Month: January 2008

In my never ending quest to find low-cost (OK … free) utilities, I recently needed to find a file-syncing utility for several small clients. Specifically we were looking for a utility to sync one or more folders from a computer to an external USB hard drive. Suprisingly, Microsoft had three of the four utilities I tested. Each utility has there merits and places. Perhaps on a future post I will list the Pros and Cons of each. Robocopy – Microsoft’s long time command line utility since the NT days FolderShare – Microsoft’s very network-friendly utility to sync files & folders SyncToy – Microsoft’s latest … Continue reading Free File Sync Utilities

For anyone who saw the Tom Hank’s movie, Castaway, a spoof commercial was made and shown during the 2006 Super Bowl. I wanted to post it for others to enjoy!  

Why not? Simply install the WHS Connector CD from the SBS console, run the setup.exe program, enter your WHS server’s password, and let it configure itself, and you’re done. One piece of advice: I would suggest scheduling the SBS Backup utility (commonly called NTBackup) to make a backup of the Exchange store and have that complete prior to the WHS backup kicking off. The SBS backup utility is “Exchange aware” and will make sure that your Exchange log files are flushed. Similarly, you could also schedule stsadm to do a backup of youre Companyweb/Sharepoint database. Instructions for doing this can be found in the Microsoft’s Backing … Continue reading Use WHS to back up SBS

I installed SP1 for .Net 2.0 and .Net 3.0 on my test SBS server. Upon rebooting, I was getting a lot of Event Id 1101 .NET Runtime Optimization Error messages. Event Type: ErrorEvent Source: .NET Runtime Optimization ServiceEvent Category: NoneEvent ID: 1101Date:  1/24/2008Time:  2:00:48 AMUser:  N/AComputer: SBS1Description:.NET Runtime Optimization Service (clr_optimization_v2.0.50727_32) – Failed to compile: Microsoft.ReportingServices.QueryDesigners, Version=9.0.242.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91 . Error code = 0x80070002 If the errors doesn’t go away, go into Add/Remove Programs and run a repair on Microsoft Report Viewer Redistributable 2005. This has helped in some cases in clearing the problem.  

Jeff Middleton’s 3-day NOLA conference and optional 5-day Cruise is fast approaching. The dates are May 9-11 for the conference, and May 12-17 for the cruise. This conference title: IT Pro Conference 2008, “Transition Strategies: Migrations, Upgrades, and Services” says it all! In booking my flights, I discovered that Southwest Airlines flies into New Orleans and has some inexpensive pricing. They have some web specials once you go online. Obviously, prices will change and vary, but at the time of writing this post … here are some one way prices I saw on their site: Tampa to New Orleans – $69 one wayChicago to New Orleans … Continue reading NOLA Conference and Cheap Fares

We’ve had some recent posts in one of the SBS listserves asking how to manage Outlook archived PST files for users, and it was asked if the PST files could be stored on the server. Microsoft’s KB 297019 specifically says that .pst, .ost, and .pab files are not designed to be stored on a network server and such a configuration is NOT supported. Additionally the Microsoft Exchange team has a blog post titled “Why Network stored PST files are a bad idea”. Saying all that, some people are doing just that … placing the .pst files on a network shared folder. If … Continue reading PST on a Network Folder – Not!

A recent post in the newsgroup reminded me that we should all be more diligent in obtaining permission to use and distribute third party software. Case in point is with Adobe’s PDF Reader. Do you download the installation .exe file, store it on your server,  and then copy and install it on every new workstation? Or do you create CD’s for sales/demos, and include a copy of Adobe Reader on it? Yes, Adobe’s Reader is free. And for personal / individual use, no request is necessary. But for business purposes, you should ask and obtain permission from Adobe to distribute the program. … Continue reading Permission to Distribute Adobe Reader

There’s always a fine line between tweaking to make something work, and tweaking just because you can. I’m not sure what camp this post belongs in. BKRunner.exe is the SBS program that wraps around the NTBackup utility. BKRunner generates the email report at the completion of the backup, and is what forces a verify to be performed. Chris Knight has posted on his blog how to tweak the BKRunner.exe in order to gain some performance improvements when  doing backups, as well as how to disable the automatic verify.  

Our SBS MVP Google-King, Merv Porter, has some good advice as to when to install service packs/security patches while installing SBS. Service Packs are cumulative (see ‘Road Map’ link below).  So, you can substitute Windows 2003 SP2 for SP1 during the install procedure for SBS 2003 SP1 (see below).  You can also substitute Exchange 2003 SP2 for SP1 in that procedure.  Generally, it is not recommended to allow servers to be updated “automatically” from Windows Update.  Also, when installing SBS from scratch, it’s recommended to install the base OS (CD1), then complete the SBS component setup (Contrinue Setup icon on the … Continue reading When to install Service Packs on SBS

After getting WHS up and running, I wanted to see what it would take to access WHS remotely. Because my router already forwards such ports as 443, 3389 and 4125 to my SBS Premium server, I was stepping into fairly unknown waters for me. As I tell people, I barely can spell “ISA”. Assumptions / Prerequisites: 1. I was hoping to take an approach that would NOT mess with how I currently access my SBS server via RWW, OWA, RDP. And I almost succeeded. Unfortuantely port 4125 (RWW) can be changed on the SBS server, but it is hard coded for WHS. I will address the 4125 issue in … Continue reading Accessing WHS remotely