OnQ : SBS 2008

On Security

eriq — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:39:00 GMT

A pair of security-related activities happening tomorrow, April 16. Just in time for CPAs across the US to start breathing normally again, there are a pair of webcasts that you may well be interested in. First, the April 2009 edition of the Third Tier Third Thursday webcast focuses on SSL Certificates in SBS 2008. I will be presenting a live demo of how SSL certificates work in SBS 2008 (surprise, it's different from SBS 2003) and discuss the pros and cons of using third-party SSL certs versus the self-generated cert that SBS 2008 provides. Following that, Dana Epp is hosting a security round-table discussion on selling security in the SMB space. Amy Babinchak, Susan Bradley, and Ben Yarbrough join Dana for the round-table discussion.

But if just knowing about those two events wasn't enough, let me entice you a little more. Dana is offering to give away a copy of the SBS 2008 Unleashed book to one person who attends both sessions. If you don't have your very own copy of the book yet, here's one way you could possibly end up with a free copy.

Third Thursday Webinar: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/meetingICS?id=F2FGNW&role=attend&pw=w%242S%3BM%60Wx&i=i.ics

Selling Security to the SMB Space: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/733132802

See you there tomorrow!

On Release

eriq — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:33:00 GMT

Last Thursday, I posted that the ISA 2006 with SBS 2008 whitepaper had been published by Microsoft. Tonight, the paper will get a very small refresh and be linked from the SBS: MVP and Community Corner at TechNet. There have been a lot of questions in the community about how to configure ISA 2006 to work in front of SBS 2008, and this whitepaper should answer the vast majority of the questions on that topic.

ISA 2006 in front of SBS 2008 Whitepaper Available

eriq — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:44:54 GMT

Over the last few months I've been working with Microsoft to publish a whitepaper on how to install and configure ISA 2006 in front of an SBS 2008 network. That whitepaper is finally available for download. If you got ISA 2006 as part of the SBS 2003 Premium Software Assurance make good offer, or if you're looking to acquire and configure ISA 2006 on your own, the document will walk you through the process of installing and configuring ISA 2006 to publish and protect your SBS 2008 network.

On SA Fulfillment

eriq — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:35:55 GMT

This past week, I went through the process to get the SBS 2003 Software Assurance fulfillment for a couple of my customers who are finally needing to activate those SA rights. The process was a little more cumbersome than I had hoped, and I could not find a location that documented the process in a single location. So, to hopefully help someone else who may be needing to get this done, and to make you aware of a couple of hiccups in the process, here's the scoop.

First, you have to place an order for the SBS 2008 media from MS Fulfillment. Unlike many other products where you can download the installation media through the eOpen site, SBS has the installation key printed and attached to the media set, so you have to get a media order placed. This is done through the VLSC Fulfillment line at 800-336-0098, You will need the Open License number and Authorization code to confirm the license, then you will confirm other details of the order. So long as you have the media shipped to the license holder, there is no additional shipping charge. Piece of cake, once you know the right number to call.

Second, you need to call a different group if you are activating SA for SBS 2003 Premium, because that comes with additional media (Server 2003, ISA 2006, Outlook, Sharepoint Designer). The number to call for that fulfillment is 866-326-7110. The first order I called in for had no problems. We provided the License Number and verified the customer details, and the order was placed. The second time I called in I reached an agent who had no idea what I was talking about. After going round and round with the agent, he checked with his supervisor and got a laundry list of things they wanted us to provide to be able to process the order. I opted not to continue down that road (since I didn't when we placed the first order and by all accounts I shouldn't have had any issues). I called in again later hoping to reach a different agent who knew what I was talking about, and when he also had no idea what the SBS 2003 SA Fulfillment entailed, I bailed and will wait to try again later to get someone who is able to figure out what's going on.

I've heard other anecdotal evidence of issues with getting the SBS 2003 Premium Make Good materials, so it's clear that this is not a common process that this group is dealing with. However, if you need to get the SA media for either, hopefully you won't run into the same type of trouble that I am.

UPDATE:
Just to make sure I hadn't got my wires crossed, I called back into the 866-326-7110 number and asked to confirm that the order we placed a couple of days ago had actually shipped. This wasn't a bogus call, as we did not get a shipping confirmation e-mail with the tracking number like we were told. The agent who answered the phone was able to pull up the order and provide the shipping confirmation (they hadn't entered the e-mail address after all, which is why no shipping notification was received). So I know I'm talking to the right people after all. After getting the confirmation, I asked if she could place the smae order for a different customer, and she got the order completed without any issues, just like the first order we placed.

I'm not sure yet what the "magic words" are to get the agents at the second line to look in the right place in the script to get the SBS 2003 Premium SA order done, but I don't have many more of these to do, so I'll wing it should I have any trouble in the future. And if I do figure out the "magic words" I'll post back here.

On SMB Conference Call

eriq — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:28:00 GMT

Just a reminder that I'll be the guest joining Karl Palachuk in this weeks' SMB Conference Call. We'll be talking about (if you can believe it), the SBS 2008 Unleashed book as well as SBS 2008. Registration is still available for the call. Hope to see you there!

On Availability

eriq — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:43:08 GMT

While December 10 is the "official" release date, I'm proud to say that Windows Small Business Server 2008 Unleashed has completed its press run and is en route to resellers as we speak. How do I know this, you ask? Simple - I've put my own hands on one:

Soon, those of you who have placed pre-orders will be getting you copies delivered to you, and those of you who choose to wait until you see a book on a shelf before purchasing should be able to go to your favorite bookstore and take a gander.

There are a number of people I need to thank who helped out with this project - it was far from a solo effort:Amy Babinchak, Steve Banks, Tim Barrett, Susan Bradley, Dean Calvert, Cris Hanna, Kevin James, Jeff Middleton, and Kevin Weilbacher added significant contributions to the book. Loretta Yates from Pearson was a great editor to work with through the project. And my wife, Anna, put up with the long nights and work weekends over the last year as the core writing of the book was done.

Hopefully you'll get as much out of the book as we did putting it together for you!

On Migration - Opening Eyes

eriq — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:01:22 GMT

If the only thing I do for the community the rest of the year is to get a few more IT Professionals to not only think seriously about SBS 2008 migrations but to actually start training on the process, I'll take it. That's how important I believe it is. The SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 migration is NOT your familiar SBS 2000 to SBS 2003 Swing Migration. SBS 2008 is a completely different product, and as a result, the path to get there is completely different as well.

I started talking about the need to learn about migration back in August in a post from this blog. I mentioned it again in a guest blog I'm doing for Network World this month. Susan Bradley talked about it in a post from October 30, 2008. There have been discussions about the migration story in the SBS 2008 newsgroups and over on smallbizserver.net. Several threads about migration have cropped up in a number of SBS-related Yahoo groups.

The common theme from the folks who worked with the migration process during the SBS 2008 beta is this - learn about the migration before you do one, and start that learning process now. If you're assuming that because it's all wizardized that SBS 2008 will have any similarity to SBS 2003, that's a faulty assumption. This is a vastly differnet product, and there will be a learning curve to becoming proficient in supporting the product. That learning curve is even steeper when it comes to migration.

Please, if you haven't already, look at the SBS 2008 Migration Document from Microsoft. Keep checking the link to the Latest Version to make sure that you are working from the most recent update to the document (the development team has assured us that they will be continually updating the document as they identify issues that need to be corrected). Test the migration process against a clean, freshly-built SBS 2003 server. Test the migration process against your own server (virtually, in a lab). Test the migration process against one of your customer's servers that's a really crusty server with lots of apps installed (virtually, in a lab). Trust us, the time you figure out there's an "oops" within the process is when you're testing the process for your own training or documentation, not when you're out trying to do one of these things for a customer.

On Blogging

eriq — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:27:11 GMT

As part of the marketing for the upcoming Windows Small Business Server 2008 Unleashed book, I've been given the opportunity to have a blog space over at Network World for the next month. I'm excited about the opportunity to share my experiences with SBS 2008 with that audience, and hopefully the information will be well received.

The first post in that series went live today. You can read Small Business Server 2008 - Start Looking Now at your convenience. Enjoy!

On Roles

eriq — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:41:00 GMT

One of the more powerful features of SBS 2008 is the User Role concept, based on the roles that were available in previous versions of SBS. These Roles are like account templates that can establish a common group of settings for one or more users in the network. Unlike the SBS 2003 Account Templates, however, the SBS 2008 User Roles are much more active, and if you're not careful, you can get yourself into unintended trouble.

Let's take a trivial example. You have a user with a large mailbox, and you don't want that user subject to to the default Exchange mailbox quota. You go in and modify that user's settings in the SBS console, and that user now has no Exchange quota. Super.

Down the line, you learn that you can modify the folder redirection settings for users by modifying the User Role. So you go into the Standard User Role and update the folder redirection settings. You save the changes to the role, and when you do, it lets you know that it's going to apply those changes to all the users who have the role assigned. Great, that's exactly what you want. Life is good.

Suddenly, you get a call from the user with the large mailbox and that user tells you that he (or she) can't send or receive e-mail. Oops! When you reapplied the role, you inadvertantely reset the Exchange quota for that user. So you wipe the egg off your face nad go take care of that.

Unlike when you run the Change User Role wizard and have the option to Add To or Replace the user's settings when the role is applied, if you make a change to the Role, any user who had Role settings modified from the Role defaults will have those custom settings overwritten. Working with Roles is not like working with Security Groups in AD, where you can adjust certain settings for one group and not impact other settings. All settings contained within a role get pushed back out to the users who have the role assigned when you make changes.

So what's an SBS admin to do?

First, get out of the habit of having custom settings based on a user if you're going to be using Roles (and I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't use Roles, I'm just saying that you need to know what you're in for if you do). If you have a user, or a group of users, who have one setting different from one of the standard roles, create a new Role for those users and modify the settings for those roles. In the example of the user with the large mailbox, you could create a new role based on that user's settings and call it something like Standard User with No Exchange Quota. Then if you need to add a new user who also needs to have no Exchange quota, you assign that new user to that new Role.

Second, document the changes that you make. Nothing can cause you embarassment with a client quite like making a change from the "default" settings, then making another change that impacts the undocumented change, ending up with the user unable to send and receive e-mail, for example. The more you document, the greater the likelihood that you won't end up with unexpected results. OK, that's a bit of a pipe dream in this industry, but still, any documnetation is better than no documentation at all.

My recommendation for how to approach using User Roles in SBS is to leave the three roles created by SBS alone and create new roles for any customzations you want to make. Have a new user that needs no special configuration? Make them a Standard User. Have someone who needs folders redirected? Change them to the Standard Users with Folder Redirection role. If their mailbox grows larger than the default quota, add them to the Standard User with Folder Redirection and No Exchange Quota role. Could that get ridiculous before long? Absolutely. But if you come up with the configurations you want and create roles for them, your management life will get a LOT easier than if you have individual users with custom user settings that might get modified if you accidentally change a role.

Now is the time to think about these things, not after you've started an installation of SBS for a client. And certainly not after you lock the big boss out of his (or her) e-mail.

On Migration - Exchange and Quotas

eriq — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:45:00 GMT

This post will be the first in what I hope will be a short series related to issues I've encountered in my SBS2008 migration of my internal server. I'd love to say "hey, everything worked as advertised" but we're not quite that lucky. But to start off, I have a very common setup that will probably catch some folks off-guard, so here it is in the blogosphere for someone to find and figure out.

First, I have a large mailbox. Like 8GB. Yeah, it needs pruning, I know. My first hint of trouble was when I ran the move mailbox part of the SBS migration. The move mailbox process stopped because of the default quotas in Exchange 2007. Yes, 2GB is far better than the 200MB default in Exchange 2003, but that's beside the point. So I went right in and removed the quotas on the mail store and fired up the move mailbox tool again. This time it completed without error.

Jump to this morning. I am going through the migration CHM file and get to the point about the users not showing up in the SBS console. I can either do the ADSIEDIT fix for that, or I can just run the Change User Role wizard (or whatever it's called). Boom, all of my users show up in the console. Woo hoo!

A little bit later, Susan (yes, that Susan) pings me that my mail is getting rejected because my mailbox is full. D'oh! That's right, the default Standard User role has the 2GB Exchange quota enabled by default. Dummy that I was, I didn't change the user role before applying it (I actually ran across this during migration testing and made a note about changing the Standard User role to remove the Exchange quota, but forgot about it this morning while I'm trying to do a gajillion other things) and now my 8GB mailbox is dying over 2GB quota. No problem, I change the User Role, then I open my user object to make sure the setting is removed, and all is well.

Would that it were that simple.

An hour later, I still can't get into OWA (well, I can get in, but it's yelling at me that I'm over quota and won't do anything until I fix it - if you haven't seen the OWA UI for being over quota, try it - there's nothing subtle about it). I quit and restart Outlook, it fires off the Mailbox Cleanup wizard (again, yes, I should do a cleanup, but that's not the issue). I look at the my user object in the SBS Console, no quota. I look at the message store in the Exchange console, no quota. I ping David Shackelford and he has me run a couple of PS cmdlets, all show the quota is disabled. Dave suggests I restart the Transport service. No love.

Finally, Dave sends me to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb684892.aspx and suggests I restart the Information Store service. Bingo, OWA and Outlook stop yelling at me, and mail starts flowing again.

I don't know why Exchange couldn't figure out in a two-hour window that I had adjusted the quota settings, but it didn't. I had to forcibly restart the information store before it woudl check the quota again and allow me to get back to my precious e-mail.

So, lessons learned for today:

Modify the quota settings on the mail store before migrating any user mailboxes over if you have users with mailboxes over 2GB.
Modify the Standard User Role before you touch any user objects during your migration and remove the Exchange quota if you have users who are above the limit.
If you should get a user who goes above the quota and you need to restore their access quickly, adjust the quota settings, then restart the Information Store service. No, you shouldn't have to do that, but it fixes the issue.

On RTM

eriq — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:41:08 GMT

Folks, in case you haven't heard by now (and if this is the first place you've seen/heard this, then I probably have a few other blog suggestions for you to follow), the SBS Development Team released SBS 2008 to Manufacturing today. This means that the product will be in the channel in some form in the next 6-8 weeks. This marks the end of several years of development by Microsoft, and nearly two years of testing that I've been involved with, along with a lot of other people.

I think the development group has done an amazing job with the product given the circumstances. Is the product solid? Based on what I've seen, I think so. Does it have some holes? Without a doubt. But given that the team was essentially developing against a deadline and not against a feature set, this is understandable.

What does this release mean to you? If you're a small business IT consultant (or at least play one on TV), it's time for you to get off your duff and work with the product so you get to know it and, therefore, develop your ability to support it for your clients. If you are a business owner, it's time to start thinking about if the upgrade makes good business sense to you.

I've already been seeing the arguments pro and con for the product out in the community, and for those that have asked about my take on it, my standard reply still stands - whether it makes sense to upgrade now or later depends entirely on the specifics of the client. Some people will need/want to move as soon as they can get their hands on the product. Others will wait until they have a clearer need for it. In my general conservative approach, I'm going to be taking a "wait and see" attitude for most of my clients. However, I have one that will be migrated pretty much as soon as we can get our hands on the software. It just depends.

Through this process, I've made some good friends on the Dev team, and I've been privileged to be involved in parts of the process that many people never get to see. I know they're all relieved to have finished this product, and they deserve whatever celebration is in store for them. The folks that have worked countless hours to bring you SBS 2008 definitely deserve major kudos - this was not an easy product to produce, and those of us on the testing team were not the easiest people to work with. But in the end, I think we're getting the best product that could be released at this time.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be talking more about my observations about SBS 2008 both here and on eOnCall. I'm also in the last stages of working on SBS 2008 Unleashed for Sams, due for release in November of 2008. But if you really want to know what the product is about, you have no choice but to get your hands on it and start working with it. No amount of reading blogs or sitting through web seminars or watching demonstration videos will give you the experience you need to run or support this product. Get out there and get after it!

On Migration

eriq — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:25:40 GMT

In the last few weeks, I've had an opportunity to give a presentation about the Migration options with SBS 2008 to a couple of different groups, one in Dallas and one in Detroit. As I went through the presentations, it became clear that the majority of folks in both rooms had not looked at the SBS 2008 migration document that's been produced by Microsoft, mostly because they didn't even know it was out there. So even though I will be giving the presentation at a few more groups over the next few months, I wanted to get my key point about Migration and SBS 2008 out there for those people who won't be able to hear about it from one of these presentations.

My talk focused on the MS Migration story for a variety of reasons. One, I know Jeff Middleton isn't ready with the Swing Migration process for SBS 2008 (but I also know he's working on it), and I really can't speak to a process I haven't seen. Plus, I'm not trying to take the thunder from Jeff about Swing when he does release the SBS 2008 edition. But I have gone through the MS migration process several times as part of the research for the SBS 2008 Unleashed book and the beta testing for the product, and doing the migrations uncovered for me what I believe is the most important thing you can do as a consultant to get ready for SBS 2008:

Learn the migration process. Period.

Whether you use the MS process or Jeff's Swing Migration, you will benefit greatly from starting to work with the migration process now. Don't wait until you get in front of your first migration for a client and try to review the white paper the night before. Don't download the Swing docs on the way to the client site. In fact, don't even schedule time with a client for migration until you've spent time learning how to do a migration.

There will be benefits and drawbacks to both migration processes. Learn what those are and understand why you are choosing one migration process over another. There will be times that a Swing will be the best migration method. There will be times when the MS process will be the best migration method. If you don't know both processes inside and out, you will not be able to make the correct decision for your client, which could end up being very costly for both of you.

We have what is supposed to be the final version of the Microsoft white paper on migration (in both web form and CHM (compiled help file) form) already available, so there is no reason you cannot start reading up on migration right now. You should, in fact. Then when Jeff releases the SBS 2008 version of the Swing Migration process, you can read through that and get familiar with it as well. Then you'll be well-versed in how to get your existing SBS 2003 customers onto SBS 2008 in the best way possible.

The other key reason I believe it's important to learn about migration is that it is the best way to learn about SBS 2008 in general. If you just join the beta and download and install the product, you'll get to see the surface of what's going on. But the migration process touches on every aspect of SBS 2008 - from Active Directory to Exchange to SharePoint to Group Policy and so on - so when you go through the migration process, you will learn about each of those apects of SBS 2008, and if you have not seen SBS 2008 yet, this will be a good way to get your hands dirty.

I will be up front, though. This will take time and effort on your part. The migration process is not easy, and not fast. If you try to skim through the docs or speed throgh a few trial runs,you WILL miss key aspects of the process and could run into problems down the road.

If you plan to be serious about supporting SBS 2008 as part of your business venture, start now to learn about migration so you'll be in a position to succeed when you are ready to move your clients, not in a position to fail miserably.

On Redmond in July

eriq — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:39:00 GMT

Be warned, this is a long post. But the payoff at the end may well be worth the read.

This past week, I had an opportunity to work on a project at Mothership Redmond. In addition to the fabulous weather (highs in the upper 70s compared to the 100s back home, yet sunny and clear skies, go figure), I had was able to catch up with some people who I don't get to see very often: Amy Babinchak, Steve Banks, Mark Crall, Chris Rue, and Oliver Sommer. And those were only the folks who were on the same work project. I was also able to spend some time with Terri Schmidt, documentation manager for WEBS, and Kevin Beares, a name that should be familiar to everyone in the community. and while I do not want to belittle the time I spent with these folks and the discussions we had, the highlight of the trip for me happened on Friday.

Dean Paron, Group Program Manager for SBS, invited me to sit in on a ship room meeting the team had Friday morning. Since I'm not an idiot, I accepted the invitation without batting an eye, even though I had no idea what a "ship room meeting" was. But after sitting in on the meeting, I have a much deeper understanding of the process the team goes through to develop the product and bring it to market. And after confirming the NDA line, I'm blogging about it to shed some light to others who may be interested.

Anyone who has worked on any type of software development project, whether large and formalized like what MS and other large companies use or smaller and independent, will understand some of the basics of the development cycle. In the case of SBS, the process is a little differnet than for other products, because what the SBS team is developing is the "glue" that will allow all the disparate MS component technologies to run seamlessly on the same box. Oh, and there's the management tools, too. But the development folks on SBS are not writing code for Windows Server 2008 or Exchange Server 2007, instead they are taking those products and writing integration code. In many ways, this is a more challenging process, because to meet your own design goals, you have to deal with the building blocks that have been handed to you. If the team found, for instance, that the User Management tools would work a whole lot better if there were a change made in Windows Server 2008, they're not going to be able to go in and modify code in that product. Sure, they could request accomodations from that team while the product is in development, but once Server 2008 shipped, that was what they have to use to build their code.

Once they get the product matured to the point that they're ready for other people to start using it, they make the code available to certain groups of external users. This comes in the form of CTP (community technology preview) releases and then the beta releases. Generally, these external releases start with a very small group of outsiders, then expands to a larger audience as the product gets closer to release. SBS just announced the release of the RC1 build late this week, and it will be available to beta participants early next week. Many more people will look at RC1 than looked at RC0, or Beta 2, or Beta 1, etc.

The goal, as I understand it, of these releases is twofold. Early in the process, the goal is to get feedback on the functionality of the product as well as identifying any problems (bugs) in the code so that those bugs can be fixed in later releases. Later in the process, the functionality aspects are pretty much set in stone and the team is more interested in finding and fixing the problems instead of adding or removing major elements. That's where we are in the process of SBS at this point - the feedback Microsoft is looking for in RC1 is "what doesn't work" and "how significant of an impact will it have if it's not fixed."

People who participate in the beta process access software and feedback through the Connect site that Microsoft has put together for this process. When someone finds a bug, they are expected to enter that bug into Connect, then it gets on the developers' radar and they can start addressing the issue identified in the bug. But just because you enter a bug does not mean it will get addressed by the team the way you want it to. There are several bugs (and suggestions) that I've entered into the system that have not and will not be addressed by development, at least not in this release of SBS. Am I frustrated about some of them? Sure. But I also know I've identified a couple of bugs that did get fixed, and fixed immediately.

OK, so that's what we see on the outside. When I sat in on the ship room meeting Friday, I got to see what happens on the inside. And I have a better understanding of how and why the process works the way it does.

After Dean introduced me to the team in the meeting (more to confirm that I was under NDA), Cassie Hicks opened the list of outstanding bugs and went through them with the team to determine which bugs would get addressed and have fixes entered into the system before the next build was done, which was scheduled for Friday night. As each bug was introduced, the owner of the bug identified the status of the bug, and if a fix was not imminent, there was a brief discussion about what the next steps of the bug would be. No, I can't discuss any of the bugs that were brought up in the meeting, but it was pretty cool to see the process in motion.

Following the ship room meeting, a pizza party ensued celebrating several teams that had releases that week, including the announcement of SBS 2008 RC1. I was invited to attend with the rest of the team, which was an honor, and got to listen to all of the thank yous to all of the related team members who helped with each of the releases. While everyone ate, I was able to talk a little with Boodhisatva Deb and Sean Daniel, as well as Cassie Hicks. But the icing on the cake, so to speak, was getting to witness Kevin Kean have his head dunked in a large bowl of whipped cream (and yes, you can just make out my face in the background of the video).

All in all, a great week in Redmond, but now it's time to return home and take care of important matters. After I deal with a 4 hour delayed flight, that is...

On Public Preview - Setup and Protection

eriq — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:26:00 GMT

The first time you boot up the system from the SBS 2008 install DVD, you'll notice a significant difference between this installation process and previous SBS installs. There is no integrated setup.. This comes partially from the image-based setup routines of Windows Server 2008, and partially from design decisions by the development team. Gone are the days where you can "customize" your SBS install, save for a very few items. In reality, about the only things you can configure during setup are the layout of the hard drives, the name of the server, the name of the default administrator account, and the internal domain name, and even the latter is restricted to certain limitations for you by default.

In general, I'm not opposed to this move. By ensuring a consistent installation across all builds of SBS 2008, the development team has hopefully reduced some of the support calls that will come into Microsoft. One of the more frustrating things for me personally when I'm called in to provide support on an SBS box for a partner is seeing an SBS 2003 box installed without Exchange. Or without Sharepoint. Or without any of the tools that make the box an SBS box and not just another Windows Server 2003 box. Knowing that all the parts and pieces at least started out on the server (yes, you can go into Add/Remove Programs and pull out specific pieces after installation - more on that later) should reduce some of the support footprint moving forward.

So you want to install SBS so that user data, Exchange, and Sharepoint exist on a different volume or partition on the server? No problem. You just won't do that during installation. You'll get to use the Move Data wizards to relocate those features elsewhere on the server after installation completes. But during the installation process, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, gets put on C:. Don't want Exchange on C:? Move it after installation. Don't want user shared folders on C:? Move it after install. Don't want the core OS on C:? Won't happen in this version. Everything goes on C:. Period.

That includes the trial editions of Windows Live OneCare and Forefront Security for Exchange, and this is where I take issue with the installation process, although I undestand it's really more an issue with marketing. The SBS 2008 propeganda includes anti-virus/anti-malware/anti-spam protection for the server as a feature. This "feature" is a pre-installed 120-day trial for these two products. Personally, I don't plan to install or use either of these products, because my operation already has products we use with our existing customer base that we will be putting on new installations. I will be going through the extra steps at the end of the installation to remove these two products from the server (through Add/Remove programs), and I really wish I didn't have to. I fully understand that Microsoft wants to get more into the subscription businss through these two products (both Windows Live OneCare and Forefront Security for Exchange are subscription products, not "package"products), but I hate that they're included in the install as "features" that don't work until you activate them, and I have no way to say "Hey, I don't want that stuff on my server to begin with." How many times have we gone through the uninstall process on a piece of software, only to have that software leave some trace of itself behinnd? I have not played enough wiht OneCare/Forefront to know how much of the products are left on the box after install, but it is something I will be looking into.

I would rather see Microsoft include the installers for OneCare and Forefront on the SBS installation DVD and give the installer the option to go back after the server is set up, but that would lead to fewer installs of the products, and therefore fewer subscriptions, so I don't see that going away. (Yes, even though the product is in public beta and is called "Release Candidate 0," there is still a possibility that some aspects of the software could change before the final build is released. So it's possible that this behavior could change, but I'm not holding my breath.) It's just that System Builders are given the option to not include OneCare and Forefront when they pre-load a server with SBS 2008, and I think the VARs should be given that option as well. I fully understand that Microsoft still wants to push SBS 2008 as a user-installable product, and for the DIY market, I'm OK with giving them some sort of protection right out of the box, knowing full well that many DIYers never got around to installing anti-virus/anti-malware on their SBS 2003 boxes. But let's not force it down the VAR's throat.

My last note on setup deals with the Answer File. The SBS development team put together a tool to create an Answer File that SBS setup will use to "customize" the installation process. And by "cusomize" I mean "pre-populate the answer file with data that would otherwise be collected in the GUI portion of the SBS setup." You can run teh Answer File Generator Tool and enter the name of the server, the name of the default administrator, even the location information for the company. The answer file is also the only place you'll be able to customize the internal domain name for the network. By default,all SBS 2008 installs prompt for an internal name, but the name entered is a NetBIOS formatted name, and .local will be added to the end of the name. So if you enter CONTOSO in the field, the internal domain name will be CONTOSO.local. If you want to use .lan or even the public DNS name (and no, I'm not getting into that religious debate here), you'll need to employ the answer file to get a non-.local internal domain name.

As a programming note, some of the "how to" steps for issues described in these posts will be available on the Lessons Learned site. And all of it will be covered in the SBS 2008 Unleashed book, tentatively scheduled for release at the same time as SBS 2008.

On Public Preview

eriq — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:29:00 GMT

i've been waiting with baited breath for the opportunity to talk about the Public Preview of SBS 2008, and it went live yesterday. The SBS Blog carried the announcement from Dean Paron, and you can sign up to download and evaluate the software at the Evaluation Center. If you are going to take a serious look at the software, and by serious, I mean that you are going to run the software through its paces and provide feedback to the development team, make sure that the system you will be testing on meets the minimum system requirements as identified by Microsoft. Running on anything less will not get you the proper experience for the software.

There are a number of changes in SBS 2008 from SBS 2003 and earlier versions. One of the most significant is the change from being able to use the SBS server as an "edge device" by running it with two NICs. SBS 2008 only supports a single NIC (and by single NIC, that means you cannot route private to public traffic through the SBS server - some testers have installed SBS 2008 with two NICs on private networks for physical separation of internal networks) and that's actually a change in the core Windows Server 2008 operating system, not a design decision by the SBS development team. All deployments of SBS 2008 will be of the "single NIC behind a hardware firewall" vaiety, where the "hardware firewall" could be any number of solutions, including a separate server running ISA. The SBS setup wizards will attempt to configure this external firewall if it's a hardware device that supports and has enabled UPnP, but the setup wizards will not configure an external ISA server, so ISA integration has been completely removed from this product.

Over the next few days and weeks, I'll be posting my thoughts and opinions about the product, the successes and failures that I've seen in the time I've been working with the product. These posts will be focused on significant differences in the product from previous versions so that those who are starting to become familiar with the product can see up front some of the implications of those changes and how that might impact the way you deploy SBS 2008 into an existing environment. While some of these changes may not sit well with the community, if you know about them in advance and can plan for them before implementing the system, you may save yourself some headaches down the road. I liken this to the people who were very familiar with SBS 2000 and made assumptions about SBS 2003 when selling it as a solution to customers without knowing some of the significant changes made at that transition. Specifically, consultants who sold SBS 2003 to b used as a Terminal Serve, like SBS 2000 could do, when Terminal Server support was removed from the product. in this case, you won't be selling SBS 2008 with ISA - there is no bundled ISA story with SBS 2008, so if you've been thinkig about selling SBS 2008 Premium and pitchin ISA as one of the benefits of that sale, you need to make alternate plans NOW.

Hopefully you'll find the information coming in the next series of posts useful as you begin to think about how SBS 2008 will fit into your product offerings to your customers. Don't be surprised if you find that, in some cases, SBS 2008 is no longer a fit for customers where SBS 2003 made sense. Times change and tehnology changes, and so has the SBS product. Please make sure that you are familiar with the product and its benefits and limitations before you start deploying it for your customers.