The following two commands are recommended per this article for disabling SMB2 on Vista, Windows 7, SBS 2008.
sc config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb10/nsi
sc config mrxsmb20 start= disabled
(Please note that there is a space immediately after the = sign in both commands!)
If you have several Windows 7 workstations, then check out this article for pushing out the above commands via PowerShell.
Update Rollup 2 for Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard was released today (March 27, 2012).
This rollup addresses 5 specfic issues that are documented in the Microsoft KB 2660819 article.
There is no requirement to install SBS 2011 Rollup 1 first, as this new release contains all the updates from the prior Rollup 1.
Are you running a Small Business Server (SBS) or a Windows Home Server (WHS)? If so, chances are you have forwarded port 443 (SSL) on your router or firewall to point to your server in order to utilize the Remote Web Workplace (Access) feature of these servers. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) requires certain standards to be in place if you are processing credit card information. One of those standards is that SSLv2 is deemed unacceptable, and you will fail a PCI scan if its enabled.
Disabling SSLv2 requires a simple registry edit. I have tested this with both SBS and WHS. Copy and paste the following lines into a empty text file, and aftersaving it, rename the text file to use a .reg suffix (e.g. disable-sslv2.reg).
I recently encountered a situation with a Dell workstation that would unexpectedly go into hibernation (sleep mode). This occured even though I had gone into the power profile settings and turned off both hibernation and sleep mode. I had also turned off the power save mode on the NIC card. And there was no UPS software installed on this workstation. I was out of answers.
A tip of the hat to my fellow SBS MVP’er, David Nickason, who provided the solution. He said that he has seen this on several Dell workstations. He went on to say that simply turning off hibernation doesn’t always work, and you need to actually disable it. How do you do that? With the powercfg command.
To disable hibernation on a workstation, open up a command prompt in Administratror mode, and type: powercfg /hibernate off
r, which was to not only turn it offis to open up a command prompt.identified the solution.I love the Remote Web Access (formerly Remote Web Workplace) available in the Small Business Server (SBS) platform since SBS2003.through SBSRecently I’ve had a couple of workstations at different offices
Please read the following from ThirdTier:
As we’ve done at SMBNation for the last couple of years, we bringing a pre-day Brain Explosion to the IT Pro Conference hosted by SBSMigration, on June 7th. You and can save 50% by registering this week. The details on how to register are in the blog post. I’ve pasted the content for you here.
Brain Explosion 2012 content revealed! 50% off registration until March 25th too.
http://www.thirdtier.net/2012/03/brain-explosion-50-discount-and-content-revealed/
Third Tier staff are known for the depth of knowledge they bring to your business. At Brain Explosion 2012 they’ve developed some very practical sessions that will leave you empowered to deploy.
IPv6 Right Now Presented by Cliff Galiher
In this session, we will cut through the theory and dig in to how IPv6 impacts today’s business networks. Cliff will give you practical tools to understand IPv6, deploy and transition your network, and support an IPv6 infrastructure including DNS, DHCP, and coexisting with IPv4. This session will leave with a better understanding and a few “next steps” to help bring your networks forward with this exciting advancement in technology.
Active Directory Management Presented by Brian Higgins
Active Directory is a complex and powerful system, and combined with the power and complexity of Group Policy it can be downright difficult to manage sometimes. Proper setup and configuration upfront can make management and troubleshooting of complex system like Active Directory (almost) simple. We will start this session by exploring some of the common topology mistakes when setting up Active Directory, and how proper topology layouts can make managing Group Policy much easier. Next we will dive deeper into some strategies behind planning your Group Policy deployments, and discuss some performance considerations when you create new policies. Finally you’ll learn how to create your own custom schema extensions to store custom information in Active Directory. I’ll show you how to use that schema extension knowledge to effortlessly, and automatically deploy and manage network printers to users in a completely new way.
Exchange 2010 Compliance and Archiving Presented by David Shackelford
Few small and midsized businesses that have clients in the medical, financial and legal professions are actually prepared to provide data to the courts in the event of a lawsuit or investigation. Those who have some measures in place still find e-discovery to be a very tedious process. In this session we’ll look at ways the Exchange 2010 feature set has made storing and retrieving archived emails easier and will also discuss some third-party solutions that have made compliance processes even easier.
Managing Data Encryption Presented by Jeremy Anderson
Jeremy Brings forth the Encryption as he discusses BitLocker. Addressing the physical security of your network, including laptops and tablets Jeremy will discuss Bitlocker and how to Implement and deploy it in your Active Directory Domain. How to back up the recovery keys into AD DS using the BitLocker Active Directory Recovery Password Viewer tool, and how to recover data from a drive will be discussed and demonstrated. New features, including Network Unlock and Partial Drive Encryption that is available in Windows Server 8 and Windows 8 will be discussed. Learn how easy full disk encryption is to deploy and use in your networks, and the security that it brings to your clients knowing that if they have a device lost or stolen, that the data is secure from theft.
Amy
ThirdTier – Support for IT Professionals
Need more help? http://www.thirdtier.net
For most of us in the good ole’ U.S.A., we lose an hour of sleep tonight as Daylight Savings kicks in. So, it seemed to be a good opportunity for new words to the song “Memory” from the musical “Cats”
Midnight
Is it still only midnight
Has today been a memory?
I am crying alone
From the desk light
The withered invoices collect at my feet
And now, I begin to moan
Working
All alone I keep thinking
I can smile at those long days
I was so young and so slim
I remember when working late was happiness then
Let the memory live again
Every tick-tock
Seems to beat a fatalistic warning
Then I mutter
And the disk drive shudders
And soon it will be morning
Two o’clock
I must wait ‘til that hour
I will think of that lost hour
And I musn’t give in
When the dawn comes
That hour will be a memory too
And a new day will begin
The Windows 8 Consumer Preview (Win8 CP) was released for public beta testing on Feb 29, 2012. If you wish to test a Windows 8 client to an existing SBS 2008 or SBS 2011 server, there are some known issues. They include:
Please check out the Official SBS Blog for more details on these issues, and workarounds.
Last week I ran into an interesting issue with a Windows Home Server (WHS v1) unit. I could connect via RDP/Mstsc to the WHS box and login as the administrator, but I could not startup the WHS Console program. Likewise, trying to start the WHS console by right clicking on the WHS Taskbar icon from a workstation also failed.
Unfortunately, there were no errors in the event logs, and nothing in the WindowsHomeServer log file folder.
Most posts I found on this issue suggested a bad add-in being the cause. To determine which add-in was failing, they suggest to rename all the associated HomeServerConsoleTab.XXX.dll files, and then rename them back, one at a time, until you find which one causes the Console program to crash or not run.
Unfortunately, that did not fix my issue – but it pointed me in the right direction.
I compared the contents of C:\Program Files\WindowsHomeServer folder with a known good WHS box. That’s when I discovered an extra file on the WHS server that was not wotking. The file in question was named HomeServerConsole.exe.config. I renamed this file, and the console started up properly.
This blog post identifies the minimum steps required to install and enable FileZilla’s free FTP Server on an SBS 2011 (Windows 2008 R2) server.
First, a strong word of caution: if your SBS server is a production server for your office, you should NOT be looking at using it for a public facing FTP server. The default FTP ports (20-21) are highly prone to attacks by hackers. If your server is hacked, then your confidential data has been compromised. I always recommend using a standalone FTP server.
So, if you are still reading, you have been forwarned! Hopefully the SBS server that you wish to install FileZilla’s FTP Server is a test or non-production server. In my case, I am doing this so I can automatically send copies of backups of my customers’ WordPress websites to my server. Something like a baby Amazon S3 setup!
Summary of Steps:
1. Backup your server
2. Create a shared FTP data folder
3. Download, install and configure the FileZilla FTP program
4. Configure your server firewall and router to forward FTP ports
5. Test
1. Backup your server.
This is always the first step when making any important change to your server. The built in Windows Server backup in SBS 2011 is quick and painless. There is absolutely no excuse for not having a recent backup available.
2. Create a shared data folder.
Open up the SBS 2011 console, click Shared Folders and Web Sites from the top, then click Add a new shared folder from the right side pane to start the ‘Provision a Shared Folder Wizard’. Click the Browse button, and select the desired volume to create your folder. (In my case, I want to use my E: (Data) volume, so I click on (select) e$). Then click Make New Folder, type in a name for your new folder, and then click OK. The rest of the screens are self-explanatory, and allow you to specify permissions and policies.
3. Install the FileZilla Server software.
Go to http://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=server to download and install the server software. At the time of this post, current version is 0.9.41. Select to have the program start up automatically.
3a. Configure settings
After the FileZilla program starts up, click Edit > Settings and browse through the settings. However, on a default setup there’s nothing that you need to change. Later on, you may wish to change the default listing port from 21, but don’t do it now. Also, go to Admin Interface Settings, and make a note of the port used for the admin interface. You don’t have to do anything with it, but its good to know it.
3b. Configure User/Group
FileZilla does not work with Active Directory, so we have to define/create FTP users and groups. If you are only creating a single FTP login, then it is not necessary to create a group. In my case, I only need a single FTP account. The process will be to create an FTP user account, assign a password, and then assign a default home directory, along with read/write permissions.
Click on Edit -> Users. Click the Add button from the right pane to create a new user, enter a desired username (perhaps FTPUser or FTPAdmin?) and click OK. Then, from the middle pane, click to enable the Password option, and enter a strong password.
From the left pane, click on Shared Folders section. Click the Add button, browse and locate the folder you created previously. By default, the FTP user account can only read files and directories. Change that as appropriate to your needs.
Then click the OK button on the bottom left.
4. Configure Server Firewall and Router
Two things to accomplish: allow the FileZilla Server to communicate through the Windows Server Firewall, and forward the appropriate port(s) through your router to the server.
Configure Server Firewall
Click on Control Panel, and under the System and Security section, click Check firewall status. Then from the left pane, click Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall. Then browse to the FileZilla program directory (for example, c:\Program Files (x86)\FileZilla Server) and select the FileZilla server.exe.
NOTE: Do NOT select the FileZilla Server Interface.exe, just the FileZilla server.exe file.
Configure Router
By default, FTP uses port 20/21. So follow the instructions for your router and forward those ports to your SBS 2011 IP address.
5. Test
Test internally (local LAN) first, and then externally.
From your workstation, open a command prompt, and then type: ftp {servername} -or- ftp {serveripaddress}. You should get a ‘Connected to {servername}, and be prompted to enter a user. Enter the FTP account user name you created, press OK, then enter the password, and press OK. If all is good, you should be sitting at an ftp> prompt. You may type in help to see a list of FTP comamnds. To exit, type quit
To test from an external workstation, do the same as above, but rather than using the internal servername, you would use the public domain name (ftp remote.serverdomainname.com).
Microsoft’s OneNote is a product that once you try it, you’ll be hooked. Now, there’s OneNote Mobile! And it works on your iPad, iPhone, Android or Windows Phone. Create notes and lists to your heart’s content, and never lose them.
Watch this video on using OneNote Mobile.