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I’m sure everyone will have (or should have) their own list of things that they really like about SBS2008. Consultants will find things that benefit a sale or installation, whereas an IT professional or an office person using SBS every day will find other things that are attractive to them. My list of SBS 2008 WOW factors tend to be right down the middle … some have the end user in mind, while others will have either the IT administrator or consultant in mind. With each WOW factor, I will also point out things that are lacking or missing. Perhaps some of these items can make it … Continue reading SBS2008 Wow Fact #1

I upgraded my Trend CSM 3.6 to their new Worry-Fress Business Security (WFBS) Advance 5.0 solution for SBS, and like the hero from the movie The Rocketeer, I can say, “I like it!”. Without even digging into all the new features, I can say that the spam filtering is much improved, and the Trend console seems snappier and more responsive. The console interface otherwise is the same as before, except with a fresh, up-to-date look to it. On the new feature side, they have a new ‘location awareness’ settings for laptops that move around inside and outside the office that I … Continue reading More on my TrendMicro WFBS Update

This is for all you IT support people … no, I don’t have to use the ‘telnet’ command often, but when I do, I expect it to be there! So, lo and behold, I have an emergency issue with a client’s SBS/Exchange server today, and I find that I cannot do a simple ‘telnet’ from my Vista workstation. Why? Microsoft decided that it was a necessary tool to be installed by default. To solve this problem, go to Control Panel, then Programs, then under Program and Features select Turn Windows Features On/Off, then scroll down and click to select the … Continue reading No Telnet on Vista

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!

In one of the public newsgroups recently, there was a discussion of IMF filtering internally generated admin email (alerts, performance reports, etc.). Steve Mills suggested adding the loopback IP address (127.0.0.1) to the IP Accept List. Click here to go to the web page with full instructions. Meanwhile, here’s a summary of the steps: 1. From the Exchange System Manager open the properties for Global Settings | Message Delivery.2. Select the Connection Filtering property page3. Click on the Accept button4. Click on the Add button to specify the IPs for hosts whose emails are to be accepted without further Connection … Continue reading IMF Filtering

For those of you using Office/Outlook 2007, here’s a Microsoft add-on that hasn’t gotten much press … it’s called the Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 — or CPAO for short (kapow!). After installing it, you might have trouble finding it — I certainly did. You won’t find it in Outlook. Instead, click on All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Tools and you will find the link for CPAO. My take? For what it does, it does nicely. It gives you a variety of templates (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly). But the level of customization available is very limited. In other … Continue reading Outlook 2007 Calendar Printing Assistant

I’ve been beta testing Lookeen for several months. It’s a 3rd party Outlook 2003/2007 search tool that is a wonderful replacement for those who have previously used LookOut, and a step up from what Microsoft supplies. They have officially launched version 1.0 today! Check it out at www.lookeen.com

Lookout was a marvelous tool for quickly searching through Outlook email and local files fast. It was a mainstay of every computer I used. That is, until Office 2007 came along, and Lookout would not work. I was recently pointed to Lookeen as a possible replacement product for Lookout. It’s still in beta, but you may find you like it!http://www.lookeen.net/en/2,0/Product.html

Eric Neal and Tim Barret have posted a concise, step by step, article up on the M&M SmallBizServer site – Configuring IMAP over SSL with SBS2003 Standard (No ISA 2000/2004). This will be helpful to those trying to connect up iPhones!  

I have blogged previously on using IMF to filter out unwanted emails. The question then comes up: how do I know that it’s working? The answer is: learn to use Performance counters. Here’s a quick how to do it (with thanks to Les Connors!): 1. Click Start > Administrative Tools > Performance from your SBS server. 2. Above the graph that displays on the right frame, click the left most icon to clear out the current counters (if you hover your mouse over it, it will read ‘Clear Counter Set’ 3. Click on the ‘+’ icon to add new counters 4. … Continue reading IMF & Perf Counters