steps to make them "secure" there is none.  I can point you to products like Scorpion Software's AuthAnvil Two factor authentication that helps you to keep one area, that of password management meeting and exceeding today's regulations, but at the end of the day, all of us need a foundation.  A policy.  A document.  An idea of what is and is not appropriate.

You can't educate users, you can't enforce what users can and cannot do without this fundamental document.

....and more in the policy......

So do you clients' have a policy? 

The Official SBS Blog : Microsoft Windows SBS Server 2008 and Essential Business Server 2008 Readiness Training @ SMB Summit:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/02/23/microsoft-windows-sbs-server-2008-and-essential-business-server-2008-readiness-training-smb-summit.aspx