Enable LightScribe Disc Labelling In Windows 7 for CDBurnerXP And Others

We use the free utility CDBurnerXP for pretty much all of our burning and ISO needs.

We created a couple of videos that we would like to have a formal label set into the disk using LightScribe.

Out of the box, Windows does not support LightScribe. CDBurnerXP has the ability, but we need to install the drivers first.

• LightScribe.com: LightScribe Optical Drive Drivers

We downloaded the Windows version of the LightScribe System Software and installed it.

Once installed we had a new System tray icon as well as a desktop icon:

Once the drivers have been properly installed, we end up with the LightScribe button in CDBurnerXP:

In our case, a reboot was not required to seat the drivers. Though we did make sure to close CDBurnerXP prior to installing the drivers.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

What a TSGrinder Grind Against an SBS Looks Like

On some of our older SBS 2003 installs where we have no out-of-band remote management setup in place, we open up port 3389 on the router to the server to run our updates.

Once we are finished, we normally close the port back up. Now, this particular evening we had run a series of updates across more than half of the servers that we manage one Saturday.

It seems that one of the firewall ports did not get closed and someone took an interest in that particular server:

• Logon attempts: 3,282
• IP: 64.46.44.76

Now, the IP may not be relevant since the machine behind it may be a zombie.

Things were relatively quite until a few days later:

• Logon attempts: 5
• IP: 113.53.231.2

Then this one kept at it for a number of days:

• Logon attempts: 1,906
• IP: 84.53.64.91

The above IP kept after the server until this day:

• Logon attempts: 2,414
• IP: 84.53.64.91

And another shot of a report that was taken manually in the SBS Console not long after the above:

• Logon attempts: 4,545
• IP: 84.53.64.91

Note the different numbers between the automatically generated report and the one manually created by us. The disparity may be due to the fact that the TS service was being hammered so frequently.

While the grind was happening we could not log on to the server via a direct TS connection. We were almost instantly bumped out as soon as we saw the logon screen.

Fortunately, we could log onto RWW and TS via the RWW RDP connection that uses a proxy port of 4125. If that had failed, then we would have connected to a workstation and ran:

• mstsc /v:servername /admin

From there we would have had console access and could do what needed to be done which was to close the 3389 publishing rule in ISA.

TS Client help screenshot:

As a rule, we do not allow port 3389 to be opened to the Internet by default.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Creating a Non-Mail Enabled User in SBS 2008

In SBS 2003 if we left the e-mail alias field empty in the Add User wizard we would end up with a user account with no mailbox.

In SBS 2008 if we try the same thing we get an error asking us to fill out the e-mail alias field.

When we head into the Exchange Management Console found in SBS Native Tools Management we need to stop and consider what the various commands mean when we right click on the user’s mailbox account:

In the SBS 2003 days, Remove would mean the removal of the user’s mailbox. But, this actually goes through and removes the user’s AD account as well _without warning_.

In SBS 2008 with Exchange 2007 we actually need to Disable the user’s mailbox which effectively removes the AD account’s mailbox.

Occasionally there is a need for a user account with domain resource access without the need for a mailbox.

This is how we get to that point by creating the user in the SBS Console and subsequently disabling that mailbox.

There is one thing to consider though, if we run the Change User Role wizard in the SBS 2008 Console the wizard _will_ add a mailbox back to the user account.

This is what the user account looks like in the SBS Console after the mailbox has been disabled:

Note the absence of an e-mail address.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

On a Deployment

We have been on-site since last Friday deploying three new servers.

• Small Business Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 x64
• Two instances of Microsoft SQL Standard for Small Business x64
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Terminal Services serving RemoteApps via the Remote Web Workplace

This particular solution replaced the existing SBS 2003 and Windows Server 2003 TS box.

We did not migrate because the source domain was too messed up.

Posting will probably remain light for the rest of the week and into next due to the volume of client work that we are dealing with both with this deployment and other client needs.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Installing Office 2010 RTM Requires Prerelease Uninstall First And 64bit From 32bit Rule

Just as has been the case in previous Release To Market products, Office 2010 will require that the Release Candidate or Beta versions of the product be uninstalled prior to running the install:

Setup Errors

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):

Microsoft Office 2010 does not support upgrading from a prerelease version of Microsoft Office 2010. You must first uninstall any prerelease versions of Microsoft Office 2010 products and associated technologies.

Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.

Fortunately we do not have a lot of workstations with the Release Candidate installed so the time required to “correct the issues” will not be too consuming.

One more thing to keep in mind too:

If there is a plan to use the 64bit version of Office 2010, then any installed 32bit of Office will need to be removed prior to the install too.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Office Professional Plus 2010 RTM Available Via TechNet/MSDN

Yes, we are a bit behind on things. We have been _that_ busy lately.

Office Pro Plus 2010 is available in both 64bit and 32bit flavours on the TechNet and MSDN download sites for subscribers.

We have our 64bit version coming down now with the 32bit version to follow later.

It will be interesting to see what bugs we encountered that were addressed and those that were not.

All in all, Office 2010 is a big step in the right direction for productivity here in our shop.

The Word 2010 Navigation Pane is awesome for jumping around our client audits to get to certain pieces of info quickly. When we open the same document in Word 2007 we end up taking a bit more time to either jump down by page or search.

The changes to the ribbon seemingly take what was really good about the Office 2003 GUI and blended it into the Office 2007/2010 ribbon structures. We like the changes there.

We _really_ appreciate the ability to get more than one Exchange account into Outlook 2010. That feature request has been around for _a long_ time!

Congratulations to the Office Team for what looks to be a great product version! Good job folks!

Now to figure out how to tweak our Group Policy scripts to look for both 64bit and 32bit versions when delivering Office via GP settings!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

SATA Drives in Dell And HP Servers Only Have 1 Year Warranty

As of March 24, 2009, Dell changed their warranty policies for entry level servers. Essentially, no matter what the length of the warranty is with that new Dell PowerEdge server that has SATA drives, those drives are only covered for one year from the date of purchase.

• Dell Limited Warranties

Check out the last bullet under the “How long does this limited hardware warranty last?” section.

SATA hard drives in PowerEdge^TM , PowerEdge SC^TM  and PowerVault^TM  systems launched on or after March 24, 2009 (e.g. PowerEdge T110, PowerEdge T310, PowerEdge T410, PowerEdge T610, PowerEdge T710, PowerEdge R210, PowerEdge R410, PowerEdge R510, PowerEdge R610, PowerEdge R710, PowerEdge M610, PowerEdge M710 and PowerVault NX300) carry the lesser of either a 1-year limited hardware warranty or the length of the limited hardware warranty for the Dell system with which the SATA hard drive is shipped. Service offerings may be available to extend the SATA hard drive warranty period on these systems for an additional fee.

Note the last line. An extended warranty for those drives can be obtained for a fee.

Apparently HP has also been doing this too.

• HP Q&A: What is the warranty period for a SATA drive?

A1. SATA hard drives have a one year warranty regardless of the warranty period for the system in which they are installed. Please see the below information for additional services.

Be prepared to not be surprised by this situation and make the client aware that this is the case so they are not surprised if a drive fails and they need to pay for it.

The other possibility is to look into the manufacturer’s extended warranty and support options before purchasing.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Here is a picture of the inside of an Intel Server System SR1630HGP looking from the front of the unit towards the back:

On the left side of the picture is the Intel RAID Controller RS2BL040 that drives the three 450GB 15K SAS drives in a RAID 5 array.

There is a black plastic air duct that runs from the blower pair near the front of the server to the CPU heat sink that we see here and also the memory DIMMs near the top right of the image.

After a closer look, it became clear that there would be an air flow problem for the CPU heat sink! 8|

Yes, it is 90 degrees in the _wrong_ direction.

Fortunately, one of the habits we have before we fire up a server for the first time is to double check all of the settings, connections, cables, and other components.

A sort of pre-flight check if you will.

We do that because we never know and we can not assume that we will get things right every time.

To boot, there are just too many distractions happening at the same time when we are as busy as we are. Even when the day is quiet and we may not be fully attentive to what we are doing and miss even a small thing such as the right port to plug a cable into.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Exchange 2007 SP2 via TSGateway RDP on SBS 2008 = No Go

While running Exchange 2007 SP2 on one of our local client’s SBS 2008 boxes remotely we were disconnected from our TSGateway based RDP session.

When we tried to get reconnected we received a TSGateway error on the SSL certificate. Click on the certificate and it turned out that the GoDaddy certificate was no longer there. The one that was there was not the original self-issued certificate either as we had that installed on our management system.

So, the moral of this story is pretty clear. Have RDP port 3389 opened and directed to SBS 2008 and use a direct RDP connection to run Exchange 2007 SP2 via the SBS Wrapper.

An even better solution is to have an out-of-band remote management device such as Intel’s RMM, Dell’s DRAC, and HP’s iLO (with Advanced KVM activated) to run this particular update.

We were fortunate that the client was only 5 minutes away so we could pop by their shop and run the SBS Wrapper’s clean-up steps which reseats the GoDaddy certificate among other things. We did not experience this situation prior to this because the previous Exchange 2007 SP2 installs were done via RMM or DRAC.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Posted Via ZuneHD!

This post is written via the ZuneHD's built-in Web browser.

I am at the Microsoft offices for an MVP Day.

So, I had a bit of time to check out the ZuneHD's Internet capabilities while in between presentations.

This browser is phenomenal! It blows away Opera on my WM 6.5 HTC. This post was written via the native Blotter editor too, so it leaves the iPad Safari browser behind.

Neat!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

Clustering SBS with Hyper-V Server 2008 r2 on the Intel Modular Server Slides

The following are the slides used for my presentation this evening at the Edmonton Microsoft User Group.

10 04-20 Clustering SBS with Hyper-V Server 2008 r2 on the Intel Modular Server

View more presentations from Philip Elder.

SBS and Clustering In-Person This Evening!

It is almost time for my presentation on building a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 cluster for hosting SBS and other OS VMs.

• Event Code: 147718
  04/20/2010
  06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
  Welcome Time: 06:00 PM
  Time Zone: Mountain
• NAIT Main Campus : HP Center (Bing Map) 
  10504 Princess Elizabeth Avenue
  Room WB114
  Edmonton, AB T5G 3H1
  Canada

If you have some time, come and check it out!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Happiness Is...

No, not a warm gun! :)

Though we are having some of the nicest weather of the year.

We had an amazing week with absolutely crazy hours, all kinds of client requests, lots of new clients coming on board, and then the struggle to try and fit some family time in to boot.

So, the happiness is that after packaging the IMS demo box up for shipping last weekend, we were able to find some time to unpackage it, toss our drives back into it, and have the four node cluster come back online without too much trouble today.

This means that the Tuesday evening presentation for EMUG will have a live cluster to work with and ease some of the stress over the presentation in general.

Philip

Sent from my SBS Integrated Windows Mobile® phone.

Some iPad Thoughts

Yesterday’s iPad post was a bit mixed up due to the struggles to get things to behave while editing in the native Blogger Web page plus being quite tired due to the long days lately.

Check out the multiple corrections made to my butchered hunt and peck typing skills!

I will keep using the iPad over the next few days. But, one thing has become quite clear. If Apple had packaged the guts of a MacBook Pro in the iPad and made it a bit bigger _I_ would have flown to New York to get in line before everyone else to buy one.

A tablet Mac OS X device would kill.

And one as sexy as the iPad is would _absolutely kill_!

I think I have some leads on a blogging platform that can be used to post to Blogger on the iPad.

Next up, word processing.

Posted from my desk. :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Post From An iPad

Kevin Atkey of Atkey Tech, a friend that I collaborate with on various network projects brought it over to the shop today for me to try out for a few days.

The first thing that I noticed is that I am truly keyboard bound! hHow is that you might say? Where are those very handy arrow keys to move the cursor?

Okay, so this is a touch based device and I need to get used to the idea that I need to zoom in on a word to place the cursor where I want to. Oops, I see now, there is a zooming thing that comes up if I hold my finger down long enough in one spot! With that on I am able to move the cursor in a precise manner.

Anyone know how to delete the character in _front_ of the blinking cursor without needing to jump ahead of the character or charters characters that need to be deleted?

Just like it's larger Mac cousins, the Safari browser on the iPad Does not play too well with the bBlogger interface so there is no way to get screenshots into this post without mucking about with manual uploads and links. So, I will figure out how to get the screenshots off of the device tomorrow.

Screenshot Method

To screenshot on the iPad, press and hold the power button then hit the iPad button on the front bottom of the IiPad and Rrelease both simultaneously.

A camera shutter snap sound will happen and the screen will go momentarily white.

Tap the iPad button to bring up the desktop and the screenshot will be found in the Photo app.

After moving the cursor up to the top of this post to make some changes there, it became a real challenge to figure out how to get the cursor back to this line to continue the post.

I had to zoom right in near the bottom of the Blogger HTML editor, hold my finger till the zoomed zoom thing came up, and drag down slowly until the text started to move up. But there was some sort of combination of movements that needed to happen before I could get it to work.

Okay, so the iPad is definitely not a native Blogger editor blogging platform. I wonder if Red Sweater will port Mars Edit to this platform? Maybe they already have, but since I have never had an iPhone and thus no App Store account, how would I know? ;)

Kevin has his App Store account set up on this iPad so I will check and see what can be found there for word processing and perhaps a blogging platform.

This iPad is a neat device and like all things Apple, it is pretty and looks to be very well made.

Model: A1219 64GB iPad. Retail is $700 I think?

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.

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Excel 2010 – Multiplies Cells Containing Formula Results with a Slightly Off Result?

Okay, this is just plain weird:

That calculation is taking a raw number “8” and multiplying it by the result of a series of calculations found in the second cell with the result of “$20.55”.

The end result states that 8 * 20.55 is 164.38 which for most of us seems to be really wrong. Especially for a program that is supposed to do this right!

So, just how do we “fix” this?

A quick search turned up the culprit:

Under File –> Tools –> Advanced we find the Set precision as displayed setting.

When we enable it and click OK Excel becomes quite unhappy about it:

 Microsoft Excel

Data will permanently lose accuracy.

Well, be that as it may, that “loss in accuracy” helps the old human brain to see what it really needs to see:

 

That is the expected result! This works for all versions of Excel too.

The solution was found here:

• CPearson.com: Rounding Errors In Microsoft Excel 97

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

When is TMI Too Much Information?

. . . When the amount of time spent managing the various professional, social, and other types of networking services outstrips the time needed to support our clients and build up our business _with clients_.

Given the nature of our business, that is the speed at which new things are developed and tossed out onto the Internet and the rate we adopt those new things, we need to be very mindful we don’t snowball ourselves into some sort of Technology ADD (Wikipedia link to ADD definition).

The further result of that snowball effect is the loss of touch with our business purpose which is to supply and support solutions to our clients that pay the bills, and/or to support our fellow IT Business folks that also pay the bills.

It is time to stop and think about all of those professional and social network profiles that we have left behind because we just do not have enough time in the day to manage all of them. TADD (Technology ADD), may be demonstrated by the number of profile trails we leave behind us as we move from one networking mechanism to the next.

We specifically need to evaluate how much time in a week that we put into a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook page or pages, a LinkedIn profile, or other networking medium.

Then, we need to be honest about them all and ask ourselves if the time we put into each is justified.

We also need to be mindful if the time we put into networking compromises our business, our family life, or even our health.

Justifying something can be really easy for us, it is the honesty required to _evaluate and let go of_ what we have justified that can be really difficult.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

In-Person: SBS and Clustering on IMS – Date, Time, Place, and Registration

Into clustering? Into clustering in the SMB space?

Want to know more about the technical aspects of standing up a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 based cluster?

Then this is the event for you!

The time and place:

• Event Code: 147718
  04/20/2010
  06:30 PM - 09:00 PM
  Welcome Time: 06:00 PM
  Time Zone: Mountain
• NAIT Main Campus : HP Center
  10504 Princess Elizabeth Avenue
  Room WB114
  Edmonton, AB T5G 3H1
  Canada

The room we will be in is not that large, so if you will be coming out, register early!

Since we are now going to have an Intel Modular Server available to us courtesy of Intel, barring any technological barriers, we will have a live unit to work with via remote back to our shop along with some Camtasia captures of some of the early set up steps.

If registration is full, please e-mail me to let me know that you want in. If there is enough demand, we may be able to work something with the venue or schedule a secondary session elsewhere on another date.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intel Modular Server – SATA to SAS Adapters for Intel X25-M SSDs or SATA

Intel has given us an extension on the Intel Modular Server demo box we have had for the last six to eight weeks.

We have mentioned in the past that there is an optional SATA to SAS adapter, AXXTM3SATA,  for the IMS that allows us to install 2.5” SATA based drives in the built-in storage unit.

So, since we were ordering from Tech Data Canada and they happened to have some, we ordered the stock that they had:

Note that it is very important to have a look in the IMS Tested Hardware and Operating Systems List (THOL) (previous blog post) to verify how we can combine SATA, SSD, and SAS drives in the IMS storage bays.

We did not find out about the IMS demo extension until after we had taken everything down and set the IMS into its shipping pallet setup.

So, we are going to pull a couple of 160GB Intel X25-M second generation SSDs out of stock and install them. We will use the SSDs for the Hyper-V OSs as well as the Hyper-V configuration and memory file location.

We now have a pretty good performance baseline for the pair of 146GB 15K Seagate drives we have been using for this purpose, so we are looking forward to the performance gains the SSDs will give us.

The extension was give because we would not be able to get our own Intel Modular Server into our shop and ready for my upcoming SBS clustering presentation for the Edmonton Microsoft User Group on the twentieth.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

In-Person: SBS and Clustering On IMS April 20th EMUG – NAIT Campus Edmonton

On April 20th at the NAIT campus starting at 1830Hrs (6:30PM) I will be running through some key points on building a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 based cluster on top of the Intel Modular Server.

The specific room details, time of the event, and a link for registration will be posted on our Web site as soon as they are known. A calendar item is already in place.  A follow-up post will also be done here via the blog when the specifics are known.

Some clustering topics that may be covered:

1. Server and cluster install orders.
2. IMS Storage cluster configuration options.
3. IMS Network configurations for High Availability.
4. Node storage configuration for High Availability.
5. Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 node binding orders.
6. Hyper-V Management OS based network configuration.
7. Failover Cluster Management console.
1. Clustered Shared Volumes and data management.
2. Live Migrations.
3. FCM cluster networking.

Depending on timing, we will be able to present a pretty good and specific focus on some aspects of what it takes to get a cluster up and running successfully.

The idea is to work with the actual products demonstrating the how and why of clustering. There may be a few PowerPoint slides here and there, but I intend to keep this session very technical in nature.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Tech Nostalgia – SBS 2000 Alive And Kicking

In the process of working through some things, we stood up an SBS 2000 server this morning.

The setup is bone stock, meaning the three CDs that the OS came with are what were used. The exception to that was the installation of Windows Server 2000 Service Pack 4 after Phase 1 of the setup completed so we could get Integration Services installed.

Once IS was installed, we ran Phase 2 setup.

Sometimes, it is good to see where we have been to gain perspective on where we are at now.

The default BackOffice Manager:

A second vNIC was installed and connected to a secured network to provide Internet connectivity. ISA 2000 is installed and configured in a 2 NIC configuration.

The To Do list:

There sure were a lot of things “missing” in the SBS 2000 product now wasn’t there?

While the uptake on SharePoint did not happen too much in the SBS 2003 timeframe, the Remote Web Workplace in SBS 2003 made for one of the biggest steps forward for remote access in the SMB space.

Our SBS 2000 server status:

Adding a user via the Add User Wizard in the To Do list:

And, then there was this little gem:

An iisreset would bring those folders online.

And finally a screenshot of Outlook Web Access across HTTP no less:

How did we ever manage to work back then? ;)

We have come a long way in the SMB market with Small Business Server evolving along with the SMB business needs.

In our opinion, we have been going in the right direction with the SBS product.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

MVP Jeff Middleton Swing Migration Deep Dive Canada

Fellow MVP Jeff Middleton will be touring across Canada in the coming weeks. If you have not seen Jeff speak in person, then this is the opportunity to do so.

He is a very dynamic speaker. He keeps us completely engaged with his style and the content is _always_ relevant to our SBS IT Business practices.

Having been to a few of Jeff’s presentations, I do highly recommend checking this out.

A video of Jeff can be found here:

• Jeff Middleton: Getting up to Speed with SBSmigration.com

The Small Business Specialist Web page for the events:

• SBSC Canada Blog: Join the 2010 SBS Migration Tour – Montreal, Mississauga, Richmond, Calgary

A quick link to the various registration pages:

• Where & When:
• Montreal:
  April 21
• Mississauga:
  April 22
• Richmond:
  May 4
• Calgary:
  May 5

There is a minimal cost associated with the event of $99 Canadian.

Here is the description from the Partner Program page for the event:

I am registered for the Calgary event. Registration will fill up fast, so it would be a good idea to jump in early.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Hyper-V Guest OS Supported vCPUs Grid

No Hyper-V guest OS is created equal.

So, when it comes to utilizing 1, 2, 3, or 4 virtual CPUs (vCPU), we need to be aware of what the guest OS can support natively whether it will support the installation of Integration Services.

As we have already noted, the ShadowProtect Recovery Environment will run very poorly with more than 1 vCPU assigned (previous blog post) to the VM. Once the VM is restored though, that setting can be changed. We also need to be aware of what the restored OS could support for vCPUs.

• TechNet: About Virtual Machines and Guest Operating Systems

We get the following grid which will be partially hidden. It can be clicked on to reveal the full screenshot:

Here we have the grid for desktop OSs:

The final, and quite large, grid has to do with Integration Services and virtual device driver support in each of the OSs:

The above is a partial of the grid.

The reason we were looking into this in the first place was because we are standing up an Evaluation copy of SBS 2000 to look into something. We needed to confirm how many vCPUs the OS could handle.

We already knew that SP4 was required to get Integration Services to install though.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Mitigating the Adobe Acrobat PDF Attachment Launch Problem

This via Susan.

To mitigate the problem where an executable is embedded in a PDF file, we need to make a change in Adobe Reader/Standard/Professional:

In the Trust Manager uncheck the Allow opening of non-PDF file attachments with external applications.

Since we want _all_ of our client user’s Adobe products to have this setting disabled, we are going to push the above out via Group Policy. We are also going to push a setting out that disables the user’s ability to enable this setting in any affected Adobe product.

The above registry settings and a description are discussed on the Adobe Reader Blog here:

•  Adobe Reader Blog: PDF "/Launch" Social Engineering Attack

Now, off to get our client’s computer security GPOs updated with the above.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intel Modular Server – Tested Hardware and Operating System List – Tested External Storage

For any Intel product, the Tested Hardware and Operating System List (THOL) is the de facto point of reference for component and product compatibility.

If there is a conflict or problem in an Intel based system and the problematic component is _not_ on the THOL, then Intel Support will not be applicable.

• Bing Search: Intel THOL

Some results from the above search:

To find the latest THOL for the Intel Modular Server quickly:

• Bing Search: Intel Modular Server THOL

Notice that the IMS THOL is the first link:

The current reason we are digging into the IMS THOL is to verify how we can extend the 14 drive internal storage unit either via the external SAS ports on the Intel Storage Controllers or via iSCSI target to a SAN.

We are looking for additional storage that is also redundant for any cluster based VMs.

The THOL tells us that we have a few options:

Note the Promise e310sD is a dual controller 2U unit that has 12 drive bays and the e610sD is a dual controller 3U unit that has 16 drive bays.

Intel’s own Storage Server SSR212MC2R is currently the only iSCSI target that is on the above approved list.

The Promise vTrak storage units are quite reasonably priced relative to the additional storage that we are able to access along with the ability to utilize a dual storage path (Multi-Path I/O or MPIO) to ensure storage access redundancy.

This is a screenshot of a page out of the VTrak Ex10s supported configurations with Intel Modular Server (PDF) document:

So, we have potentially found what we are looking for. Now we need to discover where the IMS specific Promise documents are located as the links within some of the documents are not working at this time.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intel Modular Server 3D Configuration Tool

Having a configuration tool to use while working with a client on the possibility of deploying a High Availability solution based on the Intel Modular Server is a big plus.

Enter the IMS 3D Configuration Tool:

The tool is found on the IMS micro site:

•  Intel Modular Server Product Site

Once we click into the tool we are greeted with a Welcome page:

Click begin configuration and choose the chassis type by dragging it up into the top right quadrant:

We can now go through configuring the Compute Modules on the front of the IMS chassis then spin it around and drop in the needed Ethernet Switch module, second Storage Controller Module, and the additional 2 power supplies.

The front:

The back:

Click on any component category in the left hand column to find and click on a component to drag it into its respective place in the IMS chassis.

Product Knowledge

Having this tool is really great.

But, there is an absolutely critical element to utilizing this tool to close a solution sale with a client and that is _Product Knowledge_.

In our own office on our own time we need to use the Intel Server Configurator Tool and our distribution Web sites to price out the various configurations we will be positioning for the client.

Having two or three compute module configurations as standards for entry, mid, and high compute intensive tasks running in the cluster would be a good idea.

Knowing the costs on 146GB 15K SAS versus 160GB X25-M Intel SSDs and then Near Line 7200RPM SAS would be a valuable asset when considering the various possibilities with the client.

Understanding how each component interacts and/or requires another component for things to work is also a key element to a successful solution close.

Finally, to the business owner or contact that we are working with, our understanding of _their_ business and the relative costs for systems down time is _very_ important. We can then position High Availability as the best insurance against incurring lost productivity costs against their employees.

Lost productivity = lost dollars! It is important to emphasize that those dollars add up extremely fast for SMB/SME companies and that High Availability pays for itself in the immediate to long run.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Router/Firewall Ports To Forward For Windows Home Server

There are two ports that need to be forwarded at the router/firewall to the Windows Home Server box:

• 443 HTTPS TCP (SSL Web)
• 4125 RDP Proxy Port (RDP connections to the desktops)

Note that the 4125 proxy port is inherited from WHS’s bigger cousin Small Business Server 2003.

Port 80 is optional in that it redirects to 443 anyway. So, we suggest leaving that port closed and remembering the “s” in the WHS URL.

Once the remote access firewall ports are properly configured we see the following on an HP based WHS:

And the following on an Acer based WHS:

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Test Post from Mars Edit

This is a test post via Mars Edit to see if the signature comes out the way we expect it to. The Preview Pane in Mars Edit may not be telling us exactly how Blogger will be interpreting the code we eventually upload.

UPDATE: While the Mars Edit Preview Pane was putting all of the signature lines together on the same line despite the name, company name, and the MSBS being on separate lines within the code, Blogger interpreted things correctly and inserted a {br /}. Note that the { is a < for coding purposes.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

MacBook Blogging written from Mars Edit

Apple - The Land Of Massive Updates?!?

We just fired up our MacBook Pro to do some video editing for a DVD that will accompany a letter we will be mailing out to the CEO of a company this coming week.

This has to be a first . . . at least for us:

That OS X update at over 400MB is quite large for an Apple update. The combined total of the updates do approach 600MB.

In the Windows world, our most recent service packs have been quite large too, some weighing in at over 750MB!

So, it looks like Apple too has its hands full patching vulnerabilities in their products just as Microsoft and especially Adobe do.

There have been some good things going on over at Apple in the way of recent hires too. Perhaps the lessons learned by Microsoft and its Windows products being the 800 pound gorilla in the room have started to rub off as Apple has grown in its market share.

About 7 minutes later, our MacBook Pro was happily updated and rolling along:

Note that we swapped the default 160GB 5400RPM spindle out of our MacBook for an Intel 160GB X25-M Solid-State Drive a while back. It certainly makes for a much snappier Mac experience ... and moves those updates along quite quickly!

Philip Elder

MPECS Inc.

Microsoft Small Business Specialists

Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

MacBook Blogging written from Mars Edit