Check Trend Micro if you're losing space on C:

As many of you are aware I love using Trend Micro for A/V on the SBS platform. It works, it's efficient, the client updating could use a little tweaking but hey nothings perfect! Recently we had a client who's C: was getting sucked drier than a pond in Arizona during summer. The culprit? Trend's A/V quarantine function.

By default Trend quarantines all virus' and information to the C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\OfficeScan\PCCSRV\Virus directory. When we checked that directory the client had over 9.9GB of space in that directory alone. Cleaned it up and we were good to go. On the client side options we made sure to delete or clean the virus first rather than quarantine so as to avoid the situation again.

It's the little things that get you. Of course if this client had not been on a maintenance plan with us they would have cried sooner rather than later about everything shutting down due to a lack of space. This is where having a bona fide maintenance plan with your IT provider can really pay in the long run.

Error 1460 Timeout on ISA 2004?

Recently I've been getting into ISA Server 2004 as we begin to rollout Service Pack 1 of SBS 2003 to all of our clients. One thing that we were getting and you should take a look at is the timeout settings for the web proxy. We were consistently seeing timeouts for clients with web searches on vendor websites that were in excess of 2 minutes. They would get an Error 1460 in their browser from ISA about a timeout on the firewall. Here's a fix we found:

In the console tree of ISA Server Management, click Networks.
In the details pane, click the Networks tab, and then click the applicable network. On SBS this is labeled "Internal" by default.
On the Tasks tab, click Edit Selected Network. (This is a little confusing. Just right click and go to Properties.)
On the Web Proxy tab, click Advanced.
In Connection timeout, type the number of seconds before ISA Server disconnects an inactive user.

Hopefully that'll correct that nasty 1460 error.

Reinstalled IIS and now POP3 Connector is messed up!

Well this week at a client site we had a big problem with Sharepoint. It was gone. Long story short...we reinstalled IIS and then the Intranet component to get Sharepoint back to the beginning. Worked fine but in the course of reinstalling IIS some other problems surfaced. Of course which includes resetting up the virtual web sites for Remote Web Workplace and the ConnectComputer.

Here's something you may be interested in however. The POP3 connector was acting totally weird. In fact we were getting NDR's on email sent to the domain because it was attaching mspop3connector at the beginning of the usernames (for instance mspop3connector.username@domain.com). What's a fix?

Get the POP3 Connector up and going again so that it can get its sink properly installed to the IIS Metabase.
Go to C:\program files\Microsoft Windows Small BusinessServer\Networking\POP3 and run the imbreg.exe file. After we did this email started working fine again with the connector.

Sorry Dick...WSUS is for us.

Little article over at SearchSecurity.com on What's all the fuss about WSUS?.

If you read about 3/4 of the way down, Dick Davis of a firm called Jif-Pak Manufacturing says that he doesn't want WSUS right now with his 42 desktops. It takes him 3 days a month to get around to everything and he checks everything else out including if people download items they shouldn't.

See Dick Run. See Dick Run all over the plant. Sorry couldn't resist. Why in the world would you want to do this? I just don't get it. I don't have 3 hours to run around let alone 3 days. Put SP1 on that SBS puppy and monitor your downloads with ISA 2004. Put IMF on it and kill spam. Put WSUS in and send out patches when you want it from the convenience of your desk. OK maybe it sounds like oversimplification but it can be done.

Stop running Dick. Take it easy and enjoy life. Maybe you'll even gain a few pounds, like me! :)

You Had Me At EHLO... : Exchange 2003 SP2

Great little post over at the Exchange Team Blog on Exchange 2003 SP2. Sounds like some great additions are coming including better anti-spam.

Isn't it interesting that as big a company as Microsoft and the only anti spam filter they run is SP2 which probably has the IMF built into it? (Terry doesn't say but I'm assuming.) Makes me think our decision to simply run Trend and the IMF on standard installs is definitely the way to go!

This install is looking better and better what with the store limit increases, the mobility enhancements and now the spam improvements. Definitely something that we'd like to see ASAP. Thanks Exchange Team!

Windows Mobile 5.0 Messaging and Security Feature Pack

Steve Ballmer today announced the new Feature Pack for Exchange SP2 that will really take on RIM and the Blackberry device. I'm a little miffed that the new items won't be included by default in SP2 of Exchange but very glad to see the technology come out. We'll just have to see how much the Feature Pack will be. With Exchange 2000 we had the Mobile Information Server and this seems to be a direction back towards that.

Push technology is a natural evolution for the mobile device and being able to push not only email but calendar, tasks, and contacts is a nice feature.

It'll be interesting to see what Microsoft charges for something like this. I would hope that those users that are on Software Assurance with SBS will automatically get this piece but we shall see.

You can see the streaming video of Ballmer's video from TechEd starting at 4PM today by clicking on the link attached above.

Exchange 2003 SP2 will increase limits

Well I sure didn't see this coming! I knew that SP2 of Exchange will be coming out in the second half of this year but what I heard the majority of items was with the mobility side. Well Microsoft gave us a nice little "here you go" by saying that the store limits will increase with SP2. In fact it's bumped up over 300% to 75 GB. Now that's something that will make SBS people stand up and take notice.

SP2 for Exchange will definitely have to be a "must have" when it comes out.

Note:
Looks like the Diva beat me to the punch.
http://msmvps.com/bradley/archive/2005/06/06/50822.aspx

Event ID 1001, 1013, 1014 on SBS

Are you getting the above Event ID's in your System Event Log and your Small Business Server 2003 machine reboots? Well you'll be happy to know that you don't have a virus or a bug. But you'll be disappointed to know that more work is needed on your SBS machine.

After a certain number of days (not really a definitive answer on this) but if your SBS machine has not been promoted to a Domain Controller (by running dcpromo.exe) then SBS by design gives you these 3 events and reboots your computer every 100 minutes. It's a way for Microsoft to make sure that you use SBS the way it was designed and not for a regular Windows Server 2003 installation in workgroup mode.

A question popped up about this in a recent group posting and the user was concerned with the setup of SBS now that the client (or maybe more appropriately, himself :) ) had installed programs and data. Well really the SBS installation was not completed. SBS after installing Windows Server then continues on with the dcpromo exercise and then installs Exchange off of CD2 and then the other items as instructed through your installation choices including the installation of client apps such as Outlook 2003. So since Windows Server 2003 is installed and functioning to get around the reboot and event id's just simply reinsert CD1 of SBS and begin the installation again. Your programs and data won't be overwritten (unless you did something silly like install Exchange 2000 or something in the SBS media) and you should be able to continue on.

Now on the flip side....if you do this or are getting this then a big shame on you! Make sure to test your installs and any new media if you're unfamiliar with it. Even in small business environments we need to test, test and test again. And not just for a day or two but perhaps for several days or weeks, even 6-8 weeks out. A good example is SP1 for SBS. Have you installed it yet in production? Sorry not me yet. I'm just a little leary and I need more information on ISA 2004 for my premium customers and a longer period to wait out any issues that might be lurking out there. I don't think of it as delaying...just appropriate timeliness!

8 signs you need to upgrade your server

Microsoft Small Business has a nice little article on 8 signs you need to upgrade your server. Pretty much right down the line of what we recommend to clients as well.

One thing however that we see in Small Business is that our server definitely lasts longer than 3 years. Why do you think there is a push to migrate NT 4 Server people out there? They've still got servers! Lots of em. We're talking 6-8 years of using the same equipment. For a small business yes definitely 3 years would be a great time to turn over the equipment. However if you need to stretch it a little further you might be able to go 5 years but if we can't patch it for security any longer, it's time to move on.

As we get past the SBS 2003 install craze it'll be interesting to see what drives people to upgrade to Longhorn SBS in 2007. Will it just be time to move on or will the feature set be that much better to have clients move up. Getting people to move off of SBS 2000 at times has been hard, I can't imagine what it will be like with SBS 2003 as it truly is now a feature rich and enjoyable environment to work in for the small business.

Outlook Calendar Views Add-in

Wish you only saw certain calendar items in Outlook? Here's a little download add-in from Microsoft for use with your Outlook calendars.

This could be really useful for those that perhaps run separate businesses or if they would like to just see personal or business entries separated. Take a look.