SBSDiva Mobile

If you are looking for more resources to evaluate IBM's Lotus Foundations

If you are looking for more resources to evaluate IBM's Lotus Foundations

Start first with the download of the software - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/ls/lfoundation/learn.html

Check out the Lotus Foundations wiki: http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lfndswiki.nsf/dx/05312009023638AMWEB9RX.htm

There's a Linked in user group - http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1061417 

Web 2.0, SMB & Lotus: - http://www.bilal.ca/

Lotus Foundations forum : Date\All (Threaded):
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lfforum.nsf/DateAllThreadedweb?openview&login

Knowledge base resources
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/search.wss?rs=4009&apar=include&tc=SSRP4B&loc=en_US&cs=utf-8&lang=en&sort=desc&atrn=IBMTask&atrv=SP&p=7

How to install it on Vmware if you want to take it for a spin - http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lfndswiki.nsf/dx/10022008121117AMJBL6WW.htm

My biggest issue that is overlooked in the press releases is that like Linux on the desktop, we're still needing a critical mass of knowledge.

"but you don’t have to know a thing about Linux or these technologies to run it. "
http://lauriemccabe.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/ibm-lotus-foundations-a-real-choice-for-small-businesses-and-partners/

Oh, yes you do.  Want to have roaming profiles with Vista on Lotus Foundations?  Yes, you need to know what do to:

Lotus Foundations wiki:
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lfndswiki.nsf/dx/04062009095609AMWEBJCM.htm

Fixing Roaming Profiles for Vista

Vista expects to find roaming profiles in either ~/NTProfile/Vista or ~/NTProfile/Vista.V2 and expects to find documents in a Documents subdirectory (NOT "My Documents")

If you log on to a LFS/NT domain using a Vista client FIRST it will create these folders without links to anywhere.
Best practice: Log on and log off using an XP or 2K client first and link the folders.

As with any technology, you need resources and knowledge to properly deploy a solution.

Interesting solution?  Yes.  Similar to the headless Windows Home Server?  Yes. 

Up and running in 30 minutes?  Did it boot up in that time, yes.  Do I have it set up with file permissions, email, mapped drives so that a real network is running?  Heck no.  There's still printers to add, drives to map, email to set up.  Let's be honest about how much it takes these days to have a fully functional network.  And I don't see one feature that saves my bacon every day, that of shadow file copies so I can revert back to prior versions of files without having to fire up the backup software.

Check it out, it is an interesting platform, but please, as a customer I ask you, don't sell this or any other solution to a client with the intent that "you don't have to know anything about the platform".  If you are holding yourself out to customers selling any platform, from SBS to Lotus, to Apple to whatever, do your homework and know your stuff.  Evaluate and learn. 

Don't ever, EVER, go to a customer without doing your homework first.

Live After Microsoft

As I've said before, one of the topics under (strong) consideration for SMBnation in Vegas this year is an honest evaluation of non Microsoft solutoins from a Var/Vap/Customer standpoint.

So for grins I signed up to download Lotus Foundations and see what it's like. http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/foundations/start/

I realize that it's a headless appliance (like Home Server) but I feel like I've gone back in time. :-)  Dos screen!

More blogging later, but it will install on Vmware if you call it RedHat workstation.

Looking for Two Factor?

Listening to Dana Epp talking about AuthAnvil and RWW guard and he's telling folks that if you don't want to use his solutions right away, don't buy it.  In this economy he wants you to be serious and not waste your hard earned money.

http://www.scorpionsoft.com/

He also urged folks to email and ask him general questions about security in the SMB space (not just on his products).

I'm not just saying this because I'm friends with Dana, but when you meet a business owner, and especially the top dog/ceo/muckety muck who's knows that sales begin with trust, that's a firm to do business with in my book.

If you are looking for an administrative security solution for two factor authentication on systems you administrate, check out Auth Anvil.

If you are looking for two factor authentication for SBS 2008 or SBS 2003, check out authanvil.

Global warming, the end is near and spam

You know we talk about all of these doomsday things sometimes like global warming and what not and I think there's a similar erosion impact occuring on the web.

When you look at the traffic and hits on the blog site a lot of it is relatedt to drug spam.

How much bandwidth, how much content, how much stuff on the web is irrelevant stuff trying to gain seach points out there?

72% of the traffic hitting the blog is from search engines.

Of that, 74% is from google

If all those sites want to do is to get on places to increase their google juice, and much of that is irrelevant information, when will our data we have on the web become so diluted with irrelevant information to be overtaken by all of this irrelevant data?

Are search engines smart enough to filter out the noise and the spam and find exactly what we need?

Thoughts for a Friday night...

Default SBS 2008 running Services

That is the default listing of the running SBS 2008 services and their status on a freshly built box.  The spreadsheet is also here:  http://msmvps.com/media/p/1694295.aspx

P.S. on the apology

http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2009/06/04/apologies-as-we-deal-with-some-service-pack-issues-on-the-blog-site.aspx

P.S. it's not Microsoft service pack.  It was a Community Server Service pack for those wondering what Service pack install made the blog back to a little choppy again.  For now I have IISreset running every hour on the hour.

As a result of the CS service pack, one of the errors being thrown off is event 2003 so I'll be reregistering those dlls a bit later today.

Event ID 2003 Warning Message Logged When Loading Performance Counters:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;267831

But anyway the service pack in question was not a Microsoft one -- http://msmvps.com/blogs/yoda/archive/2009/06/04/my-tummy-now-says.aspx

Apologies as we deal with some service pack issues on the blog site.

Apologies as we deal with some service pack issues on the blog site.  It seems like everytime we upgrade a service pack on community server there's a few days where we have to deal with the resulting issues that show up.  For every time we take a step forward, sometimes it feels that we take a step back.

The performance is right now a bit choppy and not how it should be and at times is pegging back up to 100%.  <sigh>

Apologies for the inconvenience to anyone.

Microsoft Partners Running to IBM?

Microsoft Partners Running to IBM? | The VAR Guy:
http://www.thevarguy.com/2009/06/04/microsoft-partners-running-to-ibm-lotus/
IBM Corporation :: 200+ Microsoft Partners Per Month Flocking to Sell IBM Lotus Foundations Appliance:
http://sev.prnewswire.com/computer-software/20090604/NY2793104062009-1.html

Couple of thoughts here.

1.  Regarding the slowing sales.... it's the economy stupid.
2.  Signing up and selling are two different things.  It's wise to look at options.  In fact one of the topics that we're thinking about having at SMBNation in Vegas is titled "Life without Microsoft" to discuss options and alternatives from the var/vap standpoint.
3.  "Partner dissatisfaction with their inability to add solutions"... Granted I know there are issues with LOB apps and 64bit but you'll need to check LOB apps for support for Lotus Foundation Server as well.   
4.  And finally, just a reminder, it's the economy stupid.

The better question is not how many are signing up to sell Lotus Foundation Servers, but how many have sold them.

Thinking long term

How Microsoft Phases Out Products - Directions on Microsoft:
http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/samples/49-samples/658-how-microsoft-phases-out-products.html
Microsoft phased out 13 products in last 8 months, analyst says:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=networking_and_internet&articleId=9133769&taxonomyId=16&intsrc=kc_top

We talked about this the other day in our SMB partner group how the impression from Microsoft or Google these days is that if you chose one of their beta-ish solutions that it might not be around for the long haul.  Sometimes with any technology, on premises, cloud, whatever, reading the tea leaves of the solution you pick ensuring that it's around for the long haul isn't always easy these days.  Businesses can and do make decisions to stop supporting solutions.

Will Mesh make the final cut as an example?  When will Google stop calling most of their stuff beta and call it finished? 

One needs to think about the long term-ish of some of these solutions and just ponder the what if you choose and you end up choosing the wrong technology?  Can you find alternatives should the vendor decide that the business plan for that technology you rely on, just doesn't make sense for them anymore?

The default SBS 2008 firewall

When working with the default SBS 2008 firewall... don't click on that button for "Restore defaults" as you will find that it will not put back the Exchange ports you need.

So if you are looking for an example of what's supposed to be there... I have attached some spreadsheets of the default policies on a cleanly built box.

The raw firewall policy here -- http://msmvps.com/media/p/1693770.aspx (please note that Exchange is on the local C: drive in this raw clean policy)

An excel spreadsheet of what the inbound policy is -- http://msmvps.com/media/p/1693771.aspx

An excel spreadsheet of what the outbound policy is -- http://msmvps.com/media/p/1693772.aspx

Horizontal black stripes are displayed in the print output when you print an image to a PCL printer

Horizontal black stripes are displayed in the print output when you print an image to a PCL printer from a computer that is running Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959482/en-us

In case anyone else has seen this on their lovely new HP printers...  like I have... get the hotfix there.  And in checking this: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4E478E21-3D31-4A10-B8ED-E1BB770E3212&displaylang=en it is included in Vista sp2 so if you want to live dangerously you can opt for SP2 rather than the hotfix.

The Official SBS Blog : OWA on SBS 2008 Incomplete / Corrupt / Red X:

The Official SBS Blog : OWA on SBS 2008 Incomplete / Corrupt / Red X:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2009/06/01/owa-on-sbs-2008-incomplete-corrupt-red-x.aspx

And if you try to reinstall it and it barfs -- read this:

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

Horizontal or Vertical?

The other days someone noted that they saw twitter and facebook as being more social, and linkedin being more business.  A recent ZDnet post saying that IT folks hate twitter and facebook as well as a ZDnet post about noise and spam on Twitter highlights some of the reasons that firms are still not convinced about the vertical-ness of Twitter.

On Twitter: Difference between spam and noise | Social Business | ZDNet.com:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=1243
Why Does IT Hate Facebook and Twitter? | Team Think | ZDNet.com:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Greenfield/?p=370

What do I mean by Vertical-ness?  I mean impact to traditional clients of firms that have a client relationship.  Right now I see these apps as very horizontal.  That is they are being relationships with peers.  They are like email and they are building the relationship and conversation with the individual.  A personal relationship is being built. 

Call me a stick in the mud but I just can't see picking an Attorney based on the tweets he posts.  I see the value in the medium used as a notification tool.  (See http://twitter.com/ZDNetBlogs).  If you are into stalking celebrities, twitter also has value (see http://twitter.com/APlusK).  It is a means to open up lines of communications that you might not otherwise have.  But do you really want to follow the tweets of your Accountant?

"That AGI figure was to die for"

"Client nearly barfed when I told them the taxes due"

I just don't see that as a good use of the medium to gain trust and respect of clients.  So rule one in communicating in any medium that you intend to showcase yourself to clients is be professional.

Peer use of Twitter so as to communicate with others in your group of communicators?  Yes I see that occuring.  And that's where people do and can let their hair down a bit.  Being used as a social tool to gain trust of clients?  Be very very careful with that.  Just as is talked about here, separate out the business from the personal and don't blend the use of the two.  You have to maintain the professional communication when you communicate no matter what the venue you are communicating in. 

Is it another communications medium or just another fad?  Time will tell.

But in case you have any business contacts that want to invest $250 for a seminar on Twitter....

What Accountants Need to Know About Social Networking: Understanding Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Other Opportunities to Connect With and/or Land New Clients:
http://reedseminars.com/details.asp?id=336

What Lawyers Need to Know About Social Networking - Understanding Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & Other Opportunities to Connect With and/or Land New Clients:
http://reedseminars.com/details.asp?id=310

What Financial Planners Need to Know About Social Networking: Understanding Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Other Opportunities to Connect With and/or Land New Clients:
http://reedseminars.com/details.asp?id=334

What CEOs Need to Know About Social Networking: Understanding How Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Other Sites Can be Used as Valuable Tools for Your Company:
http://reedseminars.com/details.asp?id=317

What Executives Need to Know About Social Networking: Understanding How Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Other Sites Can be Used as Valuable Tools for Your Company:
http://reedseminars.com/details.asp?id=323

What HR Professionals Need to Know About Social Networking: Understanding How Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Other Sites Can Help Increase Employee Engagement, Attract New Hires and Create a Buzz:
http://reedseminars.com/details.asp?id=330

What Marketing Executives Need to Know About Social Networking - Understanding Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Other Opportunities Your Company Needs to Be Aware Of Right Now:
http://reedseminars.com/details.asp?id=303

What Public Relations Professionals Need to Know About Social Networking: How to Monitor & Enhance Your Company’s Reputation and Image on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Other Sites:
http://reedseminars.com/details.asp?id=326

Nice to know someone is making money on Twitter, Facebook and Linked in, even if it's just to do seminars on how to use twitter, linkedin...

RTM is just around the corner

Windows Server 2008 R2 RTm and general Availability

You may have seen some of the recent news articles that have started to roll out around the RTM and General availability dates of Windows 7.  As Windows Server 2008 R2 is a joint development effort with Windows 7 we are aligned with the same RTM and General Availability (GA) dates.

With that – Windows Server 2008 R2  RTM code is on track to be available to our partners sometime in the 2nd half of July. Windows Server 2008 R2 will also be broadly available about the same time as the Windows 7 GA date of Oct 22.

Download and start testing with the RC candidate at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver
http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2009/06/02/windows-server-2008-r2-rtm-and-general-availability.aspx

Obviously, Release To Manufacturing (RTM) is an important milestone on the path to GA. We anticipate that we’ll be able to make the RTM code for Windows 7 available to our partners sometime in the 2nd half of July. We also expect to be able to make RTM code for Windows Server 2008 R2 available to our partners in this time frame as well.
http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/06/02/the-date-for-general-availability-ga-of-windows-7-is.aspx

Verdict: Review... uh I think you missed the point of XP Mode.

 Verdict: XP Mode gets an F | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=4303&tag=nl.e539

Verdict:  Review... uh I think you missed the point of XP Mode.

There’s no effective way to manage the XP installation
Correct.  Which is why the Microsoft folks recommend MedV or AppV (or whateverV) for a managed virtualzation.  This XPMode is for SMBs like me who have crappy line of business apps that John Q public hasn't hacked up the registries using things like LUABugLight to determine why they won't run on Vista or Windows 7.

XP Mode means two OSes to manage
If I have tools to manage one, managing another is not a big deal.  With virtualization, I have one server that has three servers and two workstations on it.

Increased security costs
Staying on Windows XP is an increased security cost.  I think you are missing the point this is about the ability for me to go to vendors and say "Look dude, I have XP mode now, get your act in gear and start coding for non administrator and all the other crap you still demand"

Huge hardware hassles
If I'm deploying bitlocker I have to figure out which ones have TPM chips.  Already we have folks asking around as to which laptops with chipsets support this.  HyperV was disabled in an HP server I had.  Go into the bios and enable it.  How is this a huge deal?

And my favorite argument...

What’s the point?
"The flipside of this argument is that if a company is willing to mess around with virtualization, and wants to switch OSes, why not switch to Linux? Or Mac? Let’s be clear, I’m not being flippant when I say that, and I’m well aware that you could still run into trouble, but if you’re planning to take the virtualization route, why have Windows as the host?"

Let me give you my arguments:

1.  Management tools.  I have Windows management tools, I have weaker Ubuntu and Apple ones.

2.  Supporting two OSs.  Dude, if your argument was that XPmode demands you support XP and Windows 7, what the heck does rolling out Ubuntu with Wine or Apple with Parallels/XP do?  I'm supporting multiple platforms there.  And doing so with one hand tied behind my back if I'm not familar with those platforms.  And again, line of business support.  I dont' see where Quickbooks jumps up and down and says "we support Ubuntu".

3.  Switching OSs isn't what we're doing here.  We're dragging the line of business applications to the Windows7 platform without forcing the person to implement downgrade rights.  It's letting the hardware vendors to go on with Win7 support .

The line of business sets the tone.  You pick the platform based on it's needs.  And XP Mode is not recommended where you want a true managed environment.  It's just there to give me something to beat my LOB apps over the head and drag them up to Windows 7.

Important: Action Pack software now available digitally

rom: maps-na@microsoft.com
Subject: Important: Action Pack software now available digitally
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 14:12:34 -0700

You may have received an email announcing the availability of digital Microsoft software benefits. We want to remind you that this applies to your Microsoft Action Pack subscription (MAPS) as well. In addition, we are pleased to announce the availability of your Action Pack content online.


Background

The partner community provided us with feedback to improve access and management of software benefits—we listened. We’re pleased to announce that you can now digitally access your software benefits from one, central location at any time.
 

The advantages of the Microsoft Partner Program digital distribution solution:

By directly downloading your internal-use software, you can gain access to software and updates the moment they’re made available—no need to wait for your Microsoft Action Pack Subscription box shipment. Benefits include:

·         Faster and more flexible: Access software immediately—24x7 availability.

·         Greater visibility: View all of your software benefits summarized in a license statement.*

·         Improved software benefits management: Add or remove users and manage their access to downloads, keys, and a license statement.

·         Decreased environmental impact: Help reduce the amount of waste from manufacturing, shipping, and disposing of disk kits.

*Available August, 2009

 

What you should know about digital software benefits

On May 29, 2009 we launched the availability of MAPS digital software.

·         Starting with the July 2009 kit, you will now only receive your MAPS software digitally. You can always order physical media (software discs)—additional fees apply. Visit your local Microsoft Partner Program (http://partner.microsoft.com) for information on fees and expenses.  View the frequently asked questions for details.

·         If you decide to order physical media, your software benefits will also be available digitally.

·         Access to software keys and license statement will only be available digitally, even if you’re receiving physical media.

 

How to get digital software:

From this link, you can access your software benefits today. You can use a step-by-step instruction guide for assistance.

 

Where to access your MAPS content

Starting with the July 2009 kit, MAPS content will be located on the Microsoft Partner Marketing Center, which you can access from this link or by typing http://partner.microsoft.com/MAPScontent into your browser. A Windows Live ID is required.  Content will be updated quarterly.  In addition, every quarter you will be mailed a MAPS Highlights card informing you of key resources and new software that is available.

Yes you can

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Small_Business_Server

I noticed something wrong on the SBS 2008 wikipedia entry.  You can now indeed use the same service packs.  Technically since post SBS 2003 R2 era you no longer need unique service packs for SBS.  I guess I can put that but in case folks don't read the R2 part in it, it is properly easier to say SBS 2008.  Now SBS uses update rollups to specifically patch unique parts of SBS.  All other service packs for the parts of SBS can be applied just like the normal server parts.

The compelling wow

Recently there's been some SBS build days that folks have organized and some of the comments from those build days as well as others who have SBS 2008 systems have inspired this post.

First off a little background and history.  Once upon a time there was a product called Back office server - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_BackOffice_Server.  A small business variant of the product http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Small_Business_Server

When you've been around the product for as long as many of us have been sometimes you get a bit jaded.  Okay I'll just say it out loud.  We're getting old.  And we're forgetting and taking some things for granted.  It him me when over the Memorial Day weekend when I was installing a test SBS 2008 in HyperV (along with the Windows 7 and other workstations and doing a test migration from SBS 2003 and all in virtual setting.  I had one box and yet I had two servers and two workstations all running.  Some folks say that the biggest wow was in the release of SBS 2003.  That it's tight integration of remote connectivity, of the daily monitoring, it was just a nice product that fit the marketplace.  So along comes SBS 2008 and those of us ... okay let's just say it... us old people.... who look at SBS 2008 and go where's the wow?  Where's the complelling wow to the existing business owner?

The more I think about it, the more I think we're forgetting that SBS 2008 is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.  It is making enterprise technology consumable and affordable by small businesses.  Without the SBSism of 2008 there would be no way that I'd consider deploying Exchange 2007 with it's non gui Powershell loving interfaces.  There are those that will argue that cloud services are going to do away with this hesitation of deployment.  That cloud exchange hides all of that complexity and thus we'll be deploying cloud services faster and cheaper.  I'm still not convinced that there are these gobs of small businesses that are used to their working infrastructure ready to rip it out and go hosted.  There are some technologies and vertical apps, but I still live in a world with a lot of small business owners who are just not comfortable where they can't touch their data.  I'm not speaking just for me here and my firm, but for the client base.  Not everyone in the world is a dot com like enterprise that doubles or triple is size in less than a year.  Not everyone is comfortable with their data elsewhere.  Not everyone have the client base that embraces cloud solutions. 

Too many companies still market technology for the company that has none.  And what running business has absolutely no technology whatsoever?  They may have lousy technology, but I bet they have SOME technology.  And for anyone these days to rip out  functioning network software without realizing that this is a not a trivial task needs to have their head examined.  Even when the compelling wow of SBS 2003's remote web workplace was there, I did not rip out my functional SBS 2000 network the day it was released.  I waited until the hardware needed changing out. 

For all those that look at the monitoring of SBS 2008 and say that it needs work, I'll grant you it does (see www.codeplex.com/sbs ) but what I can't deny is that the kind of network my firm needs right now, the monitoring of SBS 2003 isn't cutting it, let alone SBS 2008's.  The monitoring of SBS 2003 can't monitor how I want to set up my SBS 2008 as a virtual platform. 

You know what my real wow is of SBS 2008?  My real wow of SBS 2008 is that finally we have a platform supported on full virtualization.  Not a you'd better hope it doesn't break on VMware and support says sorry, virtualization.  But a real, it is supported on HyperV.  There is a compelling wowness every time I log into the HyperV test box that is running SBS 2008 and realize that if it all blows up tomorrow, as long as I have those virtual backups, I can move that server to some other platform.  That I can separate and build another server if I need it.  That's compelling.  The premium sku is a very compelling platform with it's 1+1 licensing and separate SQL.

I think that we need to be honest with ourselves that technology is maturing.  That huge wowness may not come as much as we had in the past.  That we're making the long term wow.  And if the most compelling reason to upgrade is when the hardware changes out, that's not such a bad thing.  It may be a bad thing to Dell - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=40937 but it's a sign that technology has matured enough that we're not having to willy nilly rip this stuff out every time there's some new thing on the street.

Listening in to Tyler and John talk about the advantages of SBS 2008 during the Seattle build day it hit me that we need to stop looking for a big wow and instead focus on the little things that wow us.  To only deploy SBS 2008 as the hardware ages out may not be good for Dell, HP and Microsoft, but for small businesses, that's the absolute best time to be upgrading to cause the least amount of disruptions to the firm. 

Another reason not to be too quick to roll out things.

Another reason not to be too quick to roll out things. 

Slipstream version of Vista sp2

Wanting to use Group Policy Preferences

Philip meet wall.

MPECS Inc. Blog: Group Policy Client Side Extensions for Vista Service Pack 2 will follow …:
http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2009/06/group-policy-client-side-extensions-for.html
MPECS Inc. Blog: Vista Service Pack 2 Not Applying Group Policy Preferences:
http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2009/05/vista-service-pack-2-not-applying-group.html

So if you read this document - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4E478E21-3D31-4A10-B8ED-E1BB770E3212&displaylang=en that said CSE's were included in SP2, it was wrong.  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd335033(WS.10).aspx That's the proper listing and it shows that CSE's for Group policy for Vista sp2 are not included in Service pack 2 and as Philip found out the hard way, the updated version is not out yet that allows you to easily install the preferences on Service pack 2.

For now, if you want to use slipstream SP2, follow Philip's how to to force them on a system.