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December 2005 - Posts

Saturday, December 31, 2005 3:24 PM

Sam the SBS Server reviews the year

We interview Sam the SBS server who's getting ready to celebrate New Year's Eve with his network Q. Hi Sam, how's it going! A. Not bad. Can't complain, keeping a watch on things here, getting ready to celebrate the New Year. Q. So this has been a big
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Saturday, December 31, 2005 9:16 AM

Getting good information

...so we're in the car driving to Los Angeles and the radio DJ talks about an upcoming story on radio "A problem in Microsoft Windows? Nahhhhhhhh " she says....... The chatter on SBS listserves today is one of disappointment. This security issue points
Posted by bradley | 2 Comments
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Friday, December 30, 2005 10:17 PM

Just a heads up the Security Advisory was updated

*I have DEP enabled on my system, does this help mitigate the vulnerability?* Software based DEP does not mitigate the vulnerability. However, Hardware based DEP may work when enabled: please consult with your hardware manufacturer for more information
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Friday, December 30, 2005 12:04 PM

Blogging will be a smidge light...

As I'm on my way to Disneyland for the New year..... Everyone have a happy and safe New Year! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | live it!
Posted by bradley | 6 Comments
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Thursday, December 29, 2005 10:38 PM

You'd think I'd learn by now

HA! See that? That's a Dell OEM with a Nvidia driver up in the "High Priority" patches. I do not do video drivers via Microsoft update just because I've had bad personal luck with them... but I never get a video driver up there in high priority on a box
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Thursday, December 29, 2005 5:09 PM

Oh let's just rip out those dll's shall we?

One of the suggestions I see on many of the Security sites are to unregister certain DLL's to ensure that this WMF vulnerability can't be exploited. Now maybe it's just me...but unregistering DLLs that break image, thumbnails and what not... and especially
Posted by bradley | 5 Comments
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Thursday, December 29, 2005 12:45 PM

On the topic of paranoia today....

Since we're in paranoid mode today...did you catch this statement in that NPR article ? " They can prepare to work from home, in case it becomes hazardous to be in contact with other people. " Guess what we have inside every SBS 2003 box that is married
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Thursday, December 29, 2005 12:33 PM

WMF and blocking

As many have pointed out ...the instructions for blocking 'just' the WMF extensions won't protect me if the threat vector comes in via renamed files.... but I think folks are missing the point here. NPR the other morning had a news report on the communication
Posted by bradley | 3 Comments
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Wednesday, December 28, 2005 10:02 PM

Blocking those WMF's at the email border

Okay so even before I blocked the WMF's via ISA server so that they are blocked while surfing...the first thing I did [ because I knew easily how to do this ] was to go into my antivirus program that protects my Exchange server and add WMF file extensions
Posted by bradley | 9 Comments
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Wednesday, December 28, 2005 5:07 PM

So if you have ISA here are some things you can do

So.... let's see..... we have a Zero Day WMF exploit nailing even fellow MVPs .... websites that nail you with malware so bad you have to flatten and rebuild....that merely visiting the web site..no clicking.... will nail you.... and Trend [and most a/v
Posted by bradley | 3 Comments
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Wednesday, December 28, 2005 12:18 PM

SBS 4.5 is officially dead on 12/31/2005

Peter reminds us that on 12/31/2005 SBS 4.5 is DEAD and is no longer supported as an operating system. http://www.microsoft.com/lifecycle Rest in Peace SBS 4.5. Rock on SBS 2003! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | live it!
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Wednesday, December 28, 2005 12:03 PM

"A good bug wasted on a malware site"

On the security listserves, there's discussion of a image vulnerablity that uses WMF files to inflect/inject malware... and one of the posters had a line about it that had me laughing ... "a good bug wasted on a malware site". The discussion of this bug
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Tuesday, December 27, 2005 10:03 PM

Kerberos errors revisited

So remember my Kerberos Errors post the other day? J.P. posted back with the final resolution to his last one remaining Kerberos errors that he was getting.....and sure 'nuff... HP printer toolbox software... I'm blogging his resolution here for the next
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
Tuesday, December 27, 2005 9:19 PM

A temporary 'out the door' policy in ISA 2004

Okay so you wanna do a temporary "anything out the door in ISA 2004"? Just so you can see if something works, or temporarily allow something out and you'll figure it out later? No prob....just go to the Firewall Policy in the ISA console and then the
Posted by bradley | 2 Comments
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Tuesday, December 27, 2005 7:22 PM

So I get the TechNet Magazine today...

....free subscription to US only [sorry about that check out www.technetmagsubs.com/zout ] and on the cover is the ad for an article inside that says " Security Alert: Disable your admin account " and I first thought...okay.... who's come up with that
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Tuesday, December 27, 2005 5:44 PM

We're losing the war on the home front

...so we ask around the communities that I hang in and the consensus comes back that while 2005 was a good year for the Admin and business crowd, it was not for the home front. Just today a client brings in a computer that I needed to post some journal
Posted by bradley | 2 Comments
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Tuesday, December 27, 2005 12:46 PM

When is free wifi not always a good thing...

Matt talks about an experience I've noticed as well... you get to an airport and you say "Hey, free wifi, that's so cool!" and then you realize that some ports are blocking and you can't do all the things you wanted to do in that time your plane is held
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Monday, December 26, 2005 9:02 PM

Yes it really does need activation

...so I'm calling product activation because I'm doing a migration from an old wheezy computer to my new HP here at home and I love it when I have to explain with first the Product Activation people and then with the Licesning number ( 888-352-7140 )
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Monday, December 26, 2005 1:42 PM

Kerberos errors and NIC software

A post in the newsgroup today reminds me of something I saw after the application of Service Pack 1 on my server.... I had this insane number of Kerberos errors in the log file of the server, but not on the workstation. So I looked at what was on that
Posted by bradley | 2 Comments
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Monday, December 26, 2005 12:48 PM

Mobility = Opportunity

Watching a show on Cspan today reminds me that technology has allowed us a lot of opportunity. Having the ability ....for even a small firm.... to be a flexible employer means that you can be more responsive to keeping and retaining employees. The fact
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Monday, December 26, 2005 11:29 AM

OOF messages

This time of year, people have a ton of out of office messages and they don't realize how much they 'leak' good social engineering information about their offices [or even a lot of funny information ] This was suggested as one way to combat the OOF messages
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Monday, December 26, 2005 10:38 AM

So my Dad has this card for a $1,000 online shopping spree...

And the first clue that this should be suspect is that on the card it says " Visit our website by typing into the address in your browser bar, do not use a seach engine to find the site " Hmmm...now that's interesting that they say to type in the address
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Sunday, December 25, 2005 12:37 PM

Okay so now that Sis has the Video Ipod

We have to get a case to protect it...and we're surfing on http://www.vajacases.com/ for a case to do it justice. She was going to get one with a hook on it rather than a normal "knob" thing that hooks into a belt clip because we find in Cell phones that
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Saturday, December 24, 2005 10:58 PM

So I'm listening to Vint Cerf on CSpan

...and he's saying that he's predicting many more things on the net.... but he reminds us that searching the 'net should be the 'start' of our research, not the end of our search. Another interesting concept is 'net neutrality' where the Internet pipe
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Saturday, December 24, 2005 6:37 PM

My grownup Christmas wish

Do you remember me? I sat upon your knee I wrote to you With Childhood fantasies Well I'm all grown-up now Can you still help somehow? I'm not a child But my heart still can dream So here's my lifelong wish My grown-up Christmas list Not for myself But
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Saturday, December 24, 2005 10:43 AM

So the inlaws are in town and you needs something to divert your attention, eh?

As always, Vlad comes to the rescue with the SBSShow . It features Eriq Neale about the latest book in the SBS family, "SBS Unleashed". (with the caveat that I wrote two chapters in the book so, as usual I'm going to be a smidge biased here) Someone asked
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Friday, December 23, 2005 4:02 PM

Sam the SBS Server says "Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays" to the SBS Community

We welcome Sam the SBS Server to our blog for a special Christmas interview.... Q. Hi Sam, Merry Christmas! A. Merry Christmas to you! Q. So are you ready for the holidays? A. Just having my owner take an offsite backup, log files look good, disk space
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Friday, December 23, 2005 3:11 PM

Need some reading for Christmas?

The SBS Unleashed book is now out, but I still haven't gotten mine from Amazon.com. (With the disclosure that I wrote two chapters in this book) If you are building a SBS 2003 sp1 box 'today', this is the one...the only one in fact that covers SBS 2003
Posted by bradley | 3 Comments
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Friday, December 23, 2005 2:56 PM

Vmware versus VPC

I've been building some virtual boxes lately for testing purposes and I gotta say that first off I'm more comfortable with Vmware than VPC. I'm a subscriber to the VMWare subscriber bundle and have used the Vmware virtualization products longer. But due
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Thursday, December 22, 2005 10:41 PM

Patching Webcast for your viewing pleasure

For Chris Rue's Alabama SBS Partner group I did a webcast on Patching/Patch Management with special emphasis on WSUS and SBS. The recorded session is here: View Recording Recording Details Subject: Patching your network - how to get started Recording
Posted by bradley | 2 Comments
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Thursday, December 22, 2005 12:33 PM

Year end review...how was your year in Security?

Microsoft and Computer Security in 2005: Real progress was made by Microsoft and its industry partners in 2005.: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/dec05/12-21Security2005WrapUp.mspx Forget that Diet: Microsoft Encourages Consumers to Resolve
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Thursday, December 22, 2005 12:28 PM

Quickbooks update [for those suffering through 2006]

This alert includes two important notices: 1) QuickBooks 2006 Release 3 Available 2) Modified QuickBooks ProAdvisor Technical Support Hours on January 2, 2006 QUICKBOOKS 2006 RELEASE 3 AVAILABLE ***** KEY INFORMATION ***** Audience Affected: QuickBooks
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005 11:26 PM

Loaded up Exchange 2003 sp2? Enable those updates!

You Had Me At EHLO... : Intelligent Message Filter Updates: http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2005/12/14/416070.aspx How to update the Intelligent Message Filter version 2 in Exchange Server 2003 SP2: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;907747
Posted by bradley | 5 Comments
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005 11:19 PM

You don't want spam? You want to listen to this podcast

You need to listen to this podcast and check out the articles on Vladville.com regarding Spam prevention The Official SBS Support Blog : Inside SBS Episode #13 - Spam Prevention on SBS 2003: http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2005/12/20/416320.aspx
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005 11:15 PM

I screwed myself up

You know the other day when Mr. Murphy visited my firm and the boss didn't have access to CompanyWeb? Chad thinks I might have done this to myself by cleaning up the Sharepoint templates out of my " Shared Workspace " contact section. You see I didn't
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005 11:09 PM

There are times that technology doesn't like me

So I'm trying to build a new VMware version of a SBS 2003 sp1 image to play with as I build the old version too small... so I go to clean up my old images and I deleted the vmware images... and I go to build a new one with a larger drive space and every
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005 12:46 PM

Summary of Quickbooks 2006

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [smallbizIT] Summary of Quickbooks 2006 problems Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 15:47:59 -0800 From: James C Counts II, CPA Summary of Quickbook problems The following is information I have from various sources on some
Posted by bradley | 6 Comments
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005 9:52 PM

Call me wacko but the sight of this thrills me ....

Windows SharePoint Services components may be deleted after you reinstall the Intranet component of Windows Small Business Server 2003 SP1: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;909988 Look at this... it's our first automagically deployed
Posted by bradley | 5 Comments
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005 9:34 PM

So my sister says.....

So the Eriq Neale SBS Unleashed book shows up today and I'm flipping through the pages...which looks really cool by the way.... and she reads the title "SBS 2003 Unleashed" and she says...... "SBS 2003? Isn't that old?" I nearly started laughing....this
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Tuesday, December 20, 2005 12:57 PM

Mr. Murphy - Zero - Me and Microsoft support WINNERS

Mr. Murphy lost today ... I got my workstation fixed...it was the WEIRDEST thing as the login for the person having the problem was not working with the right permissions to companyweb. And I checked the default web permissions....and I reset the users
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
Monday, December 19, 2005 10:09 PM

SBSShow and way to go Vlad

SBSshow number 10 is online http://www.vladville.com/sbsshow/2005/12/sbs-show-10-sbs-weekly.html Along with the " hey Vlad, way to go !" blog post ...of course like I was telling HappyFunBoy on IM... with 8 years of dating? Girl.. you've got community
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Monday, December 19, 2005 9:26 PM

Andy Goodman SBS Live Chat tomorrow

http://chat.mcpmag.com/chats/default.asp#chat Tuesday 12/20/05 - 4:00 PM (16:00 PST) Tomorrow at 4 p.m Pacific join our own "Handy Andy" as he leads the SBS Live chat with all your SBS questions! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! |
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Monday, December 19, 2005 7:41 PM

Mr. Murphy at work again

So I'm loading up a new Dell computer at the office and I connect it to the network via http://servername/connectcomputer as I've done so many times and I go to change the home page from being not http:\\companyweb [as it's a little slow to pop up and
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Monday, December 19, 2005 12:30 PM

Sometimes it's embarrassing to be an Accountant

Truly there are times that when I'm at geek events I drop the "CPA" credential because second only to Attorneys, my profession has a reputation of being behind on technology. These days I'm embarrassed as well by the Accounting applications... between
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Sunday, December 18, 2005 6:04 PM

Setting up automatic updates

This blog post started when someone insisted that Windows update 'forced a reboot' on a system, and I argued that it did not. Sometimes I wish there was a handout with each new computer that would in picture format explain exactly how to secure a system,
Posted by bradley | 2 Comments
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Sunday, December 18, 2005 1:27 PM

Troubleshooting tips from the Partner newsgroup

Just another nagging reminder of why you should be a MS partner if you install SBS boxes.... RECENT ISSUES & TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS ----------------------------------------------------------- Issue 1 ======= Problem --------- Folder redirection enabled
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Saturday, December 17, 2005 5:11 PM

Knowledge base articles of interest

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services post-Service Pack 2 hotfix package: November 15, 2005: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=900929 You receive a "0x80070002" or "0x80070003" error code after you download an update from Windows Update, from
Posted by bradley | 0 Comments
Saturday, December 17, 2005 4:11 PM

So what's the best Antivirus?

I get asked this alot... what's the best antivirus for SBS 2003... and to be brutally honest... I'm not sure I know anymore. You know the other day Vlad made a comment that the Microsoft Blogs being "filtered" and he says that I'm brutally honest..but
Posted by bradley | 11 Comments
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Saturday, December 17, 2005 3:33 PM

The UI grab

...so if you've downloaded the patches and not rebooted the computer annoyingly about every 5 minutes or so reminds you that you haven't rebooted.... But here's the problem... on the XP annoying reminder... you can't see that there are two letters that
Posted by bradley | 5 Comments
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Saturday, December 17, 2005 2:21 PM

Well I'm patching the server in my jammies today

I had patched all my workstations earlier this week [remember ... I put Internet Explorer on high priority on the workstations, low priority on the servers] and this time I did it via Microsoft update versus my normal Shavlik just to point out a few things
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Saturday, December 17, 2005 1:59 PM

Embracing our Spots.

You see that down there? Windows Small Business Server in the Microsoft Update category? Do you have any idea how cool that is to see that down there...ready to go... ready for any patches that are unique to SBS. You know sometimes I think we SBSers argue
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Saturday, December 17, 2005 1:31 PM

What's on your To Do List?

What's on your client's ToDo lists next year? Disaster recovery/business continuity Employee awareness programs Data backup Overall information security strategy Network firewalls Centralized security information management system Periodic security audits
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Saturday, December 17, 2005 1:17 PM

So I called and shut down two credit cards today

So as a result of my SB1386 notification , I called and shut down those two credit cards to ensure that they could not be used in any fraudulent transactions. While there I was checking out some of their fraud protection stuff .... .... I can just see
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Friday, December 16, 2005 5:15 PM

Is McAfee [and other preloaded software] a virus?

So it's that time of the year that we look around and ensure our systems are up to date before busy season and get new computers if needed. So I go and I buy the Dell Optiplex line, this time making sure that I bought the extra PS2 port option which isn't
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Thursday, December 15, 2005 7:01 PM

Dear Susan Bradley, we are writing to inform you....

We are writing to inform you that on December _ of 2005, we discovered a security breach of our electronic records. We quickly investigated the incident and determined that in November of 2005, a hacker penetrated our perimeter defenses and obtained unauthorized
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Thursday, December 15, 2005 6:25 PM

The Screwdriver versus the Forbes Magazine Subscriber

This Christmas, I want you to buy yourself a present. A book . Now before you start reading this book, I want you to take this book and flip to the ending. Don't worry you won't wreck the storyline. I want you to start at page 287 under the section of
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Thursday, December 15, 2005 5:23 PM

Whomever you are Mark, you passed the test

So I was mean today. You see I called 1-800-426-9400 and punched the numbers to ask for a licensing specialists for small businesses [less than 50 desktops] and I asked "Mark" some questions. You see ...it was a test... I knew what the answers were...
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Thursday, December 15, 2005 4:58 PM

The logging of ISA

When I installed ISA 2004 on my server I ended up ...well... due to the fact that the antivirus that I had totally forgot that was on and held IISAdmin up and running, my install kinda got messed up. So in the process I ended up installing ISA 2004 'cleanly'.
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005 10:05 PM

Solving all the needs

If you haven't seen it before a while back I did a " Us versus Them " page that compared SBS to 'normal' Server. The other day another person posted in the newsgroup that they couldn't understand why the Server OS was the price it was and SBS...with all
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005 9:33 PM

Good Enough Security

The blog post is here. The article is here. Okay read both? The other day in a listserve someone asked about Tools to check the security of a server and he asked if MBSA was good enough....and I said.... Define your role and your boundaries. If your job
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005 11:46 AM

Trend needed hotfix to send Perf reports out after V3

Wayne in the newsgroup reports that ..... FYI..There is a patch for Trend Micro V3 which corrects issues with SBS2003 Reports and other not being sent to external domains. For more information read the thread Trend Micro V3 Issues 12/04/05 For others
Posted by bradley | 4 Comments
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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 10:01 PM

Issue with SUS Servers

This Alert is to make you aware of the release of Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 912307, Synchronizing SUS 1.0 SP1 Servers with Windows Update after December 12, 2005 may cause previously approved updates to be unapproved. Microsoft is aware of an issue
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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 6:17 PM

Managing those iTunes

Darryl the other day posted about an issue he had with My Music. No ...not "my" music, but the My Music folder. You see it seems like all these folks were loading up iPod and iTunes and dumping music in My Music...and of course...they had roaming profiles...
Posted by bradley | 4 Comments
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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 6:00 PM

WSUS IMF patch expiration

If you saw that ...and wonder what it was and what happened to it, this is that IMF patch that the SBS podcast gang were talking about that was the bogus patch. Just mark it off and continue your patching. Speaking of IMF...they will be having their deep
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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 5:12 PM

John's Backup comment that's too good to be hidden in the comment section.....

This was posted as a comment to the Oferized [TM] backup and is too good to be down in the comments re: An Oferized [TM] backup Tuesday, December 13, 2005 4:37 AM by John Behneman I wrote this last year when I was on the SBS team - the secret to getting
Posted by bradley | 0 Comments
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 11:52 AM

Info on Trend CSM 3.0 suite upgrade

Need some resources for Trend's new 3.0 suite? Check out this link! So far the biggest issues I've seen is that it doesn't like compression turned on the web site [which WSUS has turned on] and that the firewall is supposed to not be turned on the workstations
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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 11:37 AM

Have you WSUS's sych'd today?

Courtesy of Tom Alverson on the WSUS listserve via www.patchmanagement.org New Update Alert The following 26 new updates have been synchronized since Tuesday, December 13, 2005. Critical and Security Updates Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB910437) Install
Posted by bradley | 0 Comments
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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 11:27 AM

New Updates Today

MS05-054: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (905915) Rated: CRITICAL http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS05-054.mspx MS05-055: Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (908523) Rated: IMPORTANT
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Monday, December 12, 2005 11:18 PM

An Oferized [TM] backup

There's a gentleman in the SBS community that is reknown for his robust solutions. So reknown that we're telling him he should trademark them. Oferize [TM] your network is something that I think we all need to do that we are not doing. This a Oferized
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
Monday, December 12, 2005 9:59 PM

Vlad wants to get arrested

Seriously. He needs your help. He wants to make 100,000 downloads and thus get on the RIAA watch list or at least / .'ed. [that's Slashdotted for those of you not in the biz] Vladville - Vlad Mazek's IT Blog: http://www.vladville.com/2005/12/sbs-show-8-patch-management-with-susan.html
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
Monday, December 12, 2005 5:10 PM

The hardware issue

We need to lay a few foundations ... a few rants before we post the "how to Oferrize[TM] your box" blog post [ don't worry this will all make sense in time ]. We're not buying the right equipment in my opinion. I love the active directory glue. But in
Posted by bradley | 0 Comments
Monday, December 12, 2005 11:24 AM

A must listen to podcast

Well we are finally back online and on the new Community Server engine. I've got a few posts that have been itching to get out [mainly on hardware] but if you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to go listen to the SBS support gang's ISA on
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
Saturday, December 10, 2005 8:48 AM

Sam the SBS Server is very upset today

I was going to interview Sam the SBS server for this ...but right now he's yelling and is so upset I can't calm him down enough for the Interview. He's very upset that a year after he was deeply embarrassed by what he did that it happened again. That
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Friday, December 09, 2005 11:38 PM

Whoo hooo another SBS Support Podcast

The Official SBS Support Blog : Inside SBS Episode #12 - The ISA Server Meltdown: http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2005/12/09/415881.aspx The SBS gang have another podcast just in time for the weekend! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg
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Friday, December 09, 2005 7:51 PM

I need more granularity in my audit logs

Eric Fitzgerald is going to hate me. I want more details. More granularity. I want more codes in my audit logs. Why? Because in order to figure out who is accidentially sliding files and folders underneath another one I have to track a couple of audit
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Friday, December 09, 2005 7:34 PM

Write them down

You've seen it haven't you? Documentation that says how to select a password and many times is says “Oh, heavens, don't write it down!“ My sister refuses to write down the password to her online banking accoount. So what happens? She forgets
Posted by bradley | 3 Comments
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Friday, December 09, 2005 7:16 PM

Cutting over to CS

We're about ready to cut over to Community server so we might be offline a bit tomorrow In the meantime you can check out the Official SBS Support blog and SBSShow.com Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | live it!
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Friday, December 09, 2005 7:11 PM

The end of the year

The end of the year means a beginning of a new one... and for those of you running your businesses, this time of year should be when you start looking at your records and expenses in a new light. For in America, if your business year end is December,
Posted by bradley | 0 Comments
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Friday, December 09, 2005 7:01 PM

We suck at communication

For the last couple of days I've had a project where I've had to read emails. Emails that were not my own. And I must say that email is damaging our business communcation..... FOR SOME OF US WE CONSIDER THAT SHORT EMAILS IN ALL CAPS IS APPROPRIATE LEVELS
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Friday, December 09, 2005 6:16 PM

Dear Microsoft Licensing People

Dear Microsoft Licensing People... When giving information to SBSers... make sure you are not giving them “Big Server Land” information. It's Friday and I'm in the mood for a rant.... In the newsgroup today someone was trying to download a
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Thursday, December 08, 2005 5:21 PM

ISA Server Best Practices Analyzer

The Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool is designed for administrators who want to determine the overall health of their ISA Server computers and to diagnose current problems. The tool scans the configuration
Posted by bradley | 4 Comments
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Thursday, December 08, 2005 1:02 PM

The result of the Firewall Dashboard

So yesterday I found out via the Scorpion Software Firewall “in your face” Dashboard that my router had been pinging me to death. So I “un RIP'd“ my hardware firewall on the outside about 9 p.m last night. So what does my 'attack'
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Thursday, December 08, 2005 12:44 PM

The SANS “Application Security Hall of Shame” first inductee is Quickbooks

The SANS “ Application Security Hall of Shame ” first inductee is Quickbooks In response to Newsbites' recognition, Brad Smith, senior vice president of QuickBooks, confirmed on December 2, 2005 that this problem will be fixed in the next
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Thursday, December 08, 2005 12:33 PM

Where I live and work

Where I live and work used to be a lot friendlier. I could leave my defenses down. I could leave my doors and windows open. I could be open and friendly with everyone. I could share out everything with all my neighbors. But then 'they' moved in. Criminals
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Thursday, December 08, 2005 12:02 PM

Two security patches next week

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/advance.mspx Two patches next week and three non security updates on Microsoft update/WSUS next week. Remember .... Second Tuesday of the month .... it's
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Thursday, December 08, 2005 1:44 AM

Upgrades to SBS 2003 R2?

Adam says he just talked to the MS Concierge and they said the only way to get R2 was to buy the 'whole' product again, as there were no upgrade options. Adam? Tell that Concierge-y person to go listen to the SBS weekly show where Guy Haycock 'aka the
Posted by bradley | 2 Comments
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Wednesday, December 07, 2005 8:11 PM

My ISA Server just got a smidge better [okay a lot better]

So I ran a test install of the Scorpion Firewall Dashboard on a VMware SBS 2003 [yes with ISA as you can do two nics] at home and the install was so nice and clean and easy and just sooooo cool...and well while the reports were fun.... well.. being a
Posted by bradley | 3 Comments
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Wednesday, December 07, 2005 7:56 PM

Paranoia for Laptops - it's already here

Abhi asks ...when will we get the same level of support for a remote wipe of stolen or lost laptops....Abhi? We already have the tools, we're just not using stuff already in the marketplace or stuff under our noses. Steve Riley did an article on security
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Wednesday, December 07, 2005 5:59 PM

When you might want to have a backup

From one of my CPA listserves comes the word that Intuit's Quickbooks 2006 is causing issues in the registry during some isolated cases, causing issues with the computer that take some time to fix. Given that the software is out there and being installed
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Wednesday, December 07, 2005 12:47 PM

Paranoia for Phones

The Exchange Server ActiveSync Web Administration tool is designed for administrators who want to manage the process of remotely erasing lost, stolen, or otherwise compromised mobile devices. The Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync Web Administration
Posted by bradley | 3 Comments
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Wednesday, December 07, 2005 9:20 AM

Yes Virginia, sometimes USB Drives do go bad

So I've been using Lacie harddrives to do my backups and this morning I get the message that the backup failed and in the log file is this: Verify Status Operation: Verify After Backup Active backup destination: File Active backup destination: G:\Backup
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005 7:32 PM

Small Business Specialist webcast

Microsoft Partner Readiness: http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15003015 Join your host Eric Ligman every month to discuss the latest and greatest in the Small Business Specialist Community. Eric will have guest speakers discussing the different
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005 6:49 PM

Yo, the ExRAP is in the house

Learn how administering the Microsoft Exchange Server Risk Assessment and Health Check Program (ExRAP) helps customers to preemptively look for and resolve common issues and overlooked vulnerabilities in their Microsoft Exchange environment. Besides suddenly
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005 6:25 PM

Need a step by step on configuring Faxing?

This guide helps you configure and use the Fax service on a Microsoft® Windows® Small Business Server 2003 (Windows SBS) network. It provides you with step-by-step instructions for configuring the server, configuring the client computers, and
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005 6:23 PM

Connecting Point of Sale and RMS to SBA 2006

Download details: POS Connector for Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 and Microsoft Retail Management System: Download details: POS Connector for Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 and Microsoft Point of Sale : For a split second
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005 5:52 PM

So what about SBS?

Windows Server Division WebLog : Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 - Get the details here!: So Windows 2003 R2 released and you are probably going..okay...so what about SBS? Well the answer is kinda interesting actually. Especially on the CAL side
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005 1:01 PM

So a client doesn't pay?

So a client doesn't pay and you normally hand over the Admin passwords upon payment, right? So what do you do when a client doesn't pay the bill do you without the passwords until they do? Is this an ethical thing to do? And you do realize that with physical
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005 12:40 PM

THE be-all-end-all how to install SBS 2003 sp1

So in the mailbag today comes the request that someone is “ looking for “THE” this is how you install sbs 2003 sp1...any ideas? All I see is bits and bobs here and there ” Haven't seen this, have you? How to install Service Pack
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Monday, December 05, 2005 11:27 PM

KB articles of interest

Error event 386 and other synchronization problems occur when you use the default WMSDE database configuration to deploy Windows Server Update Services: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909456 You may receive an “0x80070005: Access is denied"
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Monday, December 05, 2005 11:15 PM

When standardization isn't a good thing

Sometimes standardization is good, and sometimes it's not.... Ed Foster's Gripelog || Dell Won't Recall Defective Motherboards: http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2005/8/30/0141/79530 Between the motherboard issue from the past, to a more recent issue
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Monday, December 05, 2005 5:18 PM

The importance of System State backup

When you perform a system state backup on a domain controller that is running Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, Backup may fail: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909265 The moral of this KB is? Don't move the log files. I haven't seen too many
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Sunday, December 04, 2005 11:31 PM

The size of the logs

The default size. You probably haven't even looked at these have you? The default size for the event logs can be pretty small. And the size of this one in particular, the Directory Service event log of 512 KB means that I don't have any entry prior to
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Sunday, December 04, 2005 4:47 PM

Change Management SBS style part II

I forgot another person who may introduce 'change management' unknowingly in a SBS system. The LOB app vendor. Now this is where me and my fellow MVP Dave Nickason are lucky. We have pretty self contained LOB apps that don't need some add coder to go
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Sunday, December 04, 2005 11:00 AM

The restore

Always what comes up is the question of “do you test your restore?” But how do you test that restore? The SBS podcast gang make the point of testing the restore... and I'll be flat out honest with you... I've renamed files off my box and restored
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Saturday, December 03, 2005 10:08 PM

Change management SBS style.

Change management. The hardest task [I think] for a VAP/VAR/Consultant is “Change Management”. In a big firm change management is this multi tiered process where any change to the system is tested, reviewed, approved and then and only then
Posted by bradley | 2 Comments
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Saturday, December 03, 2005 3:57 PM

The webcast part of the SBS Podcast

Hey how did I miss this...this is the webcast part of the SBSpodcast: http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15003426 http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15003427 During this hour we will be picking the brain of Microsoft Product Support
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Saturday, December 03, 2005 3:55 PM

Don't let the Error file name fool you

The SBS podcast gang talked about this tool...what they didn't say is that it's called the Exchange Error code tool . So what should be in our toolbag? That tool . A subscription to www.eventid.net Google [and not MSN search as google has usenet database]
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Saturday, December 03, 2005 3:51 PM

Can I delete KB###### files?

You've seen them. In the Windows subdirectory if you've been a good paranoid person, you'll find these KBinstall/log files all over that subdirectory. Chris in the SBS podcast said that yes you could delete all these log files these especially if you
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Saturday, December 03, 2005 3:14 PM

Deploying a third party cert

So someone the other day asked me about installing a Certificate authority on a SBS box.... and I argued with them and pointed to the post I had done the other day about self signed certs. So today I realized that all we needed to know about how SBS handled
Posted by bradley | 3 Comments
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Saturday, December 03, 2005 12:55 AM

I'm in podcast heaven

Is this a great weekend or what? A two-fer this weekend from the SBS Support Podcast gang The Official SBS Support Blog : Inside SBS Episode #9 - SBS Best Practices, part 1: The Official SBS Support Blog : Inside SBS Episode #10 - TS2 Simulcast SBS Best
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Saturday, December 03, 2005 12:41 AM

WSUS settings

One of the confusing things about WSUS are the settings. On my home server, I have it so that all the systems can 'detect' patches, but only the workstations and the 'unassigned' computers can actually get automatically patched. The main setting should
Posted by bradley | 2 Comments
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Friday, December 02, 2005 5:34 PM

Two white papers on Blaster and Malware

Anti-Malware Engineering Team : Anti-Malware White Papers Posted: From the Anti Malware blog and the Microsoft Download site are two whitepapers ...... This white paper provides deeply quantitative details and statistics that Microsoft has observed regarding
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Friday, December 02, 2005 5:21 PM

Two SBS Support Podcasts this weekend!

Man is this going to be too cool or what? A two for one from the SBS Support podcast gang! I can hardly wait! [and you can check out some views of the Support gang] Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | live it!
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Friday, December 02, 2005 5:14 PM

Declaration of Administrators and End Users for installation of software and patch standardization

Sun Microsystems: http://www.sun.com/2005-1004/feature/ read that link regarding the Google toolbar being now included in runtime updates I hereby put forth a Declaration of Administrators and End Users for installation of software and patch standardization.
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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Friday, December 02, 2005 12:54 PM

Knowing what you need

What if you heard a story about a person who had a laptop so infected that it needed to be flattened but they couldn't find the original cdroms to rebuild the machine? What if you heard a story about a person who moved a file frome one machine to the
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Thursday, December 01, 2005 9:02 PM

SBS on WSUS and MU

Steve Mattox posted to the newsgroup..... The SBS team is proud to announce the availability of Windows Small Business Server (SBS) on Microsoft Update (MU) and Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). Today, fixes to issues that are found in the SBS product
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Thursday, December 01, 2005 8:36 PM

Ensuring those foundations are there

When you build a house in California, you pour a concrete slab and then build from there. When you install a SBS 2003 system you install it on a server. The foundation. The slab. And as long as your foundation is good and solid, you are good to go as
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Thursday, December 01, 2005 7:41 PM

I got my backup wizard back

If you remember from the other day my backup wizard wasn't working ... well got it all fixed up. Now I'm not going to tell you what was done to fix it for two reasons.... one... the chances that a real nicely maintained and well cared for SBS box is ever
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Thursday, December 01, 2005 12:53 PM

We have another blog link today

Just adding another SBS team member link today... Tech Talk with Stephanie Doakes, Ed Gomes & Roderick White: http://blogs.technet.com/sdoakes/ Another girl for the bathroom! So Cool! * * This refers to the fact that whenever I walk into the bathroom
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Thursday, December 01, 2005 12:49 AM

So now you have a server... what do you monitor?

I'm stealing a post from the newsgroup from fellow MVP Dave Nickason with my comments in italics ... FWIW, this is what I do: check all logs daily for errors or possible problems (or as close to daily as I can) [ yup so do I - but remember your daily
Posted by bradley | 1 Comments
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