New Blog Site if you looking for HandyAndy

Hi Gang,

My pal Vlad convinced me to try his blogging service and since I liked the way I could use my own url Blog.SBS-Rocks.com I gave it a try. So far I really like it so if you are looking for new content from me take a look at the new blog http://blog.sbs-rocks.com

See Y'all Round the virtual watercooler,
HA

Best Kept Secret in SBS Land

Back in April one of my favorite presenters was made an MVP for SBS and no one ever heard about it. Turns out MS had an obsolete address for him so not even he knew, the announcement message went to the proverbial bit bucket. Well due to the keen eye of the SBS Diva herself all has been rectified, so please help me welcome Chris Rue https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/profile=75ea8010-5d0e-453d-8b63-ee53da3ddadc check out his own announcement at http://www.chrisrue.com/funcave/2007/06/the-unknown-mvp.html

Community Vlad Points the Way

OK I admit it, I still forget to come add stuff here.
The other day Vlad wrote a really thought provoking piece called http://www.vladville.com/2007/06/why-are-we-losing-these-great-community-resources.html and I blasted it out across the lists, but forgot to post it here also.

Since then he has gotten a lot of responses saying what can I do, so he once again wrote a great articled called http://www.vladville.com/2007/06/how-can-i-contribute-to-the-community.html. About the only thing I take exception to in the article is how he sluff's off folks with stage fright or what ever you want to call it. I personally do quite a bit for the community, but am just unable to get up on stage and present or profess or what ever you want to call it. To me it is a real stumbling block. So don't let his comments discourage you, take it from me, there are still many things you can do to contribute without hopping up on the stage.

Don't just go to the meetings to be entertained, offer up some content. Provide feedback, I run a group of about 70 folks (on our list anyways) about 2 dozen of whom show up regularly. Yet if I send out any message to the group that requires a response, I can count on 4 for sure and maybe 2 or 3 others that's it. Yet if you ask the majority of them they will tell you they are active in the community. Take a look at how you respond. When you go to a TS2 or TechNet event do you make your presence know to the presenter? Do you mention your group, they will be happy put in a plug for it. Do you offer help? It doesn't cost a thing, but it does help our community. Become one of the folks that answers more questions than you ask. It doesn't matter, answer the easy ones and ask the hard ones, just start to contribute.

I am not going to relist everything he posted, it was a great list. But just keep in mind what he said was not the gospel on how it has to be done, it was meant to get you thinking about what you could do. There are no set rules it is a freely developing community, so just jump in and join the fun.

Shadow Protect Enable Lan Communications

New Article on my SBS-Rocks.com website
Shadow Protect Enable Lan Communications
a.k.a. How to create an XP Firewall Exception GPO in SBS

So as you may know I have been working with imaging products and have pretty much settled on Storage Craft's products.Well I hit a road block the other day trying to control the desktopversions of Shadow Protect from the Shadow Protect Server Console.

This article explains how to allow these communications as well as being a good intro to the XP Firewall GPO.

Enjoy,
HA

Updated 6/22/2007 Thankx to Bob Haley who just wrote and sent me an ADM Template for Shadow Protect, I have updated the article on my site with the new instructions Shadow Protect Enable Lan Communications

Hotfixes get easier to access, I get egg on my face

So I called in again today for my second private hotfix and the after I got to the third guy (he was a developer engineer) he said, did you read the KB? I said of course I did, that is why I am calling. He said you probably didn't notice, but that KB is part of a new trial and the line you expected to say call in for the hotfix actually was a link to the hotfix on the connect site. It is still not a full public supported hotfix, but it is sure easier to get. Know that I know to look for it, I sure like this new program. And now that you know where to look you won't end up with egg on your face, like I did.

If you look at the screenshot below the key line to look for when you read a KB is the line I have in red. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go take a shower to wash the egg off my face.

WSS 3.0 minor snag on SBS

Today I decided to have a go at installing WSS 3.0 as I need to roll it out to a client site this weekend. You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D51730B5-48FC-4CA2-B454-8DC2CAF93951&displaylang=en if you want a copy.

I am following the great paper the SBS Team supplied describing the side by side install process required for SBS which you can get at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928095

I went along with the directions and it installed just fine, but after the install it tries to run the configuration wizard and gets stuck on step 2 setting up the configuration database. Thinking maybe I hadn't had enough coffee yet and missed a step, I uninstalled it and tried again, some thing same spot.

Having learned from the SBS Diva herself (thanks Susan) I dumped the error message into google and found a thread in the MS public newsgroup http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs&tid=1ecd5642-5f93-402e-b84e-1885d2170cbd&m=1&p=1 with the exact same problem and a response from a css guy (thankx Terence Liu) saying call in for a hotfix KB934790

Well after appling that hotfix the configuration wizard completed just fine.

If you need a hot fix in the US call 1-800-936-3500 if you are ouside the US you can get the correct number to call from http://support.microsoft.com/

Remember when calling in, click your heals 3 times and repeat "There is no place like my SBS Community"

Gotta go play with my cool new SharePoint site now, c ya later,

CRM Over the Internet, Finally

Well it was almost a year ago when I first started fighting with CRM SBE trying to publish it over the internet. It has been a painful process and I have called on some of the smartest people I know to try and get this done. We have gotten very close, but have not found a complete solution until yesterday when I got a note from a guy I have never met in Brazil with the missing pieces. So Thank You to Marcelo Sauaf! I hope to meet you and buy you a drink one day soon.

HaveI told you all lately how much I think this community rocks!

If you would like step by step instructions to publish CRM SBE over the internet, see my site at http://www.sbs-rocks.com/CRM/CRMSBEviaISA2004.htm

And they told me it couldn't be done,
HA

WSUS 3.0 on SBS 2003 with CRM-SBE

So I am a little behind and haven't installed WSUS 3.0 yet and hearing all the success stories of how easy it installs I jump ring in on my production server, install the prerequisites, KB927891 , MMC 3.0 & Report Viewer and then reboot the server. When she comes back up I run setup for WSUS 3.0 and it is going along very nicely until near the end when it dies a horrible death.

So I hit OK and get

And once more and get

So you might have guessed at this point I wasn't smiling, so I did what anyone in my position would do, no I didn't start crying, I pinged the community to see if anyone had any ideas. Sometimes just talking through a problem bring the obvious to light. Yours and my favorite detective Susan found in the error log where the W3SVC service had trouble stopping so opened a DOS Box and try to stop it manually, it did in fact stop, but it took a little longer than one would expect. When I was explaining this of course I pointed out that it was normal due to CRM being on the box so there was more to stop. So that's when she stated the obvious solution that I had looked right past, stop the CRM service before you run the WSUS setup.

So hopefully I can save you the agervation of the initial install failure and let you know about this before you try. Once I stopped the CRM services the install went through without a hitch (ymmv), unfortunately the second time through it doesn't do an upgrade, it does a full install so you have to reset all the options.