THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA" : Exchange

The Official SBS Blog : How to Install Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 on Windows Small Business Server 2008:

bradley — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:14:00 GMT

The Official SBS Blog : How to Install Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 on Windows Small Business Server 2008:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2009/08/25/how-to-install-exchange-2007-service-pack-2-on-windows-small-business-server-2008.aspx

Couple of things here... first there is no rush for this. It's a service pack on a major email database with no uninstaller. There will be a unique wrapper for SBS. There's no NEED AT ALL to put this on a SBS 2008 production system at this time.

So no one be installing this at lunch time... got it?

Decommissioning Cell phones

bradley — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 02:29:00 GMT

One of the bad things about having personal Cell phones in small businesses also be set up to sync up to the Exchange server is that you forget that when you retire that business phone, you'd also better remove all traces of the username/password/syncronization with the server before you retire them. But if the person held onto the device and wanted to hang onto it for a little bit, you (meaning me) probably forgot that there was still a sync and a partnership with the activesync at the office. So when he decided to give the old WinMobile 5 to his wife, and he too forgot to remove the ActiveSync settings even though the chip moved, that sync partnership is still set up. So when the wife decided to start cleaning up the Contact section of the Windows Mobile 5 and delete all of these pesky business contacts that her husband left behind, you and the said husband won't have a "Oh #$@!" moment as you realize her deleting actions are syncing up to the network.

But hang on we have a way to reach out and at least zap that phone.

http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2006/02/07/418937.aspx

Our old friend Mobile Admin.

Download the Mobile Admin pack here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e6851d23-d145-4dbf-a2cc-e0b4c6301453&DisplayLang=en
Backup the metabase in IIS (right click the servername in IIS -> all tasks -> backup/restore -> create backup)
TEMPORARILY set the default website to “all unassigned” (if it is not already)
Run MobileAdmin.exe that you downloaded in step 1.
Reset IIS back to the way it was before step 3, if applicable
Open the properties for the ExAdmin virtual directory under the default website -> directory security -> Edit for Secure Communications and uncheck “Require SSL”
Restart the IIS Admin service

And when I first set this up, I found that for whatever reason, the web site did not show up in the IIS as it should so I had to manually set up an "New" virtual directory underneath the Default web site and then I manually set up the settings here:

Defaults listed after a fresh install of MobileAdmin -

Virtual Directory tab:

local path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync Administration

Read but no other settings

(Once you click on Create Application name the ability to flip the app pool to ExchangeApplicationPool appears)

Application name: MobileAdmin

Execute permissions: scripts only

Application pool: ExchangeApplicationPool

Directory Security tab:

Authentication and Access Control:

anonymous access is disabled

Basic authentication is enabled

Secure communications:

Require secure channel (SSL) is enabled but 128-bit encrytion is not required [not checked]

ASP.NET tab:

version 1.1.4322

virtual path: /MobileAdmin

File location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync Administration\web.config

File creation and last modified dates are: 11/18/2007 11:09:58 PM

Once I did all that I then entered in his mailbox name and found that not only did he have two cell phones syncing, I still had another old partnership left. That phone fortunately died and we destroyed it years ago.

And there you see... his WinMobile 5 and his iPhone. Not to mention an old left over partnership from even longer ago than that.

Remember you can't remote wipe an Apple iPhone so once you start deploying less managable devices remember to have a decommissioning document written up with the steps you need to delete the information and restore it back to original condition.

You deployed a new SBS 2008 and now the phones demand a password

bradley — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:29:00 GMT

...and the people in the office are not too pleased with that. Or you have a PalmPre that won't work with the password policy - http://geekswithblogs.net/ntpro/archive/2009/06/25/133047.aspx

To edit this launch the Exchange 2007 console, click on the organization configuration, then on client access. Right mouse click on the "Windows SBS Mobile Mailbox policy". Click on the password tab and uncheck the "require password".

Sync the phones again, and you'll be good to go.

Here's the bad news... you just disabled that on EVERYONE and you probably don't want to do that in all cases.

So here's a compromise. Set up a brand NEW policy that copies over all of the settings of the SBS default policy, this time unchecking that password box.

Then you go down in the console to the recipient configuration, click on Mailbox and go into the properties of the user you want to exclude from the passwords on the mobile devices.

You Had Me At EHLO... : Exchange 2007 ActiveSync policies:
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/05/23/439541.aspx

To add a user to a policy using the management console, the following steps need to be completed:

1. In the console tree, expand the Recipient Configuration node, and then click Mailbox.

2. In the work pane, right-click the user who you want to assign to a policy, and then click Properties.

3. In the user's Properties dialog box, click Mailbox Features.

4. Click ActiveSync, and then click Properties.

5. Select the Apply an ActiveSync mailbox policy check box.

6. Click Browse to view the Select Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policy dialog box.

7. Select an available policy, and then click OK three times to apply your changes.

The release of the rollup via Microsoft Update will happen on May 26.

bradley — Thu, 21 May 2009 19:22:00 GMT

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/05/19/451371.aspx

We have released Update Rollup 8 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (KB 968012) to the download center. The release of the rollup via Microsoft Update will happen on May 26.

As in the previous rollups, we have done a mix of product improvements (aka Critical Design Change Requests) and bug fixes. A few key ones which I would like to call out are as follows:

KB 969690 - We have fixed the bug introduced in Update Rollup 7 which caused the sender of the Delivery Status Notification (DSN) to be unresolved.
Disable kernel mode authentication in Windows Server 2008 for CAS servers - As documented here, it was required to manually take the additional step to configure the CAS servers running Windows Server 2008 to disable kernel mode authentication. Starting this rollup, the installer will configure this for you.
X-Header promotion to named properties- Change to the way X-headers are promoted to named properties. More on this in Jason Nelson's blog post Named Properties, X-Headers, and You.
KB 961606 - We have fixed a bug where Outlook Web Access (OWA) users may find that the font size of plain text messages is extremely small on third-party Web browsers.

KB 968012 has more details about this release and a complete list of all fixes included in this rollup.

As a follow up to the Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) announcement, all fixes in this Update rollup and the previous ones we have released for Exchange Server 2007 will be included with Exchange Server 2007 SP2. We will have a blog post soon which covers:

When update rollups can be expected for Exchange 2007 SP2.
Support plans for Exchange 2007 SP1 which will be in support as per the timeline in Microsoft's Service Pack Support Policy.

As always, the Exchange Software Updates forum is available to provide help if you encounter issues in the updates we release for Exchange. We have staffed the forums with engineers monitoring the forum ready to assist you and request you to utilize that mode instead of asking for help via comments on this blog.

- Exchange Customer Experience team

-------------

Dear Exchange Customer Experience team. Can you please stop breaking things with your update rollups? It's not easy getting people in the SMB space to patch. They equate patches with hurt and the fact that your rollups break things that you then have to fix in later updates does not help me in urging people to patch.

If you need our help in testing these patches ASK US. I am willing to help.

Update Rollup 7 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (KB960384)

bradley — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:45:00 GMT

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MicrosoftDownloadCenter/~3/td_WOcS7lAs/details.aspx

Update Rollup 7 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (KB960384)

Couple of issues that I've seen reported fixed in this:

949113 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949113/ ) Unexpected modified instances of a recurring meeting may appear when you use Entourage to access a calendar on a computer that is running Exchange Server 2007
949114 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949114/ ) Duplicate calendar items may appear when you use Entourage to access a calendar on an Exchange 2007 server

On the download site, not sure when it's on MU/WU/WSUS, but I would expect it if you want to wait. You do not need to uninstall the prior rollup.

iPhone and Exchange 2003

bradley — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:50:00 GMT

Some recurring calendar items disappear from the "Day/Week/Month" view in Outlook when a user uses Exchange ActiveSync on a mobile device to modify a recurring meeting in an Exchange 2003 environment:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;958781

In a Microsoft Exchange 2003 environment, when a user uses Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync on a mobile device to modify a recurring meeting, some recurring calendar items disappear from the "Day/Week/Month" view in Outlook. However, they can still be seen in the "By Category" view. If you try to open the calendar items in the "By Category" view, you receive the following error message:

Can't open this item. Cannot locate recurrence information for this appointment

If your iPhone folks are complaining about calendar items, get that hotfix for your 2k3 server.

Exchange IMF missing in action

bradley — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:12:00 GMT

If you are wondering where the Exchange IMF updates are...

You Had Me At EHLO... : Exchange Server 2003 Intelligent Message Filter update:
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/01/06/450362.aspx

This is just a quick note that the regularly scheduled Exchange Server 2003 Intelligent Message Filter update that was set to be released on 1/7/2009 will not be happening. The next release for this update will be on 1/21/2009.

For those that might not know, this update is released on the first and third Wednesday of every month except for the month of December. December will see only a release during the first week of the month.

This may be why the Exchange 2007 updates aren't syncing up either....? Dunno on that one?

Exchange 2007 rollup 4

bradley — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:19:00 GMT

MPECS Inc. Blog: SBS 2008 - Exchange 2007 Update Error - Insufficient privileges to modify this file:
http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2008/10/sbs-2008-exchange-2007-update-error.html

In case you hit an issue where you install the Rollup 4 and OWA looks funky and you go back and try to reinstall the Rollup 4 and it won't, keep that blog post in mind. The installer indicates it has insufficient issues to install and yet there's no "run as Administrator" option available on the type of file.

Philip blogged the workround. Personally there are times it feels like the Exchange Server team is out to get us. ;-)

A meeting reminder is still active when you configure Outlook to send no reminders to an Exchange Server 2007 user

bradley — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:37:00 GMT

A meeting reminder is still active when you configure Outlook to send no reminders to an Exchange Server 2007 user:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945854

After you apply this update rollup, use Notepad to create a file that is named "StoreDriver.config" in the %EXCHINSTALLFOLDER%\bin folder. Make sure that the content of the StoreDriver.config file includes the following text.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<storeDriver>
<parameters>
<add key="AlwaysSetReminderONAppointment" value="false" />
</parameters>
</storeDriver>
</configuration>

When you compose a meeting request to send to a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 user, you configure Microsoft Outlook to send no meeting reminders to the attendees. To do this, you click to clear the Reminder check box in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, or you set the reminder status to None in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. However, when an Exchange Server 2007 user receives the meeting request, the meeting reminder is still active. Additionally, the reminder time is set to the default value of 15 minutes.

Okay so when do you not want to be alerted of an event? When the event in question is a co-workers notification of their out of office status and it rings your Windows Mobile/IPhone/GPhone/Whatever Phone at midnight when you are sleeping.

Yeah that's a career limiting move 'eh?

You need to place a file in the bin folder on the Exchange 2007 server to fix this.

Vote one for the cloud -- is it me or is Exchange becoming this beast that no one person can manage these days. "Open up notepad"... how about just fix the bugs dude? Having someone else manage that beast of a platform makes sense in instances like that. People keep saying that they want to wait for SBS 2008 sp1 before they roll out SBS, how about waiting for Exchange 2007 sp2 instead? SP1 was more like RTM and you need to install and be aware of all of these issues fixed in these rollup patches. On SBS 2008 it's a must to have Exchange 2007 rollup 4 installed and if post install your OWA looks funky, install it again.

Less one for the cloud -- how fast do cloud vendors approve/deploy rollup patches for Exchange? When you go through the cloud in a shared space, you won't be telling Microsoft to go patch their cloud or do notepad entries more often than not, you'll be on their timetable if it's a shared server setup. Ask the questions of non-security patching....How soon after rollups are released do they patch? Do they allow for support tickets for these kinds of issues to be addressed?

Lack of control is good. Lack of control sometimes has it's issues as well.

Exchange top issues

bradley — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:06:00 GMT

TOP SUPPORT ISSUES

[ISSUE 1]

PROBLEM
===========
Unable to generate OAB after failover on CCR cluster

CAUSE
=================
The file distribution service is unable to copy the offline address list
when the generation server is a CCR Cluster.

RESOLUTION
================
This is because by default OAB is only set to generate on the primary node
of CCR cluster. At this point the only work around to fix this would be to
manually update the registry value to
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeSA\Parameters\Server-Name\EnableOabGenOnThisNode
="ThisNodeName"
Or
As an alternative resolution you can move the Exchange resources back to the
Primary node of the CCR Cluster and Update the OAB

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
========================
OAB Generation on a cluster server fails with event id 9395 or 9396
http://blogs.msdn.com/dgoldman/archive/2007/02/08/oab-generation-on-a-cluster-server-fails-with-event-id-9395-or-9396.aspx

[ISSUE 2]

PROBLEM
===============
The ExBPA performance base line test option in the Health check is not
gathering any performance related data for Exchange 2007 Servers. It states
that this will take 2 hours to complete and completes in less than 5
Minutes.

RESOLUTION
===========
This is a by Design feature of ExBPA on Exchange 2007. The performance base
line option is disabled (via code path) if the Exchange server version is
Exchange 2007 or higher. The UI was not updated to reflect this and hence
the option appears to still be available to select. The code that the ExBPA
follows is in the Exbpa.config.xml file and contains this line with disabled
the feature even if it is selected in the UI:
<Object Type="If" Key1="starts-with('%EXVERSION%', 'Version 6')"
Name="Performance Data" Category="Performance" Level="5" Display="Hide">

NEW & TOP DOWNLOADS

Microsoft Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging PBX Configuration Note for Avaya
Communication Manager 5.0
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=588e8ad3-45d9-481f-8898-fb39de19882e&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging PBX Configuration Note for Cisco
Call Manager 5.1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68b43d3c-7c84-4c2f-bfd7-98754970d70e&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Client and Collaboration Data Objects 1.2.1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e17e7f31-079a-43a9-bff2-0a110307611e&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Migration Wizard for Lotus Notes
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c105b3e4-3beb-4f1e-8f52-e345af6c3e50&DisplayLang=en

NEW WEBCASTS

TechNet Webcast: Exchange Online Application Capabilities (Level 200)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032386689&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Email is broken

bradley — Tue, 27 May 2008 01:43:00 GMT

On the continuing thread of "Email is broken" is the latest saga in my continued attempt to keep my sbradcpa-at-pacbell.net email address. I used to have sbradley-at-ix.netcom.com (yes I'm that old on the Internet) and then when Pacific Bell offered dial up and later DSL I signed up for the pacbell.net alias. But lately their attempts to clean up the spam issue has nearly made the email address unusable.

People can't email me and have to use the contact box on the blog to email me when their email is blocked.

Subscriptions that I've signed up for are bouncing.

I write for windowssecrets.com and I pay for a paid subscription (just so I can keep track of when the articles go out the door and what they look like after final edits). So here is a subscription I pay for that is bouncing because SBCGlobal/Yahoo/Pacbell's attempt to de-spamify my malbox ends up with email bouncing.

Dear AT&T Yahoo, whatever you've done, it's not working. Oh and I am using ssl connections so I'm not sure what they are talking about.

Dear AT&T Yahoo! Customer:

We noticed that you are accessing email using non-secure settings in your email software.

We would like to ensure that your AT&T Yahoo! Member ID, password, and email messages are transmitted securely between your mail software (such as Outlook or Outlook Express) and the AT&T Yahoo! Mail servers. In order to meet this need, please enable SSL via the instructions that are available on the Help site.

Since multiple email notifications have already been sent out about this, we request that you please make the necessary changes immediately. Remember, you need to make these changes if you want to continue to send/receive email using a mail client.

Thank you for your cooperation,

AT&T Yahoo! Customer Support

Should Exchange be free?

bradley — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:44:00 GMT

http://www.arlingtondev.com/thoughts/?p=38

Interesting post. Should Microsoft make hosted Exchange free so that it keeps people "tied to Microsoft". Or should Microsoft provide a cloud filtering service to ensure that small businesses aren't ripping out Exchange?

Spam is winning, make no mistake, and it's still my strong opinion that one should not, nor cannot these days deploy a mail server without an edge filtering device of some kind. (I use Exchange Defender at the office)

But should everything that a business depends on be free? Remember the old adage.... Nothing in life is free and we all pay for it in the long run.

"Report it to your insurance, it's free"= higher insurance costs

"They overcharge us anyway, they won't miss one"= average loss rate in retail

If we depend on email, if our business relies on it, should we have it as free? Can a company monetize support services if they give something away? I just have a hard time having as a business asset a free service that gives me no reliance that it will remain with the same service. Long term wise, no company can give away service or product without some long term monetary strategy.

Conversely, I'd argue that email is not as dependable as we think it is. It's certainly not secure (can be sniffed if not protected), and unless we all turn on return receipts (which are annoying), you cannot, nor should not expect that it's reliable unless you call and follow up and confirm that it got there.

So who needs Exchange on their SBS anymore in this day and age of Live this and Google that?

bradley — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:53:00 GMT

Moonwatcher: SMB Exchange Administration Nightmare:
http://www.globelogger.com/2008/03/smb-exchange-ad.html

So who needs Exchange on their SBS anymore in this day and age of Live this and Google that?

(btw before I get into the reason why SOME small businesses will still want and need Exchange locally and not in the cloud...just a FYI.. don't delete the log files as was said and if you have 3.5 gigs of log files I'm going to guess that a backup has not been running on that box which would delete those log files automatically. Add to that you can move data files from the C:\ to other partitions, and then add to that that if that small firm's CFO isn't calling in a SBSC consultant when he gets stuck... well... Bottomline Moonwatcher? Can you tell your friend that he's not running a backup and that's why those log files are growing. SBS has a built in backup program that automagically dumps these log files. I'm guessing something or someone set up some sort of backup program as SBS ships with circular logging enabled so that he won't get into this position. But I'm guessing something happened so now it's not doing what it should do. In fact, recommend to your friend that he run www.sbsbpa.com and see what's up with that server)

Anyway on to the real reason for this post.....

Okay so who will need Exchange "on" a SBS box in the future? Those who don't trust the cloud. Those who don't/can't have their business data in the cloud. Those that want more than the cloud. Those that don't trust gmail and Microsoft.

I still would recommend a solution that would ensure shared calendars as a minimum for an office. You really gain the power of shared information then.

Google apps and gmail do not compare to a solidly deployed Exchange shared calendar solution with Outlook. SMB Exchange administration isn't a nightmare if you ensure that the box is doing what it should.

Will Exchange have a lesser place as we go forward? Yes I think it will. But I also think that not every business will or CAN put their trust in the cloud. Online collaborative sites will work for some, but not for others. The key is to fit the best solution for your clients' needs and to fit 'how' they work.

My ISP is deprecated

bradley — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:22:00 GMT

My ISP uses deprecated settings.

Or rather..the protocols it wants me to use have been deprecated for a few years... lately SBCGlobal/Yahoo/AT&T/Pacbell/Whatever has been requiring the use of SMTPS and SecuredPOP in their connections. They will tell you go to put port 465 and check the box for SSL in your email settings, which works great for an email client like Outlook or Thunderbird:

This is how it looks inside my Thunderbird client.

So you go to Exchange looking for a similar setting and see "TLS" and go ... hmmm it's not there....

There's a way to put a username and password..and a TLS box...but no SSL.....

The problem is on Exchange 2003 is that Exchange doesn't support legacy, deprecated SMTPS protocol, but rather wants to use the SMTP over TLS. So SBCGlobal in their consumerish-y DSL gives you these settings that you can't use/do on an Exchange Server without some rejiggering.

As is talked about here:

SMTPs - secure SMTP

465

Port 465 shows up Appendix A of the 1996 non-standard standard The SSL Protocol Version 3.0 as "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol with SSL". Unfortunately, it's not registered for SMTPs, it's registered for URD - "URL Rendesvous Directory for SSM" by Cisco. The recommended approach, at least for authentication, is to use START TLS encryption on submission port 587.

So here we are stuck with our ISPs using something that isn't really recommended. Some have mentioned they use Stunnel to pull gmail/pop over... but all we are doing it putting bandaids on for the real issue. The real issue is that we should be using business class protocals for a business class server.

Alternatively you can use a mail hygiene/hosting that you can smarthost your email through. But bottom line if you are told by your ISP that you need to send your email through port 465, don't go looking in your Exchange settings to handle that... it won't. You'll need to look for alternatives to forward your email through.

A blast from the past

bradley — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 07:59:00 GMT

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.

Easy fix...get the dog

bradley — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:26:00 GMT

Report: 95 percent of all e-mail has that spammy smell:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071212-report-95-percent-of-all-e-mail-has-that-spammy-smell.html

Easy fix..sign up for the Dog.

And to make him happy, put the blog in your RSS reader. What blog you say? This one: http://www.ownwebnow.com/blog/

Happy Squeaky Lobster Day

bradley — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:16:00 GMT

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/06/15/427966.aspx

Born - Fri Sep 26 11:15:00 1997

SSL on SMTP

bradley — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:07:00 GMT

So you got the notice from SBCglobal that you need to use SSL... and you are using popconnector and Smarthost.

http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/05/31/using-pop-connector-with-at-amp-t-yahoo.aspx

Well on the inbound we can get around that with popbeamer.com rather than the built in pop connector.

Outbound however, doesn't look so good. Read this thread:

SBS2003 Exchange SMTP Connector and SSL w/ AT&T/SBC internet - microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs | Google Groups:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs/browse_thread/thread/dd5c0a8ac7e3ea01/bc989e8a65bcbd34?lnk=st&q=smtp+connector+ssl+smarthost&rnum=4#bc989e8a65bcbd34

I think you will need to smarthost to something like godaddy's servers or Exchangedefender.com

Has email lost it's value?

bradley — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 01:07:00 GMT

SANS Internet Storm Center; Cooperative Network Security Community - Internet Security - isc:
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=3312

Has email lost it's value? Is it a good communication tool these days? Or is it a quagmire of junk that it's hopeless?

I don't send out ndr's anymore. Hate OOF's. And use a hosted spam filter in front.

What about you?

Multiple IMF Updates showing up?

bradley — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 01:03:00 GMT

http://msmvps.com/blogs/kwsupport/archive/2007/07/24/multiple-imf-updates-showing-up.aspx

Multiple IMF Updates showing up?

On my SBS 2003 R2 server I recently started getting the yellow ballon popup on my server telling me I have updates to approve. But when I look, it's for two outdated IMF updates, one from late 2006 and the other from early 2007. I checked with some other SBS'ers and found that several of them have also encountered this issue, but since they didn't know how to fix it, they were simply ignoring these unwanted IMF update requests.

So how does one get rid of them?

In my case, I have WSUS 3.0 installed on my server, and rely on the SBS management console to interact with WSUS. In order to clear up this issue and remove the old IMF entries, I had to go into the standard WSUS3 console (Administrative Tools > Microsoft WSUS 3.0) and then drill down Computers > All Computers > Update Services Server computers, and then clicked on the Status Report link located on the far right frame.

Page 2 of the Status Report report will show the updates that are waiting to be installed. In my case, I had seven (7) different IMF updates that, for some reason, were still there. Once I changed the approval status from 'install' to 'not approved', the irritating little Yellow balloon telling me I have updates
waiting to be approved disappeared!

Now, what caused this to happen in the first place? It's only a guess on my part, but it seems to me I did not see this issue until sometime after doing the WSUS "mowing the grass" process for reducing the size of the WSUS database. It's just a guess, but perhaps someone can confirm or refute this.

In either case, I hope this helps someone!

-kw

I copied this from Kevin's blog post to help a certain someone (you know who you are) in Chicago getting the same March and November updates over and over again