THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

On page 6 of chapter 1 of the Configuring Windows Small Business Server 2008 book by Beatrice Mulzer is this grid

and on page 7 it says:

Exam tip:

You should memorize this basic hardware requirements, especially the amount of CPU, RAM and hard drive space and be able to determine whether a computer with certain specs will run SBS 2008.

60 gigs I got memorized.

4 gig bare minimum (reality is higher) I got memorized

But it's that CPU that I'll need to remember.  2 GHz or faster for single core, 1.5 GHz for multicore.

Remember to maintain the SBSC credential you need to pass this updated SBS exam.

Sad day for Irish Technical Community - Microsoft TechNet Ireland Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/ieitpro/archive/2010/06/01/sad-day-for-irish-technical-community.aspx

David was a person I never met, but he helped to get many a SBS group going.

On this American Memorial day holiday, here's to a memory of someone in Ireland who touched many of us around the world.

So you signed up for Karl's email blast?

If you aren't you missed some good announcements lately..

http://www.greatlittlebook.com/Mailing_List.htm

I took a break this year from Jeff's conference because of needing to stay home due to family requirements this year but the twitter and blog posts showcase a fun time  -- see Eriq Neale's posts here -- http://msmvps.com/blogs/onq/Default.aspx

http://twitter.com/search?q=sbsmigration

Did notice that Jason was complaining about not enough babes :-)  http://twitter.com/jleib/statuses/15014967738 but other than that....

Jeff Middleton's IT Pro Conference - The Final Report

Jeff took a break last year, so this is his third IT Pro conference in four years. And like the first two, it was a great three day festival of information and entertainment.

This year a lot of information was around virtualization, cloud options, and alternatives to the "old reality" that we've been selling in the SMB space. It's amazing how much of the new reality is around hosted solutions, virtualization, and cloud computing.

I thought there were some interesting and alternatives presented -- especially since many of the alternatives were alternatives to Microsoft products. The SMB community has been almost rabid supporters of SBS, Microsoft platforms, and Microsoft solutions. And while there have always been alternatives, some staunch Microsoft proponents are now giving "how to" presentations on other technologies.

One thing was mentioned several times from the stage: The cost of SBS 2008 was a factor in consultants moving to other alternatives. I have to admit this has not been an issue for me. With server hardware and labor, the price of the operating system just doesn't seem like a huge issue. But when we look back 18 months and see a monster recession combined with a big price increase, the argument certainly makes sense.

So there are alternatives to Exchange, Remote Web Workplace, and even MS virtualization strategies.

At the same time, there are some killer products from Microsoft whose time seems to be here. Foremost among these are Foundation Server and Windows Home Server.

Anyway, like most conferences, this one had great content. Unlike most conferences, this one was heavily populated by MVPs and some of the biggest thought-leaders in our industry. The hallway (and bar and balcony) conversations are always great. Here they were a little higher caliber than at many conferences.

Thanks again, Jeff. Let's do this again next year. :-)

Wed. June 2 Cloud Services Roundtable:

Mike Bayless - Details on Delivery the KPE 5-pack Cloud Offering

Join me as I interview Mike Bayless, one of the primary architects of the KPEnterprises 5-Pack Cloud Offering. Mike will field all your questions about how we get started, how we move folks to hosted Exchange, hosted storage, etc.

As we talk to more and more people we realize that the click-by-click details of how to get started are obvious -- AFTER you've done it. So we'll look at how we walk a client through the migration to a cloud-based office environment.

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/653656601

Free broadcast.

Wednesday, June 2nd
9:00 AM pacific / 12 Noon Eastern

In House Exchange vs Hosted Exchange Mail Services:
http://www.mpronto.com/lower.php?url=in-house-vs-hosted-exchange

I think we have a bit of new math problem here. 

Okay so I spent 10 grand for a server.  But it's a HyperV box that is running several servers, not just one.

I sure didn't spend $15,000 for server, Exchange and blackberry licenses.  Dude, the Blackberry license is now free, and someone should be shot for not looking at SBS 2008.

There are times that hosted stuff makes sense and then there are those times that the cloud vendors are trying WAY too hard and not asking if there's a key business app that needs an on premises mail server.

Bottom line it's NEVER this easy of a numbers game.  Don't be fooled by the hype.

See Office 2007.  See Office 2007 Standard.

Office Standard Home Page - Microsoft Office Suites - Microsoft Office Online:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/suites/fx101674071033.aspx

See that it's Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

See that you can buy it at Amazon -- http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-Standard-2007-VERSION/dp/B000HCVR3A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1275284305&sr=8-1

Now see Office 2010.

See how there is an Office  2010 standard ... S T A N D A R D.  You would think that S T A N D A R D in the 2010 era would be identical to the 2007 era.  You would be wrong.

Office 2010 S T A N D A R D is now only available via Open Licensing and includes

Microsoft Office Standard 2010 — only available via volume licensing

Includes:

• Microsoft Excel 2010
• Microsoft Outlook 2010
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
• Microsoft Word 2010
• Microsoft OneNote 2010 New addition to suite
• Microsoft Publisher 2010 New addition to suite
• Microsoft Office Web applications

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/2010office/docs/Office2010PackagingFS.doc

See how there's a new "Home and Business 2010"....  Okay... what eula does it have pray tell?

Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010 New!

Includes:

• Microsoft Excel 2010
• Microsoft Outlook 2010
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2010
• Microsoft Word 2010
• Microsoft OneNote 2010

This version of Microsoft Office Professional 2010 includes the software on disc, with a product key. It is licensed for one user to install on two PCs--a primary machine and a portable PC

Stevie... darhling... sweetie.  I know you are supposed to be the marketing genius of Microsoft but dude, can you please stop calling suites of products by the same name and then changing the contents?  I downloaded Office 2010 Standard at the office the other day thinking that it would be just the four main programs and then I saw that it was more than that.  Dude you are making Office buying way way more complicated than it should be.  Then as it was pointed out to me by fellow blogger Chad Gross.  Look at this page...
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/FX100487411033.aspx?pid=CL100571081033  Go click on that main Office page.  See a problem there?  Like .. oh maybe that the entire page is still talking about 2007?  Okay okay so it's not available from retail until June, but to business folks, it's already out.

Stevie, sweetie, make it easy to buy your products.  Stop calling the different bundles by the same name between the years.  And lastly, post the eulas please so I don't have to wonder what the eula really is for Home and Business edition.

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/99001

How much RAM for SBS 2008?  Bottom line 4 gigs is just not enough.  8 gigs may work for some small firms, but as that thread in the spiceworks forum indicates... the range that many are using ranges from 10 to 16 gigs for the server.

16 gigs may be on the top end... but 4 gigs is just not enough.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/smallbusinessserver/thread/1ce943b8-7c53-49b9-8d64-a844045711f2

Woody in the SBS forum posts up that if you are seeing KB978297 failing if you have Forefront installed on your SBS 2008 check out this info:

KB978297 has failed to install to several SBS2008 servers.  The solution is detailed in the link.  http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/forefrontexchange/thread/e2f3b803-5b6d-4b66-ab85-3c408bc789c1/

A blog has been written on the Forefront site http://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/archive/2010/05/25/installing-rollup-1-for-forefront-security-for-exchange-server-service-pack-2-on-small-business-server-2008-fails.aspx

Note - that second link is missing in action.  I'll see what happened to it and blog back.

Update... hang loose the solution posted to the forum is not recommended. Stay tuned for more info.

For those not in New Orleans ... like me... you can see some of the photos of the Conference in New Orleans on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=173452&id=527699168

I see a fuzzy photo of fuzzy too!  http://twitpic.com/1rw20o  (Ryan Splilane)

Small Business Server 2008 - Build document - TechNet Articles - Home - TechNet Wiki:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/small-business-server-2008-build-document.aspx

I'm in the VERY early stages of trying to gather up all the tips/tricks/tweaks/guidance on installing and setting up SBS 2008 cleanly.

So what do you think so far?  Feel free to ping me with suggestions or add your own comments to the document.

Revisiting how to get your Technet benefits that are now included in your Action pack

Step one -- go here find your Technical contact ID
https://partners.microsoft.com/PartnerProgram/ManagePeople.aspx

I blanked it out for security reasons but it should look similar to this

2.  Next step -- go to Technet site and enter your Technical ID and the email associated with that.

You may activate your TechNet for Action Pack subscription by completing the following steps:
1. Visit the TechNet site.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/add/default.aspx

2. Sign in as a first time user with your Windows Live ID associated with your Microsoft Action Pack Solution Provider subscription.
3. Enter your contact information and Benefit Access Number (Technical Contact ID**)
4. Accept the agreement to complete registration.
**To find your Technical Contact ID, sign into the Partner Membership Center: https://partners.microsoft.com/PartnerProgram/PartnerMembershipCenter.aspx

Click on the Requirements and Assets tab and select Assign Contact Roles (your Technical Contact ID will be listed next to your name). At this page you can also add and change technical contacts within your organization

Apple market capitalization tops Microsoft | Betanews:
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-market-capitalization-tops-Microsoft/1274901393

On a day that the Apple passed MS in terms of market cap we had a show and tell day at our SMB partner group meeting.  We demo'd my Sister's iPad and found that we couldn't project videos out the video connector to the projector as we got a warning regarding protected DRM media.

While it worked on the TV screen at home, it would not work on the projector at the office.  Weird.  We also talked about that survey that said 1 in 5 people planned to buy a iPad and we wondered if they asked that question on Wall Street during the lunch hour.  We also questioned where the people are that are buying them as we don't see the millions of people walking around with iPads.

Somewhere in some big city there's a group of people that are buying a lot of iPads.  It's obviously not in the backwoods of Fresno.

Just opened-- the new SBS forum.  So all you people that use Facebook as a tech support venue (which annoys me because it's not searchable) please I'd recommend that you use the forum for your questions!

Windows Server Small Business Server Forum:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/smallbusinessserver/threads

And don't forget you can download and use a nntp bridge if you are forum challenged.  The current one I'm testing is here:
Community Forums NNTP bridge:
http://communitybridge.codeplex.com/

Community Forums NNTP bridge:
http://communitybridge.codeplex.com/

• Replaces the MS NNTP Bridge completely
• Unifies the access to social and answers forms to a single NNTP server (no two servers needed!)
• Autologin and Autominimize
• Converts "http(s)" links into html links, if posted in plain/text.
• Thunderbird can display the article source code ;)
• You can extend the "CommunityForumsNNTPServer.ArticleConverter" without the LiveID SDK; for compiling the whole source code, you need to download and install the Windows Live ID Client 1.0 SDK

For those that want to use a newsreader to access forums ... try this version.

Products List for Microsoft Office 2010/2007/2003 Suites and Applications:
http://www.addintools.com/english/products.htm#office2010suite

Yes Virginia, if you want a classic menu for Office 2010 you can still have it.

(It works great btw)

AV Exclusion List - TechNet Articles - Home - TechNet Wiki:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/av-exclusion-list.aspx

Got any you want to add to that list?  Edit it and add it on the wiki page

How to Set Up Windows Small Business Server - FOXBusiness.com:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/home-office/set-windows-small-business-server/

I'm all for good marketing.  I think SBS 2008 has gotten some bad rap...some of it cause by me in fact lamenting about the issues with SBS monitoring -- some of which have been majorly fixed with Update rollup 4.  But then there's marketing that isn't being honest about the product that doesn't help either.

As others on Facebook have posted, this article doesn't do SBS any favors and in fact sets some very bad expectations.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=BESWLFS4&s=bsd
The price tag that I can find on the Dell store for a 5 user SBS 2008 is above $1,000.  Even with the mail in rebate of $200, that still doesn't get the box to be under $1,000.

Setting up SBS 2008 is more than just unpacking the box.  While SBS makes it easier than trying to install all of this on your own, technology these days still is not easy enough for the non geek to set up.   

Next there's some sections of the article that I'm still scratching my head over.  The first one that I think they are kinda making something sound more than what it really is is this sentence:   Other utilities include software that can backup and restore the data on your employees' computers

When I hear the words "backup and restore of data" I'm thinking the entire computer.  I think in this case they are referring to how you can set up folder redirection to store the worksations my documents on the server.  But that is not "backup and restore of data" in my mind.

" setting computer backup schedules"..... make that a schedule as you only have a wizard to backup the server.  There isn't schedules to backup the client workstations which is implied in this post.

As for updates, SBS 2008 automatically notifies you when it is time to install patches. Managing your network over time should require little time and effort. “I may check in every couple of months,” said McDonald of networks he has installed for clients. “The software is basically designed to maintain itself.”

Please note.  Microsoft will never hire me as a marketing person.  As those two sentences right there just blew me away.

Back in the SBS 2003 era the server was set to download patches automatically to the server and reboot it at 3 a.m in the morning.  SBS 2008 however does not do that.  It's default setting is to download the updates and not deploy them to the server and to wait for the administrator to install them.  Furthermore there are updates that need manual approval. 

The software is not designed to maintain itself and in fact I don't know of any software (Google, Apple or Microsoft) that has been designed at this time to be self healing.  Stuff can happen on all three.  Dude.  Even the cloud has issues -- see the number of times that online services have issues.

Thus to put the idea in a small business owners head that you can stick a server in an organization and to not check on it but every couple of months?  That's just not good business.

The Technet plus part of the Action pck subscription isn't quite authorized yet as far as I can tell.

Here's the instructions but folks are still having issues accessing the site.

You may activate your TechNet for Action Pack subscription by completing the following steps:
1. Visit the TechNet site.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/add/default.aspx

2. Sign in as a first time user with your Windows Live ID associated with your Microsoft Action Pack Solution Provider subscription.
3. Enter your contact information and Benefit Access Number (Technical Contact ID**)
4. Accept the agreement to complete registration.
**To find your Technical Contact ID, sign into the Partner Membership Center: https://partners.microsoft.com/PartnerProgram/PartnerMembershipCenter.aspx

Click on the Requirements and Assets tab and select Assign Contact Roles (your Technical Contact ID will be listed next to your name). At this page you can also add and change technical contacts within your organization.

I know Norton is evil.  But earlier tonight I was helping a friend try to fix an issue where Norton was installed, running, yet the security center said it was turned off.

Windows 7 Action Center - Norton Community:
http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-360/Windows-7-Action-Center/m-p/174390

Okay for the record this didn't work.  I'll need to uninstall it and reinstall it... or rather uninstall it and try to convince them to install something else.

 (yes friends should not let friends have Norton as a a/v I know...)

I'm working on another wiki post.

This one is trying to give an overview of the different migration methodologies available today.

Small Business Server 2008 - migration resources - TechNet Articles - Home - TechNet Wiki: 
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/small-business-server-2008-migration-resources.aspx

If you'd like to add/edit/adjust/comment please feel free to sign in and edit/add as you see fit.

This weekend the MSAnswers forum migrated to a platform different from the platform running Technet and MSDN forums.  If you find that you prefer viewing the forums in a nntp reader rather than the native forum interface you'll find after this weekend that you can't access the MSAnswers forum from the nntp client bridge that used to work before.

The nntp bridge is a .net client app that runs on your computer and allows you to use a nntp reader to access forums.  To use it download both the MS answers nntp bridge AND the technet/msdn forum bridge client from https://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums/?wa=wsignin1.0 

Then follow the instructions to enable the nntp bridge inside the forum properties - https://connect.microsoft.com/MicrosoftForums/content/content.aspx?ContentID=13820

Then set up your nntp reader client and in the case of Thunderbird, set up one nntp account with the server address of 127.0.0.1 with a port of 119 for the technet/msdn forum access and then set up the second nntp account with the server address of localhost with a port of 120 for the msanswers forum access.

So why do I like seeing the forums in both a forum interface as well as via nntp?  For one I find that I can see bigger picture of trending issues in a nntp interface than one can in the forum interface.  The view via the nntp client is more big picture.  The view in the forum is smaller view/day impacts.

So there you have it.  Two nntp bridge clients on Thunderbird to access web forums.

Soon the SBS forum will be opening up.  I'll blog when it does.