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Archive for August 2012

Mouse without Borders

by KW · Comments (0)
Aug 30 2012

The current “cool” thing is to have more than one monitor on your workstation.

But, what if you have multiple computers that you regularly use at your office or workbench? Perhaps your primary workstation with two screens, a laptop you are using for some development work, and your server?

Up until now, you would either have three keyboards/mice, or you would be using a KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) device to share between the computers.

But now you have another choice — Mouse without Borders

Mouse without Borders (MWB) was developed in Microsoft’s “The Garage” – a company wide program that encourages grass roots invention, tinkering and exploring new ideas.

With MWB you can use one mouse and one keyboard to control up to four separate computers, with no additional hardware! Not only can you move your mouse seamlessly from screen to screen, but just like you can move (drag) a file from one folder to another, you can drag files and folders from one computer to another with MWB!

Note: AFAIK, it only works with Windows operating systems. Give it a try!

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Categories : News, Servers, Tools, Windows
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Bing Desktop Review: I Love It!

by KW · Comments (0)
Aug 24 2012

OK, I admit – it’s alright to change your opinion about something once in awhile.

Back in June, 2012 I asked some friends by email if any of them had installed the new Bing Desktop app? Microsoft had released the Bing Desktop app an optional download through Windows Update/Microsoft Update (WU/MU).

I had read one very negative article (from Digital Trends) that reviewed the new Bing Desktop app. The title of the post was: “Bing Desktop for Windows: So lame that it’s practically spamware”.

Well, I’m not just going to take one person’s word for it. So, I installed the Bing Desktop onto my trusty (and crusty) 6 year old workstation. And guess what? I love it!!

I love the desktop photo of the day. Each day is so different, from various places from around the world — North Carolina fall colors, artic fox cub, or a view from Tuscany, Italy.

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I also like the easy way to browse, without having to first open up a browser window. I have the Bing App situated as an automatic drop down from the top of my screen. Or I simply press Windows+H top open up the Bing bar.

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Give it a try!

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Categories : News, Windows
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KB2596911 on SBS 2008

by KW · Comments (0)
Aug 18 2012

KB2596911 is a security update for Sharepoint 3.0. After installing it, you might find that you cannot access Companyweb.

Don’t fear … there are several different suggestions that you may need to try to resolve this issue:

First, try rebooting your server, even if KB2596911 does not require a reboot.

If that doesn’t fix the problem, then try running the Sharepoint Products and Technologies Wizard (Start –> Administrative Tools). If that completes successfully, recheck Companyweb – and hopefully it works! If so, you’re all done.

If that doesn’t fix your problem, then check out this blog from the SBS team that addresses some additional steps when encountering issues with updating Sharepoint on SBS:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/05/06/companyweb-inaccessible-after-sharepoint-3-0-service-pack-2.aspx

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Categories : SBS, Sharepoint
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iPhone Apps Updates Waiting

by KW · Comments (0)
Aug 15 2012

So, while I am waiting for an email migration to complete, I figured I had time to address an issue with my iPhone 4. Two apps I have on my phone are stuck in a “Waiting” condition. So here are the things I tried that did NOT work:

  • Hard reboot the phone
  • Reset all settings
  • Logout / Login to the App Store on my Phone
  • Try holding down the icon for the particular app for 30 seconds or more
  • Scream and fuss and talk to the iPhone and le it know you mean business
  • Check to see if my two year warranty on my iPhone is over

Those are all the things that did NOT work.

Here’s what did work for me:

  • Start up iTunes on my computer
  • Go to the Apple Store and download the apps in question to my computer
  • Connect my phone up to my computer
  • Click Sync

Voila!

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Categories : Phones
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Installing BPA for SBS 2011

by KW · Comments (0)
Aug 09 2012

The Microsoft’s Best Practice Analyzer for SBS is one of the first things you should install on any SBS server. For SBS 2011 Standard and SBS 2011 Essentials, this is an easy three step process (which is documented in detail here).

Step 1: First you need to download and install the Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer 2.0. To install this directly on the SBS server, be sure to select the 64 bit version of MBCA 2.0 (File: MBCA_Setup64.msi). Installation takes just a few seconds, literally.

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Step 2: Next, download and install the Microsoft Windows SBS 2011 BPA 1.0 to your server (file: BPASetup.msi).

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When you install the BPA you have two optional items you may wish to enable (which is the default) or disable:

  • Enable Remote BPA Scan – leave this selected if you plan to run BPA scans of your server from a workstation
  • Integrate BPA with the server console 0 leave this selected if you wish to have the server schedule a daily BPA scan and report the alters on the SBS console.

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Step 3: After you have done this, from the same page, download and install the BPA update (File: WSSG-KB2699813-X64-ENU.msp). Please note – when installing this update, you may be surprised o see that you are asked if you wish to Repair or Remove he BPA. Be sure to select “Repair”.

 

To start your first BPA scan, click Start –> Windows Server Solutions BPA –> Windows Server Solutions Best Practices Analyzer 1.0

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Categories : SBS
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Rekey GoDaddy SSL Cert

by KW · Comments (0)
Aug 08 2012

It normally takes very little effort to order and install a GoDaddy SSL certificate on an SBS 2008/2011 server, thanks in part to the Install Certificate wizard that comes with SBS.

I had a situation with an existing UCC SSL cert from GoDaddy that needed a “Subject Alternative Name” (SAN) added. I wasn’t sure how to do it, but GoDaddy’s support desk was quick and responsive. It turns out the solution was easy, if you do it in the right order!

1. Run the SBS wizard to generate a new CSR request. Leave this screen up.

2. Login to the GoDaddy site, and drill down to the SSL cert in question, and select Manage, and then enter the additional SAN names required (in my case, it was autodiscover.xxx.com).

3. Then select the Re-Key option from Godaddy, and once the cert has been re-keyed (a matter of seconds), you can download the Cert zip file – with no waiting for a confirmation email!

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4. Copy and unzip the Cert file on the server, and then complete the SBS Wizard.

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Categories : Exchange, SBS, Security
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Windows Defender Offline Error 0x80508007

by KW · Comments (0)
Aug 05 2012

Microsoft’s Windows Defender Offline (WDO) product should be in the toolkit for every I.T. technician. If you are trying to run this on a very old Windows XP computer with less than 768KB of memory, WDO will display error 0x80508007 when starting up.

The error message displayed does not tell you what’s wrong, but the cause is not enough memory. WDO requires a minimum of 768KB of memory.

Microsoft’s article KB 2520970 includes a list of error codes you may encounter.

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Categories : Malware, Security, Windows
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GetDataBack True Story

by KW · Comments (0)
Aug 04 2012

This is a true story that happened recently to me. I was taking my daily evening walk around our neighborhood a few days ago, and a man working in his yard stopped me and said, “you’re Kevin, the computer guy. right?”

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Long story short – he had a disk drive that had crashed, and wanted to know if there was anything I could do to recover some documents and pictures from it. He then tells me that he had two other computer people check out the drive, and they both said that the data was unrecoverable. One person, that he describes as a “computer expert”, told him that he has a lot of expensive tools and utilities at his disposal, and that the disk is trash.

I asked if I could give it a try. I took the disk back home, hooked it up to my computer, and ran GetDataBack (from Runtime Software). It took several hours for it to complete, but once it was done, I was able to locate and retrieve over 400 documents, 343 pictures, and 62 music files.

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Then I suggested that he get a backup drive or back it up to the cloud!

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Categories : Backup, Windows
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Fix RDP Gateway Warning in SBS 2011 BPA

by KW · Comments (0)
Aug 03 2012

With the UR3 update to the SBS 2011 Best Practices Analyzer, you may see a new warning:

The certificate for the Remote Desktop Gateway service seems to be bound incorrectly
Source: 432

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This issue may cause users to not connect to Remote Web Workplace.

The resolution is to run the following commands from an administrator-level command prompt:

REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\HTTP\Parameters\SslBindingInfo\0.0.0.0:443 /v DefaultFlags /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
net stop tsgateway
net start tsgateway

To help you in this process, I have already put these commands into a file for you to use:

  1. Click KB-2472211-RDP-Gateway-Fix.txt to download and save this file
  2. After saving the file, Rename the suffix of the file name from .txt to .bat
  3. Right click on the file, and click to Run as Administrator
  4. I’ve included a pause statement in the file so you can verify that it ran properly

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Rerun BPA and the warning message should no longer display.

For more information on this issue, its impact and resolution, please check out Microsoft’s KB 2472211 article.

EDIT: Fixed reference to net start tsgateway. Thanks, Alexander!

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Categories : SBS
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