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Author Archive for KW – Page 25

Hotfix Rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 2008 R2 SP1

by KW · Comments (0)
Mar 13 2013

On March 13, 2013 Microsoft released KB 2775511. They refer to this as “an enterprise hotfix rollup” for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 2008 R2 SP1. This rollup contains 90 hotfixes that have been issues since the release of SP1 for Windows 7/Windows 2008 R2.

The chatter on this release is that a lot of work went into this rollup, and that you definitely want to be looking at this for your customers and your own systems. Microsoft says that this hotfix rollup improves the overall performance and system reliability of Windows 7/Windows 2008 R2 SP1 systems.

One small example: I installed it on my own Windows 7 workstation and saw a dramatic improvement in boot time.

Now, for whatever reason, you will NOT find this hotfix rollup on Microsoft Update (MU) or Windows Update (WU) or on WSUS. That’s correct – you will NOT find it there. Instead, you will find it on the Microsoft Update Catalog download site. I know … I’m with you on this one as I didn’t know about this site myself.

But lets stop gabbing and get to downloading and installing the rollup!

  1. You can read the details about this rollup here: KB 2775511 
  2. Or go straight to the Microsoft Update Catalog site
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  3. In the Search box, enter 2775511 and click Search
  4. The list of available files are displayed. There are separate versions of this hotfix rollup for Windows 7/x86, Windows 7/x64, Windows 2008 R2 x64, and Windows 2008 R2 Itanium.
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  5. Click on the Add button for those versions you want.
  6. After that, click on the Download button and choose your desired drive/folder location to store the downloads.
    image   image
  7. For each version, a folder is created with two files in it — a .exe file and a .msu file.
    Double click on the appropriate .msu file to install the hotfix.
    image
  8. Install and reboot your system. That’s it!

Now, for those who like to do performance measurement, there’s a tool called XPerf you may want to take a look at. There’s a nice blog post on using XPerf to measure Slow Boot Slow Logon (SBSL) scenarios

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Categories : News, SBS, Servers, Windows
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Calcheck – Microsoft’s Calendar Checking Tool

by KW · Comments (0)
Mar 07 2013

While working on a user issue with calendar items syncing properly, I came across this free Microsoft utility called CalCheck (how original!) that they released in 2012. They say that this utility works with Outlook 2003/2007/2010 and Exchange 2003/2007/2010.

Please note – this utility does NOT fix anything. Rather, it looks for calendar items that may be corrupted, creates a log file report, and optionally move those items to a separate Outlook folder for you to review.

INSTALL THE SOFTWARE:

  1. Download the CalCheck utility to your workstation, and unzip the file
  2. Locate and run CalCheck.exe with admin privileges (Run As…)
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  3. When finished, locate and review the CalCheck.log file that was created.

It appears that most Calendar item issues flagged are associated with one of the scenarios described in Microsoft’s KB  2714118 (“Calendar items that are copied are missing in Exchange Server 2007”)

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I’ll report back on my findings as it relates to the issue at hand.

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Categories : Exchange, Windows
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eM Client – Outlook replacement?

by KW · Comments (0)
Mar 06 2013

So, when your neighbor or family member decided to purchase a new PC, how long did it take for them to discover that Outlook Express is not available on Windows 7?

And when they called you to complain, what direction did you turn for a replacement email client? Thunderbird? Eudora? Windows Live Mail? something else? Well, there are pros and cons to each of the above alternatives.

ENTER EM CLIENT!

A fellow MVP’er recently suggested that I take a look at eM Client. And I must admit, I’m quite impressed with it at first glance.

image

PLEASE NOTE:

eM Client does not interface with Exchange. Second, eM Client has both a free and Pro (paid) version. The free version is more than suitable for the family member or neighbor you might have in mind.

GO AHEAD AND INSTALL IT!

  1. Yes, go ahead and download and run the eM Client install utility. It runs on both Windows 7 & 8.
  2. Click to Agree to the EULA, and click to Install.
  3. Once installed, decide whether to make eM Client your default mail application, and then click Finish.
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CONFIGURING IT IS EASY!

  1. When eM Client starts up the first time, you can select which theme to use. I went with the default Modern theme. Click Next.
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  2. You can then choose whether to import email accounts and data from either Microsoft Outlook or Windows Live Mail, or you can select to Skip Import, which is what I did on my computer, and then click Next. However, I installed eM Client on another computer that has Outlook 2007, and the import feature brought over both the data and email settings.
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  3. You can choose to let it do an Automatic Setup, by entering your email address and password. Or you can click on the Mail option and set things up manually. eM Client includes support for Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL, as well as standard POP3 or IMAP mail accounts.
    image
  4. For my first test, I created a new email address on one of my web sites, with a mail server that supports both POP3 and IMAP. From the eM Client window, I entered my email address and password, clicked a couple of buttons, and voila! we are up and running.
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EM CLIENT FEATURES

You can read the long list of features for yourself from the eM Client website. I’ll just point out three things right now:

  1. The first feature is that it looks like Outlook (without the Ribbon Line)!
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  2. The second feature is that I imported an email account with a default PST file nearly 7GB in size, plus an archive PST file over 4GB in size, and it all imported fine – mail, calendar, contacts and tasks!
  3. The third feature I like is that eM Client includes a built in backup utility, that can be configured and runs via Windows Task Scheduler. Yes, no big deal to most of us, but it sure is a nice feature for my neighbor!
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Categories : News, Windows
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Setup Tracking Protection for Internet Explorer

by KW · Comments (0)
Mar 04 2013

Internet Explorer (IE) version 9/10 has a feature called Tracking Protection. Paul Thurrott covers the details of this feature in his blog post. By enabling Tracking Protection, chances are you will also see a performance boost when browsing the Internet.

So here are the quick steps for implementing Tracking Protection:

  1. Open up IE9/IE10 and click on Tools –> Safety –> Tracking Protection. This will open up the Tracking Protection section of Manage Add-ons.
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    Please note: whenever you change or add something to Tracking Protection, you may need to close and re-open the Tracking Protection in order to see your changes.

  2. Click “Your Personalized List” and click the Enable button. This will tell IE to automatically generate an internal tracking protection list based on your browsing habits.

    After enabling, click on “Settings for this list…” and it will display for you URL’s (based on your browsing history) that you may wish to block.
    image   image

  3. Close and then reopen Tracking Protection and you will now see a new option “Get a Tracking Protection online….”. Click on this link and from the new window that opens up, select one or more third party tracking protection lists. Then Click Add –> Add List, then close and reopen Tracking Protection.

    image   image   image

Now, go ahead and enjoy a safer and faster browsing experience!

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Categories : Security, Windows
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PDF FlipBook Maker

by KW · Comments (0)
Mar 03 2013

I recently had a customer who wanted to take their sales catalog (which is in PDF format) and publish it to their web site. So I checked out and tested several third party software, both free and paid, to see which would fit our need. The one I ended up using is a product called FlipBook Maker, from KVISoft.

What I liked about this product over some of the simpler, free versions is the amount of customization and control they provide, plus several different “themes”, all at a reasonably low cost.

  1. Download their 30 day trial version of FlipBook Maker and install it.
    Start the program, and select (import) your desired PDF file
  2. When importing, you can select which pages should be used, and as well as the level of page quality.
    Program will then process your PDF file to build thumbnail images and a table of content
    image
  3. You can select from 16 themes, as well as customize the layout
    image   image
  4. Once you are finished with customizing the interface, it’s time to generate the final result.

    Here’s where things get interesting. By default, it will create a folder appropriate for uploading to your web site, complete with a suitable index.html file. More importantly, this HTML version includes a generated mobile version for smart phones and tablet display. But you can also publish it in an executable (.exe) or zip (.zip) file format or as a Mac App.
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Interested in seeing the final result? Take a peek here.

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Categories : Tools
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Installing Exchange 2007 Rollups for SBS 2008

by KW · Comments (0)
Feb 28 2013

There are things that I do in managing my computer systems that I would classify under the category of “trusted habits”. For example, whenever I am updating a server, I always reboot it before installing updates. Or, I generally install any .Net updates separate from other Windows security patches.

Another trusted habit of mine is to install Exchange related rollups or service packs on their own, manually. That is, I don’t use WSUS or WU/MU to automatically install Exchange updates.

As an example, let’s take a quick look at applying Update Rollup 10 for Exchange 2007 SP3, which  was released in February 2013 (see KB2788321).

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Before proceeding, make sure you do my three essential pre-requisites:

  1. Backup your server
  2. Reboot Your Server
  3. Disable any anti-virus software running on your server

Even though WSUS/MU properly informs me that Update Rollup 10 is available, I won’t use WSUS/MU to install it.

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Instead, go to KB2788321 this link, and download and save the 64 bit version of RU10 to your desktop or Download folder.

Right click on the downloaded file, click Apply, then click Open, and wait a few minutes while it computes space requirements.

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Please note: If you get an error message about insufficient permissions or privileges, DON’T PANIC.
Just open up an elevated command prompt, and locate/run the download file from there.

Click Next, when prompted, to begin the installation, and accept the License Terms. Wait while it generates the required .Net files, then click Next. The installation will proceed, and may take 30-40 minutes to complete.

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Once the rollup has been installed, go ahead and reboot your server, and then check and verify that all of the appropriate Exchange services have started, and delete the rollup file you downloaded.

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Categories : Exchange, SBS, Servers
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First book on Windows Server 2012 Essentials released

by KW · Comments (0)
Jan 17 2013

My good friend and fellow SBS MVP’er, Boon Tee, has released the first book published on Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Essentials. This Administrator’s Guide is available as an e-book only.

You can read more about the book and order it online here: http://adminguide.ws2012e.us

You can also download a sample of his book here: http://www.powerbiz.net.au/files/BookSample.pdf

Cover

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Categories : Essentials, News, SBS, Servers
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Swing Migration Updated!

by KW · Comments (0)
Jan 16 2013

Jeff Middleton is founder of IT Pro Experts and creator of the Swing Migration methodology and tool kit. He has just announced new updates to his kits.
http://itproexperts.com/blog/platform-migration-project-solutions-matrix/

I have successfully used Jeff’s Swing Migration for years to upgrade customers from older versions of SBS to the newer Microsoft platforms (SBS 2008, SBS 2011, Windows Server Essentials 2012). His methodology also applies to standard Windows and Exchange server migrations.

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Categories : Exchange, News, SBS, Servers, SMB
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KWSupport in Tampa Tribune

by KW · Comments (0)
Jan 16 2013

Tribune ArticleAn article on KW Support & Consulting LLC was published in the Brandon edition of The Tampa Tribune on Wednesday January 16th, 2013.

2013-Tribune-Article

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Categories : News, SBS
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Scorpion Software Webinar

by KW · Comments (0)
Jan 15 2013

Dana Epp, a fellow Microsoft MVP, has a webinar scheduled for Wednesday January 16th. His company, Scorpion Software, provides secure password management solutions.

Here is a personal (video) invitation from Dana:

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Categories : News, Security, SMB
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