The Official SBS Blog

Please join the Inside SBS podcast gang for a round-table discussion on everyone's favorite SBS component - the POP3 Connector.  We do a deep technical dive in to how the POP3 Connector works under the covers and discuss best practices, common misconfigurations, troubleshooting, and much, much more.  This episode features the first appearance of our newest team member, Ed Walters.  Ed spices things up for us with his uniquely Texan perspective.

Direct link to the podcast: {MP3}

Subscribe to RSS feed for the podcast 

Show Notes

00:00 Introduction and a brief history lesson
02:00 Best Practice #1 - Not a long term solution
02:20 Back to the real world
06:20 POP3 Connector vs the POP3 Service
08:20 Reasons to keep POP3
11:40 Updates to be aware of 835734 - http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=835734
14:30 Architecture part 1 - diagnostic logging
17:30 Using OE/Telnet as a test client - http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=165186
20:45 ETRN/ATRN
22:30 Keep a copy of the mail on the server?  Getoudahere
24:30 Download interval less than 15 minutes?
32:00 Event Sinks
37:00 http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=885685 - How to troubleshoot the POP3 Connector
39:05 CDO (No, not *that* pickup method)
40:30 P1 and P2 headers
43:45 Global Mailboxes
44:15 POP3 Does not Support BCC - http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=265739
47:00 Lost mail
48:15 Hosting your own global mailbox
51:30 Duplicate messages
53:45 Hosting the same domain at two locations - http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=300681
54:30 Architecture review - "architorture"
54:55 Testing CDO via the pickup folder
56:15 Corrupt message in \program files
57:00 Peter's homage to 885685
58:05 Peter has the final word - go to SMTP

We've seen a few cases where uninstalling a SQL 2000 SP4 instance may cause loss of connectivity to other SQL instances.  This may happen when you uninstall an application that uses SQL/MSDE, when you manually uninstall a SQL instance, etc.

So, you uninstalled a SQL 2000 SP4 instance, rebooted, and now you can no longer use Companyweb (Sharepoint), the SBS Monitoring feature is not working, and if you have ISA 2004, you notice that you have lost all connectivity to the server (i.e. the server is in lockdown mode).

These are just a few of the problems that you might have and all caused by a single checkbox and is removed by accident when uninstalling a SQL 2000 SP4 instance.

We are talking about the Shared Memory protocol no longer enabled on this server for clients to use when connecting to any of the other MSDE/WMSDE instances.

To fix this:

Click Start -> Run

Type CLICONFG and press OK

Once the SQL Server Client Network Utility opens up, put a check in “Enable shared memory protocol”

Click OK to save the changes and then manually reboot the server.

Thanks to Damian Leibaschoff for this tip (a KB is forthcoming, but we wanted to make people aware of this).

This is your invitation to join the Inside SBS crew Tuesday, April 25th for an in-depth discussion of the SBS 2003 POP3 Connector.  We'll be covering everything you ever wanted to know about this component - business concerns, underlying technology, best practices, and troubleshooting.

The show starts live at 10:00 AM CST.

Phone number for the live call-in portion of the podcast:

Did you know that you can get RSS feeds for specific Microsoft technologies?  Want to get up-to-the-minute updates about the latest documentation on SBS 2003?  Subscribe to specific feeds at http://support.microsoft.com/selectindex/. Some feeds of interest:

• SBS 2003
• SBS 2000
• Exchange Server 2003

Not sure what RSS is?  Want to more effectively manage how you get new information?  Check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/04/XMLFiles/ and http://www.microsoft.com/communities/guide/RSS.mspx.

---Mark

I wanted to promise a new time and date for our next podcast, but, unfortunately, I'm waiting on a new piece of equipment that is still in transit.  As soon as it arrives, I'll post the call-in information for our next show.

So, that begs the question - what are people interested in hearing about?  Seriously, if you could sit down with a team of engineers who knew the product inside out, what questions about SBS would you like answered?  As those of you who have attend the TS2 presentations know, we're not afraid to tackle any question, no matter how basic or how obscure.  Let us know what you want to hear us talk about.

Our next few topics of discussion are tentatively set:

• Remote Web Workplace (RWW)
• POP3 Connector

What else is there not enough documenation on? Or, what is there too much documentation on, and you'd like to see someone present an overview and/or highlight the essentials? ---Mark

Episode #17 of Inside SBS is now available.  This is a simulcast recording of our recent TS2 presentation.  In this episode we cover best practices and support recommendations for preparing your SBS server for R2 deployment.  Much of the advice applies to general change management and service pack/hotfix deployment.

The slide deck is available here http://blogs.technet.com/photos/sbsimages/10966/slideshowpro.aspx

   Direct link to the podcast: {MP3}

You can also view this recording via LiveMeeting at

Hour 1

http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15003976

Hour 2

http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15003977

 

(We had some problems with our audio equipment that prevented us from recording the second hour, so the only way to view this is through the webcast above).

 

The SBS support team will be fielding your questions live this Wednesday.  We're hosting two sessions courtesy of the TS gang - one at noon PST (2:00 CST) and another at 2:00 PM PST (4:00 PM CST).

Register at:

12:00 PST

http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15003976

2:00 PM PST

http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15003977

Our topic this time is "Preparing for R2".  If you have any questions you'd like answered, but won't be able to attend live, feel free to send mail to SBSPod@Microsoft.com or post to this thread.  The TS2 team will make the LiveMeeting available for download, and we'll be posting a high-quality audio edit to the podcast feed as well.

Hope to see you there!

---Mark

Bob Rebholz of the Working Network did a great job as cameraman and interviewer.  Click on the link below to get a taste the Small Biz Summit:

http://www.theworkingnetwork.com/downloads/sbsvideos/sbsgq.wmv

(4:13 min, 15MB)

Have you got the "Green Check" yet?  Are you offering it to your customers?  Want to advertise that you'll be selling SBS 2003 R2 as an offering?  The following image gallery is now available for you to freely copy and use on your site:

http://blogs.technet.com/photos/sbsimages/category10952.aspx

Enjoy!

With the upcoming SBS 2003 R2 launch, we want to pilot a new approach for delivering product information and real-time issues to SBSers.  To that end, we're renaming this blog to "The Official SBS Blog".  We're doing this to make this site more inclusive of both the SBS Product Group in addtion to the Support Team.  Look forward to seeing more content from the Dev folks in addition to the podcasts, technical notes, notices, and other good stuff that we've been doing and will continue to do.  This will allow us to provide "one stop shopping" for breaking SBS news coming from the Microsoft SBS teams.

To quote the great SBS Diva, "we’re little, small, indestructible… and we’re EVERYWHERE".  We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here, in fact the SBS newsgroup & MVP programs have a reputation of being the best programs across all of the product teams at Microsoft!

Our intention is simple - to put a face on our team to the community and proactively provide real-time product information through better information management like blogs/RSS feeds.

As our Social Networking guru, Bob Rebholz states on theworkingnetwork.com, “Enlightened self-interest. This will make you happier. If you’re happier, and you’re a Microsoft customer, we get better review scores. If you’re happier, and you’re not a Microsoft customer – well, that’s nice too.”

Also, check out SBS Diva "Be careful what you ask for - Part 1 & 2", http://www.sbsdiva.com/

Look for new things to come, and let us hear from you about how we’re doing!

 

Live from the Small Biz Summit!  A new feature from "roaming reporter" Ali Harper:

Over 400 attendees were on-site today to see the keynote presentations live at the 4 day Small Biz Summit webcast event showcasing technology solutions from Microsoft to small business owners. Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft, kicked-off the event with our very own Steven VanRoekel introducing SBS 2003 R2!

 

Along with Office Live, Windows Mobile, & POS product managers on site to demo products in the Exhibit area, SBS also brought along a couple of our well known local SBSC partners to showcase SBS - Steven Banks and Jason Hagens

Check out the cool R2 “Get the Green Check” t-shirts we had made for on-site attendees:

. 

 

For those of you outside of Washington you can join us virtually at http://www.sbsummit.com. Also check back here for live customer & partner videos in the next couple of days.

Sean Daniel has the scoop on running ISA 2006 (currently in beta) on an SBS 2003 server.  Key takeaways:

ISA 2006 cannot be configured by the Small Business Server tools. Those tools include:

• Configure Email and Internet Connection Wizard - yes, the "fix everything wizard" will not work.
  
• Remote Access Configuration Wizard
  
• Change IP

These tools error out as they are not configured to work against the new API set provided by the ISA team.

Bottom line is the Beta of ISA 2006 does not work on SBS 2003. More information will be posted on the Windows Small Business Server 2003 F.A.Q. later this month on how much support will be provided for ISA 2006 on SBS.

I think the Great Susan Bradley said it best when she wrote:

Repeat after me... you DO NOT install betas on computers that you care about.