KWSupport

Windows Search 4 (WS4)

2008-06-12T23:22:00Z

I never thought I would find myself recommending the Windows Desktop Search utility to anyone. But, perhaps with version 4, they finally are getting it right! The prior version (Windows Desktop Search 3) is now named Windows Search 4. And this is from someone who used the Lookout product for years- that is until Microsoft bought the product, and tried to turn it into MSN Search. I then switched to Lookeen when I moved over to Vista and Office 2007 last year.

I've been running WS4 on my Vista SP1 box for all of 24 hours, but already I can say the improvement over the prior Microsoft versions is noticeable - meaning faster. To give it a fair shake, I completely uninstalled Lookeen from the system. I cannot say yet whether it's as good as Lookeen (or Lookout). So, stay tuned for further updates.

-kw

More on my TrendMicro WFBS Update

2008-06-12T13:19:00Z

I upgraded my Trend CSM 3.6 to their new Worry-Fress Business Security (WFBS) Advance 5.0 solution for SBS, and like the hero from the movie The Rocketeer, I can say, "I like it!". Without even digging into all the new features, I can say that the spam filtering is much improved, and the Trend console seems snappier and more responsive. The console interface otherwise is the same as before, except with a fresh, up-to-date look to it.

On the new feature side, they have a new 'location awareness' settings for laptops that move around inside and outside the office that I want to try on my laptop. This version also supports Windows Home Server.

The inplace upgrade went very smooth. I simply downloaded and installed WFBS Advance right over my current CSM 3.6 setup. One word of caution: I was installing this via an RDP connection to my SBS server, and perhaps three times during the installation process, it will appear that your RDP connection has been disconnected. Don't do anything - it will resume on its own.

Cheers!
-kw

Trend Micro renames/enhances CSM

2008-06-09T01:48:00Z

For those of you using Trend Micro's Clent Server Messaging (CSM) suite for your SBS servers, you should know that Trend Micro on June 2, 2008 recently rebranded the CSM product to "Worry-Free Business Security Advanced (WFBS)" and released version 5.0.

If you are using CSM 3.5/3.6 and are under maintenance, you can upgrade to WFBS Advanced at no charge.. Upgrading to WFBS will preserve all your current CSM configuration parameters. Click here for instructions from Trend Micro on how to upgrade to WFBS. To download the WFBS Advance installation file (768MB), click here.

I'll post back after I've installed it on my test server.

-kw

SBS2008 Public Beta now available!

2008-05-28T23:56:00Z

Wahoo! The public beta of SBS2008 is available as of today (5/28/2008) from the Microsoft download site. If you interested in testing this release candidate, registration is required. Hardware requirements include a 64 bit platform, 4gb memory, and a 60gb hard drive.

Remember ... this is beta software, and is not to be run in a production environment. The purpose of the beta is to get more hands and eyes on the software and to provide feedback to Microsoft.

-kw

SBS Community Survey

2008-05-27T23:34:00Z

OK, folks, please take 3 minutes and respond to Microsoft's 3rd annual SBS Community Survey. This survey is all about the SBS community, where you find your support, what blogs you find useful, etc. Kevin Beares, who is doing this survey, has done a tremendous work in promoting and supporting SBS through the community, the MVP and the partner channels.

So, go ahead and click the link ... it will only take 3 minutes and I promise, it won't hurt!

And thanks!

XP SP3 and HP

2008-05-15T02:53:00Z

Well HP finally admits there's an issue (surprise, surprise) with XP SP3 and some of their AMD systems. They are recommending to their users to NOT install SP3 until they have a prerequisite fix available for download later this week. Read more here.

-kw

XP SP3 and MCE (Revisited)

2008-05-13T23:20:00Z

Well, SP3 is now officially out, and many people have encountered the problem I did after installing SP3 where the system going into a continual reboot cycle. Jesper Johansson has written a very detail, in-depth post on the causes and fixes for this situation (click here).

I will be giving his workaround a try later this week on my wife's XP MCE computer (HP with an AMD processor!) to see if SP3 successfully installs.More latewr.

-kw

USB Drives and Slow Server

2008-05-13T16:19:00Z

I know that there are plenty of posts that deal with issues related to external USB drives on servers, such as problems when rebooting the server, or the server acting strange when a USB drive is not removed properly. But until today, I had not encountered any of these scenarios.

Situation was that the server was slow to log on, and clicking on 'My Computer' took several minutes before it would display the full list of server drives. My first attempt to resolve the issue was to uninstall the A/V, but that did nothing. I then tried rebooting the server, but to no avail.

Finally, I noticed that there should have been two external USB hard drives attached that the customer uses for rotating real time backups. These were assigned as drives L: and M:, but M: did not show any drive attached. So, I clicked on the handy-dandy green check icon to safely remove the missing USB driver, and voila!, everything started working.

Hope this helps someone down the road!

-kw

SBS/EBS 2008 Prices and Public Beta Announced!

2008-05-13T16:16:00Z

This SBS Team posted the following announcement today:

Today Microsoft announced the following prices for the Windows Essential Server Solutions family:

Windows Small Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $1,089 (U.S.); additional CALs $77 each (U.S.)
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $1,899 (U.S.); additional CALs $189 each (U.S.)
Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $5,472 (U.S.); additional CALs $81 each (U.S.)
Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $7,163 (U.S.); additional CALs $195 each (U.S.)

We also announced availability of the public beta, which is available here: http://www.MultiplyYourPower.com.

Dell and resetting BIOS

2008-04-25T13:02:00Z

People who know me, know that I don't like hardware! I was working on a client's computer (older Dell 8200) yesterday that wouldn't boot up. I went ahead and put in a different hard drive. But every time I would boot it up, it would display the "Primary Hard Drive 1 Not Found". I would go into BIOS, and it would show the drive. And if I pressed F1 from the error, the computer would go ahead and boot up.

I messed around with the BIOS settings enought, that ultimately it was not booting at all, but coming up with a "Strike f1 to retry boot, f2 to enter system utility". After some stumbling around, I found the following recommendation for resetting the BIOS and getting past such problematic warnings and errors:

When the F1 or F2 screen come up, make sure that:
1) CAPS LOCK LIGHT IS ON
2) NUMBERS LOCK LIGHT IS ON
3) SCROLL LOCK LIGHT IS ON
ALL 3 LIGHTS ON KEYBOARD MUST BE ON...

Then you press:
1) (ALT TAB) E
2) (ALT TAB) F
3) (ALT TAB) B

The computer will restart on its own and reconfigure the IDE settings.

XP SP3 and MCE

2008-04-25T12:52:00Z

As many know, Windows XP MCE by default does not allow you to join it to a domain. Variations of the infamous "Banana Hack" are available to allow MCE systems to join a domain. I posted about my experience here. What the banana hack does is to change the 'IsLegacyMCE' register key from '0' to '1'.

With XP SP3 set to release in a few days, I tried installing the XP SP3 RC2 to my babana-hacked XP MCE computer. The result was that after installing SP3, my computer went into a constant reboot loop. I was able to boot into Safe Mode, and uninstall SP3, and then the computer booted up normally.

Before uninstalling SP3, I did check the 'IsLegacyMCE' registery setting, and it was still set to '1' - which means that installing SP3 does not overwrite that reg key. However, something else in SP3 is certainly stomping over the ability to let MCE join a domain.

So, at this point, XP SP3 is out for my MCE computers.

-kw

No Telnet on Vista

2008-03-25T19:30:00Z

This is for all you IT support people ... no, I don't have to use the 'telnet' command often, but when I do, I expect it to be there! So, lo and behold, I have an emergency issue with a client's SBS/Exchange server today, and I find that I cannot do a simple 'telnet' from my Vista workstation.

Why? Microsoft decided that it was a necessary tool to be installed by default.

To solve this problem, go to Control Panel, then Programs, then under Program and Features select Turn Windows Features On/Off, then scroll down and click to select the Telnet Client.

Hope this helps!

Steve Ballmer interview

2008-03-16T13:26:00Z

Very interesting and informative interview with Steve Ballmer conducted at MIX08. The interviewer is Guy Kawasaki

http://msstudios.vo.llnwd.net/o21/mix08/08_WMVs/KYN0802.wmv

-kw

EBS Blog Site Up

2008-03-12T23:23:00Z

The Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) Team Blog site is now up and running.

What is EBS, you ask? Here are some possible answers:

1. EBS is SBS on steroids
2. EBS is SBS split across 3 or more servers
3. EBS is designed for a company with 25-250 users
4. EBS is all of the above
5. EBS is something else than the above

Check out the blog site, and see if you selected the right answer.

Windows 98 - Happy 10th Anniversary

2008-02-25T14:07:00Z

I'm helping a friend who has very little discretionary income by cleaning up a computer her boss gave her. Talk about walking back in time! It's an IBM Aptiva, 450Mhz AMD processor, with a whopping 64mb memory and a 56kbps dial up modem. It has an 8gb hard drive, and she has nearly 6gb free!

Happy anniversary, Windows 98 ... I'm glad to see you're still chugging along. Even if you are unsupported, we still love ya!

-kw

WHS Data Corruption followup

2008-02-22T00:41:00Z

Endgaget posted "new" information about the data corruption problem with Windows Home Server. There are many replies posted at that site that would try to convince you that WHS is not only "not ready for prime time", but possibly will never be ready for prime time.

So, in the interest of keeping our heads cool and calm, understand that there are plenty of people (including myself) that are running WHS successfully.
- If you're running WHS on a single disk drive, you will not encounter this problem.

And if you do have multiple disk drives,
- If you are using WHS to backup your workstations, you will not encounter this problem.
- If you are using WHS to store copies of your favorite photos, videos and music to share with your family, you will not encounter this problem.
- If you have a file you need to edit, and you first copy it to your workstation, then edit it, then copy it back to your WHS, you will not encounter this problem.

I may be over-simplifying the description of the problem, but the data corruption is essentially restricted to directly editing/modifying data files stored in the the WHS' shared folders. If you have a photo stored on WHS, and you try to edit that file directly using Photoshop, you might corrupt the file.

In my view, WHS is still 1.0. I have no problems testing it and using it. If I need to install it in a live site, I will probably do so with a single hard drive until the problem has been resolved.

-kw

SBS2008 coming your way!

2008-02-20T14:12:00Z

[Edited link]

At long last Microsoft officially announced today (20-Feb-2008) the Windows Essential Server Solutions, which includes Windows Small Business Server 2008 (for up to 50 users), and Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (for up to 250 users).

Xobni and Outlook

2008-02-18T17:06:00Z

I just came across a new product, currently in beta, that turns Outlook into a "social networking tool". Not only does it give you lightning fast email searches, but it brings a wealth of information that I certainly did not think possible, much less needed. Email analytics, extract phone numbers from emails, threaded conversations, quick attachment discovery, and on, and on, and on.

They say a picture is wroth a thousand words ... so check it out here: http://www.xobni.com/learnmore/

-kw

SBS2003, SP2 and ISA 2004

2008-02-18T16:40:00Z

As a heads up ... if you are installing SBS 2003 Premium with Windows Server SP2, your ISA 2004 installation may go belly-up. Steven Teiger just encountered such a situation: CEICW failed, and then upon restarting the SBS server, all of the ISA services failed.

According to Eriq Neale, you need to do the following steps:

1. Install SBS with SP2 (do basic setup, without ISA)
2. Disable ALL scalabale networking pieces. (Read Eriq's detail step-by-step instructions here)
3. Download ISA 2004 SP3, then install ISA 2004 followed by installing ISA 2004 SP3.

In fact, if you were to run the SBS BPA after step 1, it also identifies the scalable networking pieces to be changed.

Hope this helps!
-kw

Windows Update Kills IE on Vista?

2008-02-18T12:22:00Z

This is from the "If the Shoe fits" department ... apparently some people are having problems with IE on Windows Vista after applying the latest rounds of security updates (see Wired Blog Network for more information and workaround). It seems that KB 942615 may be at fault, although I did not experience the problem myself.

-kw