>>> Hot Issues for March 2010 <<<:
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/partnermsgexchange/thread/0f41299d-7671-4b70-b552-1af50345fa88

TOP SUPPORT ISSUES

[ISSUE 1]

Problem Description:

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Some meeting requests from external domain are received as .msg attachment. Thus no Accept/Decline buttons. The meeting requests in question are with extended characters and in HTML format.

Cause:

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Exchange 2003 unexpectedly converts the .ics files.

RESOLUTION:

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 Exchange 2003 is unable to convert .ics files to Outlook meeting items for multiple-event iCal files

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;925873

Related information:

==============

The formats of meeting request:

In Outlook, meeting requests are saved in the MAPI format, which is a binary format. All of the e-mails transferred in the Internet, including meeting requests, are in the MIME format, which is an International standard that almost all mail servers can understand. When we send a meeting request to an Internet recipient, an e-mail in the MIME format is created and the meeting request is encapsulated in it. In the MIME message, the meeting information can be saved in two forms:

Recipients are receiving winmail.dat attachments:
http://www.slipstick.com/problems/alwaysrtf.asp

A good write up on what to do with winmail.dat attachments.  I haven't seen any in a while so I think either exchangedefender.com is handling mine or I've brainwashed myself into ignoring them.

Desktop shortcuts disappear in Windows 7:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978980/

Vote on this please:  System Maintenance tool should not delete unused or broken desktop shortcuts | Microsoft Connect:
https://connect.microsoft.com/site470/feedback/details/541344/system-maintenance-tool-should-not-delete-unused-or-broken-desktop-shortcuts

This will be one of the annoying rollout gotchas of Windows 7 I'll be talking about at SMBnation East.  I've hit this twice in our office.  If you leave your computer on (and in SBS world we do) over the weekend, you come back Monday morning and your tax software icons are gone.  People in the office are still a icon on the desktop world.  I can change their OS out to anything and as long as the apps worked and the icons didn't move they wouldn't notice what OS I gave them.  (Yeah I'd have to ensure the background image was the same).

For now I'm turning off the system maintenance option because I can't have the tax software icon be gone on Monday morning.

For those keeping track ... this is the nic in my server.  Used to be I would update that nic driver when I built the server and never ever ever look at it again.  Now I check if there are newer drivers when I get the HP alert emails just in case.

Notice: (Revision) HP NC375i /NC375T Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter - NIC Is Designed to Only Use the Auto/Auto (Optimum Connection) Speed/Duplex Setting - c01916242 - HP Business Support Center:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01916242&dimid=1170844702&dicid=alr_mar10&jumpid=em_alerts/us/mar10/all/xbu/emailsubid/mrm/mcc/loc/rbu_category/alerts

 The Official SBS Blog : A Tip for Preventing Certain Sharepoint Connectivity Failure in SBS 2008:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2010/03/12/a-tip-for-preventing-certain-sharepoint-connectivity-failure-in-sbs-2008.aspx

Little bit of backchannel on this.  I personally have never had an issue installing the Sharepoint service packs.  Eriq Neale and Philip Elder have.  It appears that on some types of servers you may hit this issue.  Yes I'm using all of the lovely fuzzy accounting wiggle lingo to ensure that you understand I do not know why I never hit it and Eriq and Philip have on certain machines.  Therefore as SP2 is soon to be a required service pack level for SharePoint v3, when you build a box you may want to do this step proactively just to make sure SharePoint sp3 comes out fine.

A white dot may appear on the top-left corner of the screen when an Aero theme is selected and “Enable transparency” is unchecked:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2020674/en-us

High CPU usage or irregular behavior occurs in virtual machines that are running in Windows Virtual PC:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981285/en-us

The "Allow the printing of background colors and images" Group Policy does not take effect on a computer that has Internet Explorer 8 installed:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;980077&sd=rss&spid=13418

Running Multiple Versions of Internet Explorer On Single Operating System is Unsupported:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;2020599&sd=rss&spid=13418

Bytes sent and bytes received are not reported or are incorrect after configuring Virtual LANs:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;2019615&sd=rss&spid=14134

The right side of the first page of a printed .eml file may be truncated on a computer that has Internet Explorer 8 installed:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;980333&sd=rss&spid=13418

Dean shared this KB article. 

You may want to check your Arbeid frakoblet and make sure it's not a Arbeid tikoblet.

The "Arbeid frakoblet" button does not change to "Arbeid tilkoblet" after you click the button in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977832/

I think I'm turning into my fuddy duddy years.  I don't get foursquare. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7419911/Kevin-Rose-My-Foursquare-data-will-tell-my-life-story.html

http://foursquare.tumblr.com/post/441568658/happy-birthday-foursquare 

I don't get the attraction of logging into a site and telling people that I'm not home.  I don't get the attraction of posting everything of my life story of where I am any hour of the day or night.  There's already a site that looks for twitter posts to identify people not home so you can go rob them.

I don't think it's wise to be posting EVERYTHING and not keeping some things private?  What about you?

That said, I will tell you right here and now on my blog that I will be at the Save Mart Center on Thursday, June 17th starting at 7 p.m.  Hint as to why and what for.

I think I know why the VLSC web site is going to be worked on again ...

I can't get to my product keys today

https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/servicecenter/home.aspx

The Volume Licensing Service Center will be taken off-line for scheduled maintenance starting Friday, March 12th at 06:00 PM PST. We expect to be back Sunday, March 14th at 3:30 PM PST.

If you were planning a weekend project, now is your time to get your media downloaded.

The NY Metro IT Pro Exchange : Windows Azure – What the IT Pro and/or SME business has been waiting for…:
http://blogs.technet.com/bobh/archive/2010/03/10/windows-azure-what-the-it-pro-and-or-sme-business-has-been-waiting-for.aspx

"So let me give somewhat of a real-life example.  Any of you who have seen me speak at the TechNet events has probably heard me use the example of an accounting application during tax season.  Having access to a server infrastructure that can expand to meet the needs of the business for the 3 months of tax season and then contract back to a smaller footprint after April 15th is something that business owners and IT Pros can only dream about, but that is what is indeed delivered with Windows Azure.  In a matter of minutes, an IT Pro or SME business owner could expand the number of instances that the tax software was running to meet the demand and then in a matter of minutes on April 16th, contract the number of instances of the tax application back to an appropriate number for the rest of the year.

I just realized this upcoming weekend is time change weekend.

Ugh. 

Don't forget Spring forward, and double check your servers and workstations and phones sync up.

The Official SBS Blog : Rejoining Small Business Server 2008 into a Preserved Domain after a Disaster:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2010/03/09/rejoining-small-business-server-2008-into-a-preserved-domain-after-a-disaster.aspx

From the hopefully never have to use this blog post category... one to keep around.

The Official SBS Blog : Help Secure your Business Information using Encrypting File System:
http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2010/03/09/help-secure-your-business-information-using-encrypting-file-system.aspx

I'm going to have to try this again.  When I tried to set up an EFS encrypted folder to be shared by multiple people I couldn't get it to work. the way I wanted it.

I'll have to try it again and report back.

I thought there wasn't going to be any server related patches this patching go round ...but a re-released update that technically is not a security patch in the true sense of the phrase came out.

Description of the update that implements Extended Protection for Authentication in Internet Information Services (IIS):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973917/

This one is of note because it's the patch that triggers the multiple authentication issue in Outlook - http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2010/02/16/outlook-2007-credential-prompts-in-small-business-server-2008.aspx that was fixed with Exchange 2007 update rollup 8 and later. 

While I'm appreciative of the fact that Microsoft finally got around to fixing the issue, the fact that it's flagged as a needed reinstall makes me <sigh>

On a 2k3 box if you enabled it, it would cause extra memory use.

SMB Nation Spring 2010:
http://smbnation.com/Events/SMBNationSpring2010/tabid/286/Default.aspx

Monday is the day.  The last day of a steal of a deal.  It's the end of the early bird sign up for SMBNation East.  What's special about SMBnation east held April 30th to May 2nd?  I'll be there for one.  My talk.. or rather my open session with you is about Windows 7 a year later. 

What's worked for you, what hasn't?  What annoys you?  What doesn't?  It will an honest look at Windows 7 in a small business.

Join me at SMBnation east.

And check out how the hotel is included in the price.  Cool!

Once upon a time we had a Pepsi machine.  It was over 20 years old, and the company wouldn't rent it to us anymore.  And a firm without their caffeine is ...well.. not pretty.  So we had to find a replacement machine.  So I went online to ebay and on the web to search for refurbished Pepsi/Coke machines.  Finding a company was not a problem - through ebay I found a company that sold refurbished ones.  They were out of a machine that had a certain logo that we were used to.  So I had to settle on another logo'd machine.

Finding a company to deliver it from Rancho Cucamonga to Fresno, also was not a problem. 

Getting in through the door of the office and set up in the kitchen THAT was a problem.   

First lesson learned, don't go with the cheapest price, it will always cost you more in the long run.

I'm Feeling Lucky? - F-Secure Weblog : News from the Lab:
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001897.html

At least the health of your computer anyway.

FDIC: Hackers took more than $120M in three months:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9167598/FDIC_Hackers_took_more_than_120M_in_three_months

I always see people say that you don't have to reformat a system after they've found malware on it.  But the more you read about rootkits, about the only way you'd know for sure is if you put a port sniffer on the outside and looked at the traffic of the box.  Are we to the point that you want to have a virtual machine that is only used for online banking?  After reading that it makes you wonder doesn't it?  Business banking accounts do not have the same safety net as the regular consumer credit accounts. 

I'm not one to throw my XPs out the window and replace them with Ubuntu but definitely googling on a XP with admin rights is like holding up a loaded gun and playing Russian Roulette these days.

Last week Steve Ballmer gave a speech at the University of Washington on Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy. This speech was an important step in illustrating to customers and industry how Microsoft’s comprehensive cloud strategy is helping change the way people and businesses use technology.
 
On Wednesday Allison Watson, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Group, will speak to members of the Microsoft Partner Network via webcast about the opportunities cloud computing offers for Microsoft partners. The webcast will air Wednesday, March 10, at 11 a.m. Pacific, and will be available for replay afterward.
 
To view the webcast, please visit www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com.

Microsoft Partner Network Community:
http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/Social/PartnerEvents/Permalink/Watch-Allison-Watsons-Webcast-on-Cloud-Computing-Opportunities-on-March-10

The original cloud computing visionary... Joni Mitchell

Do you have clients or customers in Massachusetts?

Do you hold key info about them like name and social security number?

You know what went into effect March 1st?

http://www.mass.gov/Eoca/docs/idtheft/201CMR1700reg.pdf

In a nutshell... if you have Massachusetts customers.

If you have name and SSN or credit card number or something that would lead to identity theft in the wrong hands

You need a written security program

You also need:

(1) Secure user authentication protocols including:

(a) control of user IDs and other identifiers;

(b) a reasonably secure method of assigning and selecting passwords, or use of unique identifier technologies, such as biometrics or token devices;

(c) control of data security passwords to ensure that such passwords are kept in a location and/or format that does not compromise the security of the data they protect;

(d) restricting access to active users and active user accounts only; and

(e) blocking access to user identification after multiple unsuccessful attempts to gain access or the limitation placed on access for the particular system;