Archive for SBS – Page 14

All By Myself

I can’t take credit for this song parody. My good MVP and fellow parody writer, Mick, put this down after reflecting on Windows Server 2012 Essentials product, and how in earlier versions of SBS, Exchange setup has always been automated.

Video: “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen

When SBS was young,
It never needed anyone,
And doin’ SMB was sorrta fun,
THESE DAYS ARE GONE.

Serve alone,
All our friends gone home,
But when I dial the telephone
Nobody’s home

ALL BY MYSELF,
DON’T WANNA BE
ALL BY MYSELF, ANYMORE
ALL BY MYSELF,
DON’T WANNA SERVE
ALL BY MYSELF, ANYMORE

Hard to be sure,
Sometimes they sound so insecure
Their words so distant and obscure
What is the cure?

ALL BY MYSELF,
DON’T WANNA BE
ALL BY MYSELF, ANYMORE
ALL BY MYSELF,
DON’T WANNA SERVE
ALL BY MYSELF, ANYMORE

When SBS was young
We always thought life was fun
And usin’ wizards to get things done
These days are gone

ALL BY MYSELF,
DON’T WANNA BE
ALL BY MYSELF, ANYMORE
ALL BY MYSELF,
DON’T WANNA WORK
ALL BY MYSELF, ANYMORE

SPF Record Wizard

The OpenSpf organization used to provide a tool for creating an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record for mail server/domain. But that tool has been retired.

Microsoft offers their own Sender Id/SPF Wizard tool that is very easy to use, as seen in these screenshots:

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Step 1: Enter your domain

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Step 2: Obtain current publicly published DNS records

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Step 3: Configure your SPF options

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Step 4: Generate your SPF record

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Now go to your domain control panel or contact your vendor to add your SPF record. You may then test your SPF by sending test emails, as described on the OpenSpf organization’s website.

14 MVPs on SMB 150 List

Recently, I was selected to the SMB 150  List for 2012 – 150 people recognized for their work in promoting and working in the small/medium business I.T. Industry. Today, it was announced that of those 150 winners,  14 of them are Microsoft MVP’s, of which I am one. So, I am doubly honored, but not for the award and recognition.

No, I am honored because I can call so many of these people my friends. I know that as hard as they work to make their business a success and work to make their customers successful, they work equally hard trying to make this world a better place.

14 Microsoft MVPs Recognized as Part of the 2012 SMB 150 List

SMB 150

Awarded SMB 150 Channel Influencer

Wow! I was just informed that I was selected as one of the top 150 Small & Medium Business (SMB) Channel Influencers, an award given out by SMB Nation. The winners come from around the globe, from Australia to the United States, from Europe and Asia to South America! Congratulations to all 150 winners.

A three-part process determined this year’s list of SMB 150 influencers. The competition began with an open nominating process, followed by the SMB IT community voting on the nominees at www.smb150.com. In addition to the community vote, a panel of industry experts judged each nominee based on a variety of relevant areas. The community vote accounted for 40% of each nominee’s overall rating, with the expert panel’s decision contributing the remaining 60%.

Microsoft Updates for April 10 2012

Yes, Microsoft is pushing out several security fixes and updates for both servers and workstations.

I configure the SBS servers I support so that new patches and fixes are NOT applied automatically. The same holds true for most workstations. Why? I like to be able to test out patches and updates on my lab systems prior to releasing them onto production servers. The SBS Server Console has a built in GUI interface to the WSUS server, allowing you to control and manage when and which updates should be installed.

Go to the Microsoft Security page/u> for details and a video overview of this month’s updates.

SMB 150 Nomination

I was honored two years ago to have been selected as one of the top 150 SMB (small/medium business) professionals in the inaugural 2010 event.

I am thrilled to say that I have been nominated for the 2012 version of this event.

I would be pleased if you would take a moment to vote for me. Click on the link below to go to my nomination page, then click on the blue VOTE button immediately to the left of my name. Thanks!

http://smb150.com/story.php?title=kevin-weilbacher

Voting for this year’s event continues through Friday April 6, 2012. You may vote more than once, but only every 24 hours. Voting is tracked by public IP Address, which means you could vote for me at work, and then vote for me again at home.

Disable SMB2 on Windows 7

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.

SBS 2011 Rollup 2 Released

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.

Disabling SSLv2 for PCI-DSS Scan

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).

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\PCT 1.0\Server]
“Enabled”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols\SSL 2.0\Server]
“Enabled”=dword:00000000

New Orleans Brain Explosion 2012

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