Peter Gallagher's TS2 Blog

An expert talks about Windows Vista

I have had the opportunity to hear Mark Russinovich speak twice.  Both times at our semi-annual "training" events in Seattle.  We call them TechReady.  We snatched up Mark (www.sysinterals.com fame) a bit over a year ago (I think).  Mark brings great insights into the inner workings of the Windows OS.  He is frank and candid in his delivery style.  I would highly recommend anyone who works with the Windows OS from a technical perspective to watch Mark's webcasts.  Click here to see what his latest work is!

Enjoy!

Petergal

New Content Available: Adding a Server Running Windows Server 2008 to a Windows Small Business Server 2003 Network

Click here for the lowdown!

Enjoy!

Petergal

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is coming to a launch event near you!

What is the Microsoft "Dynamics" brand anyway?  From the Dynamics website:  "Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like and with familiar Microsoft software to help your people be more productive."  Check this link out for our full line of Dynamics products.  Dynamics CRM is launching version 4.0.  Attend a launch event near you and find out what all the buzz is about!

Enjoy!

Petergal

The SBS Best Practice Analyzer has been updated...and WOW, what an update!

Here's the link to the official blog post on it:  http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/02/20/small-business-server-2003-best-practices-analyzer-updated.aspx

As I was reading through the updates, I was saying to myself...."I had a partner call on that one...and that one...and that one...".  LANNIC Guid?  Yeah, had that call and blogged it!  In addition, Larry Lentz recently blogged about an ISA2004 issue that would have been caught by the SBS BPA (checking to see what service pack level ISA2004 is at).  If you are having problems with SBS2003, make sure and run the SBS BPA.  The SBS BPA seems to be evolving to something very similar to the Exchange BPA, meaning that when there is ANY issue on an Exchange server...run the ExBPA.  It is a good leveling tool to make sure the basics are covered.  So get into the habit of running the SBS BPA.

As always, hats off to the SBS Team!

Enjoy!

Petergal

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008 - What's all the buzz about?

New Remote Web Workplace!  Exchange 2007!  Windows Sharepoint Services v3.0!  Improved task based consoles!  Check out the official website! 

More to come!

Enjoy!

Petergal

Planning to deploy SBS? Doing a migration? It's all about the time!

SBS likes to be the biggest kid on the playground.  What happens when another kid who is just as big steps into the yard?  Trouble, big trouble.  SBS will allow more than one SBS server to be in the domain for a "short time" for migration purposes.  Well, with this hotfix, the time has been extended!  If you are planning to do a "swing" style migration or some other sort of staged migration of SBS, you might want to consider implementing this hotfix.

Enjoy!

Petergal

Attend a Launch Event!

You are one of the unsung heroes of technology. The work you do every day helps your company to be more competitive, and now Microsoft launches three powerful new products to make it even easier for you to be a hero every day.  See the applications in action. Attend break-out sessions and meet with product experts. Have Q&A sessions with development teams. And leave with a promotional kit that includes versions of the Windows Server® 2008 operating system, Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008, and Microsoft Visual Studio® 2008.

Register for your launch event today.

Attend the launch event.
Learn about the products.
Take them home.

"Tiny Business Server"

At one of our recent TS2 events, we were talking about Windows Home Server.  Very cool product.  Then the topic came up about another one of our products...Windows Server for Small Business Server (WSfSBS, go figure, another acronym from Microsoft!).  From the FAQ for SBS, here is what it is:

Q. What is Windows Server for Small Business Server?
A. Windows Server for Small Business Server (WSfSBS) is an operating-system only product based on SBS 2003 with Service Pack 1. It does not include any other applications, wizards, or integration tools that are found in the full SBS 2003 R2 product. WSfSBS has the same Active Directory limitations as SBS 2003 R2 (must be the root domain controller in the forest, does not support trusts, cannot move the FSMO roles) and has an additional limitation of only 15 SBS CALs. Lastly, there are no supported upgrade paths, either to SBS 2003 R2 or to Windows Server 2003 R2.

Enjoy!

Petergal

Get the lowdown on Windows Essential Business Server

Stuart Crawford and Arlin Sorensen Share How to Capitalize on Windows Essential Business Server 2008

Listen to a recording of the January 25, 2008 Small Business IT Radio show on BlogTalk Radio and learn about EBS 2008, its capabilities, and the numerous partner opportunities it presents.  Arlin Sorensen, President, Heartland Technologies and Stuart Crawford, Director of Business Development, IT Matters, share insights on how partners can capitalize on this new solution.  Steven VanRoekel, Senior Director, Windows Server Solutions provides information on the overall business opportunity.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/smb/2008/01/25/Only-the-Essential-Windows-Server

Enjoy!

Petergal

Are you a consultant new to Small Business Server?

If so, we have a webcast for you!  Check out:  5W/50 Series - SB: Intro to Building Your Business on SBS (there are two parts).

Enjoy!

Petergal

It's kinda what I expected...

"Peter, you are running a pretty old version of Hyper-V.  Upgrade to the latest version and you should be good to go."  That's why it's BETA.  Still, not fun! 

Petergal

That's why they call it BETA!

I am excited about Windows Server 2008's virtualization story.  64-bit support on the host and guests.  Wohooo!!!  This is fun stuff.  I bought a new Dell server for the specific purpose of putting Win2k8 on it and then loading up a bunch of virtual machines.  Life is good!  Installed the base OS, did the few tricks to get Hypervisor working, then started installing my guests.  Then...bad things started happening...bad things man...bad things...!  The virtualization service started crashing...and not just a little bit either!  Here's the error in the Application Log:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Application Error
Date:          2/2/2008 6:47:40 AM
Event ID:      1000
Task Category: (100)
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      Main.company.local
Description:
Faulting application vmms.exe, version 6.0.6001.16637, time stamp 0x46c9c637, faulting module vmms.exe, version 6.0.6001.16637, time stamp 0x46c9c637, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x0000000000124acb, process id 0xd28, application start time 0x01c865998ee3b393.

Off to do some research.  I hope the answer is not "install the latest build"!

Enjoy...

Petergal

Are you deploying an SBS server on Friday February 29th?

Well, you might want to wait a day!  http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/01/15/the-ceicw-certificate-generator-will-be-out-of-the-office-on-february-29-2008.aspx

As always, thanks to the SBS Support Team in Las Colinas for finding/documenting that "needle in a haystack".

Enjoy!

Petergal

Ghosted network adapters are a pain!

It can be a common scenario to have to change network adapters in a server or workstation.  They break!  You might need to replace the 10/100 card with a gigabit card, whatever the reason...eventually you will find yourself cracking the case on the server, blowing the dust out and changing a NIC.  Sometimes Windows gets really confused when NIC's are removed and replaced.  You might end up with "ghosted" network adapter(s).  This means that Windows has drivers/settings for hardware that is not physically in the computer.  It's not an uncommon scenario to have "ghosted" devices, especially with USB devices.  NIC's, now that's another story!  Well, Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 has a "standard" hardware set, meaning that you can copy VHD's from one install of Virtual Server 2005 R2 to another and boot them up just fine.  I learned something this week.  The hardware is not identical between Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Windows Virtualization (included in Windows Server 2008).  I moved one of my virtual installs of Windows from Virtual Server 2005 R2 to Windows Server 2008...and it booted just fine.  I didn't realize I had a problem until I started poking around.  I had a dynamic IP address...hmmm...ok, let's set it back to static.  I tried and got an error saying that the IP was assigned to another NIC...hmmm.....so I did the trick outlined in this article and sure enough I now had a phantom or "ghosted" NIC.  I followed the article and was good to go!  The takeaway is that the virtual hardware between Windows Server 2008 Virtualization and Virtual Server 2005 R2 is not the same (at the writing of this post, Windows Server 2008 is still in beta, so it may change).

Enjoy!

Petergal

It's Coming, Are You Ready??

Windows Server 2008 is coming! 

• Cool new features?  You bet!
• Solid foundation?  You bet!
• Secure?  Absolutely!
• Business value?  Without a doubt!

Here is a link to the training center for Windows Sever 2008:  http://www.microsoft.com/learning/windowsserver2008/default.mspx

Get ready, its coming to a server near you!

Petergal