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SBS 2011 Essentials Log Collector RTM

November 23, 2011 by Robert Pearman 2 Comments

The SBS 2011 Essentials Log Collector tool has finished its beta test and is now available as an RTM Download.

The download is available as an MSI, or as an Add-in for SBS Essentials in WSSX format. The cool thing about using the Add-in on the server is it will automatically push out the Log Collector out to any client machine you have connected on the network.

The Log Collector is really simple to use, and will take a lot of the Read more of this post

Filed under General, SBS E, Tips & Tricks Tagged with Connector, Deployment, Logs, SBS E

Quick Fix : Did I Update or Did I Not Update, that is the question!

November 3, 2011 by Robert Pearman 3 Comments

I currently have a number of books on my desk that i use for reference, you may have heard of them, read them, bought them, stolen them, sorry, borrowed them etc, Anyway they wont be a new idea to you, i don’t mean books in general i mean these particular books. I am of course referring to the Administrators Pocket Consultant series from Microsoft Press.

All of them unnervingly seem to be written by the same person, Mr William R Stanek. Anyway there is a point to this.

I have been answering questions in the forum recently and i find myself asking the OP, hey do you have XYZ update installed?

They usually reply, how do i check?

Of course i refer them to their Administration journal, which clearly shows the date and time any update had passed testing and was approved for installation, the name of the tech who logged onto the server, the colour of his socks he had on whilst he installed it. Of course it could have been a her.

Knowing many of you don’t keep such a journal only saddens me, i like to know what colour socks i had on, on a given day and i frequently go back and check.

I turned of course to my PowerShell Administrators Companion, and found the following command.

Never again shall you be left red faced by the question, do you have XYZ update installed? Not only will you be able to answer with confidence, you will be able to give all sorts of other detail that will really impress me.

Loading up PowerShell, you can simply type…

Get-Hotfix

This will list all of the Updates, Hotfixes and Service Packs that have been installed onto the system, it will also list the date, and who installed them.

But how does that help you find a specific update? Simply add the KB number you are looking for.

Get-Hotfix –id <KB Number>

For example if i want to know if i have installed SBS Essentials Update Rollup 1, i can type..

Get-Hotfix –id KB2554629

If the hotfix is not installed you will get an error.

As easy as that.

By the way, I’m not selling these books nor do i earn commission out of their sale, but i have one of these books for pretty much every Microsoft Server/Client OS i support. They are cheap and are just full of brilliant tips such like the one i just ripped off and turned into a blog post.

Filed under General, PowerShell, Quick Fix, SBS E, SBS S, Tips & Tricks Tagged with Power Shell, SBS E, SBS S, Updates

Quick Fix: Outlook 2010 Sending from a second Exchange Mailbox

October 31, 2011 by Robert Pearman 15 Comments

I have been battling this problem for some time now. It has been driving me to distraction it is fair to say.

What i didn’t realise until now, is that i was actually battling two separate issues, once i realised that it made the solution clear.

The issue i was facing was that additional mailboxes were being automatically added to an Outlook profile. This was puzzling me because firstly, i didn’t know why it was happening, and secondly i wasn’t able to send from that second mailbox. I could manually type in the address in the From field, but i wanted to be able to choose it and have the signature change based on the account i was using.

So a lot, of research, lab work and questions later i think i found the answers, and the solution.

Issue 1. Exchange 2010 SP1 Full Mailbox Access

Are you running Exchange 2010 SP1 with clients running Outlook 2010 SP1?

If you are, and like me you have shared mailboxes, or generic mailboxes that other users access, you may be used to setting Full Mailbox access permission on those generic accounts.

(You would then add them to Outlook through the properties of your Primary Mailbox, under More Settings, and Advanced)

With Exchange 2010 SP1 and Outlook 2010 SP1 having given full mailbox access to an account, you may have seen a that the account that you have full mailbox access to, has automatically added itself to your Outlook profile.

You may also notice, there is no way to remove it!

This behaviour is actually well documented, but one of the best explanations i found is here.

If you don’t want to bother reading that – and you should read it – basically using Exchange 2010 SP1 EMC, EMS to add Full Mailbox Access, now also sets an Attribute on the account – msExchDelegateListLink. This attribute says which other accounts have access to this mailbox.

Outlook 2010 SP1 will look for that key now and anyone that matches, will be auto added. Quite straight forward when you know what is happening.

So that is the first part of the mystery solved.

The solution to stop this happening is easy, remove that attribute. You can either do it through ADSIEdit, or by Adding Full Mailbox Access with a script instead of using the EMC/EMS. again ill point you back to this blog for the solution.

Assuming you have now removed that attribute, you can go ahead and add the second mailbox the traditional way.

Issue 2. Outlook 2010 Send from Multiple Exchange Mailboxes

But wait – once you have done this, you still cannot select it as an account to send from?

At this point i really started to get frustrated. I was wrongly blaming Exchange 2010 SP1 for this weird behaviour and missing the clue right under my nose.

It seems that the ability to send from a second Exchange mailbox, when it is added in what i will call, the traditional manner, has been changed in Outlook 2010.

I’m running Outlook 2010 and have several exchange mailboxes open, i just had never noticed this behaviour. I’m also running Exchange 2007, and having been dealing with the issue outlined above, i never thought to look at my own Outlook.

The solution here seems to be very simple indeed.

Once you have removed the attribute, you still retain full access. That means you can add the second mailbox, as a totally separate account, and you wont be prompted to login to that mailbox, because your current credentials have permission to open it.

So to recap, first you need to make sure you remove the msExchDelegateListLink attribute from the second mailbox. Then just add that second mailbox as a second account. You will need to close Outlook down in order to do that, when adding the mailbox choose to ‘Manually Configure Server Settings..’

You will then see the mailbox as a second account.

And you can choose to send from this account as well.

I really hope this helps you, and saves you some time and energy!

Filed under General, Quick Fix, SBS S, Tips & Tricks Tagged with Exchange 2010, Outlook, Outlook 2010, SBS. Exchange., Send As, Send from Multiple Accounts

Quick Fix : Find a Dell Service Tag, umm… Quickly!

October 28, 2011 by Robert Pearman 4 Comments

Very very cool little trick this, which i picked up from Merv ‘Google Fu’ Porter (SBS MVP), no idea where he found this… Google i suspect.

I’ve often needed to find a Dell service tag from a laptop, desktop or even a server, perhaps the best way used to be by asking a local user to look at the sticker.

Having battled with some of my users about just what a sticker actually looks like, it was time to find alternative options.

You may know you can go to the Dell Support website and run through a tool that will scan for your Service Tag, but that takes time (not really much time) but if you really, seriously, need that tag quick, and i mean yesterday, open up a command prompt and type this.

wmic csproduct get vendor,name,identifyingnumber

You’ll be shown your Service Tag and the Model of the Computer.

Thanks go to Merv.

Filed under General, Quick Fix, Tips & Tricks Tagged with Command Line, Dell, Service Tag

SBS 2011 Standard & iPhone

October 27, 2011 by Robert Pearman 3 Comments

I’ve noticed a lot of people are hitting my blog with search terms like SBS2011 iPhone or words to that effect. I got to thinking that maybe some people are not interested in the technical detail in my previous posts about iPhones or iPads, and maybe they just wanted to know how to add their Exchange email to their device.

If you want to know how to configure your iPhone with Office 365 look here.

If you are looking for information on the iPhone Configuration Utility, look here.

If you are looking for information on the iPhone and AutoDiscover, look here.

If you just want me to shut up and tell you what settings you need to make your iDevice work with your new Exchange Server, read on!

Add your email to your iPhone

First from the Home screen, go to Settings.

iPhone home screen and settings

Then go to Mail, Contacts, Calendars

iPhone settings mail contacts calendars

Choose Add an Account.

Choose Microsoft Exchange

Add Microsoft Exchange

You are then asked for 5 pieces of information.

Email
Domain
Username
Password
Description

Email

This is your email address

Domain

Your servers internal domain name. For example, ‘sbs.local’ could be your internal domain name. You can just enter ‘sbs’

Username

This is the username you use when you logon to your computer in the office.

Password

The password you use when you logon to your computer in the office.

Description

This is just a memorable name so you can distinguish between multiple email accounts on your device.

Once you have filled out this information, click on Next. Notice the device now says ‘Verifying’

iPhone Exchange email verifying account

You may be presented with a warning message regarding ‘verification of the server identity’ Click on continue.

for more info on why this happens follow my link above regarding autodiscover.

iPhone Exchange Email Autodiscover

In most cases you will now see a new box appear, called Server.

Server

This is the public name for your SBS Server.

iPhone Exchange Email Server Address

The default for SBS 2008 and SBS 2011 is ‘remote.company.com’

(where company.com is your email domain)

Type this in and click next. Again the phone will show as Verifying.

iPhone Exchange Email Server Address

The next page will ask if you which items you want to sync to your phone.

Click on Save when you are happy with your selection.

iPhone Exchange Email choose items to sync

Your items will now start to sync to your phone.

iPhone Exchange Email Syncd

Default Behaviour

By default the iPhone will only sync the last 3 days of content, so don’t get freaked out if all of your email is ‘missing’.

You can change the behaviour in the settings of the account.

Under, Settings, Mail, Contact, Calendars, find your account by its description. Inside here you can change the sync behaviour.

Filed under General, SBS S, Tips & Tricks Tagged with ActiveSync, Email iPhone, Exchange, iPad, iPhone, SBS S

Installing a Second Server : SBS 2011 Essentials & Premium Add on Server

October 25, 2011 by Robert Pearman 7 Comments

It seems like a lot of businesses are bringing a second server online lately, perhaps discovering the benefits a Terminal Server (or Remote Desktop Services Server or even Multipoint) can bring, or maybe it is a Server that will run SQL for an LOB application. Personally i prefer to keep the SBS free of Apps if possible, especially accounts programs.

The SBS PAO (Premium Add on) Is a great way to get that second server and SQL license, but it may not be the most cost effective route to get what you want, so make sure you do your research before purchasing.

That’s my little marketing pledge done, now on to the technical stuff.

If you are familiar with installing SBS and general networking, likely you know already how to add a second server to an SBS Standard network, but what about essentials?

Do you try to install the connector?
Do you use the traditional ‘Computer Name’ tab in System Properties?
Does it show up in the Dashboard?
Does it get backed up?

Connector or Not Connector that is the question!

Firstly you need to ask what OS is your server. Is it Server 2008, 2008 R2 or maybe an older 2003?

The connector software will install on Server 2008 R2 Standard, IF you are running SP1, and also if your Server is NOT a Domain Controller.

If you are not running SP1 you will see this message if you attempt to install the Connector software.

If you want to know which OS’s and Versions are supported, check out the ‘supportedOS’ XML file on your essentials box.

You will find that file in this directory

C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin\WebApps\Client\Package\

If you want to know what version of Windows you are running, you can type this command into an Elevated command prompt:

systeminfo | findstr /B /C:”OS Name” /C:”OS Version”

Assuming you meet the requirements you will be presented with a warning about Supported Client OS’s and you can click on ‘Continue Anyway’ to continue the installation.

You may want to note that it is not possible to install the connect when logged on using Remote Desktop. Also the same problems affecting install on Client OS’s can strike on a Server install. Plenty of resources out there for those, but my post is where i will point you.

Now for my disclaimer.

Adding the connector is not supported. You get a big warning to the same effect. If you do decide to install the connector it is at your own risk, i am not going to be held responsible for anything, whether it works or doesn’t work, whether it works some of the time and whether it makes you look silly. By reading this disclaimer in your head or out loud you have waived any legal responsibility on my part in perpetuity throughout the universe.

Is it in the Dashboard?

Yes. If you install the connector then it will indeed show up in the dashboard.

Does it get backed up?

The short answer? Yes it does.

It does appear that the SBS Essentials ‘Client Backup’ will backup the server OS.

However, i have to stress this is not supported, and because of that there is no guarantee from anyone, Not me, Not Microsoft that you could successfully restore your server from that backup.

The SBSE client backup does not contain ‘agents’ for the Server OS or any applications you may be running on it, like SQL, so a backup with the SBSE client backup cannot be trusted, or guaranteed.

If you are going to have the Server show up in the dashboard, i recommend you disable the SBSE backup, and instead rely on your own backup strategy for the Server, but i am not discussing that in this post.

You can disable the backup from the dashboard, by clicking ‘Customise Client Backup for the computer’ and clicking disable backup.

You may also want to disable the launch pad.

The launch pad runs, or at least seems to run, perfectly well on the server. I set my test server up as a RDS (TS / Terminal Server) and logged into with two separate accounts, and the Launchpad ran fine for both. The only thing i didn’t like was that a helpful or considerate user may want to poke around the backup settings, and that could be bad, so to remove temptation, my advice would be disable it.

Likely as not you wont need the Launchpad on that server anyway.

You can disable the Launchpad through the registry, or via MSCONFIG.

Multipoint Server

All of the above is subject to one exception. Windows Multipoint Server 2011. (WMS)

This Server OS, is supported for use with Essentials, can handle the Connector install, and perhaps most importantly, is also supported to be used with the SBSE Client backup.

If you haven’t heard of, seen, or used WMS, then get yourself along to the SMB MVP Community Road Show and see it in action.

Useful links for Multipoint

Filed under General, SBS E, Tips & Tricks Tagged with Premium Addon, RDP, SBS E

Quick Fix : SBS 2011 Standard (Exchange 2010) 554 5.1.0 Sender Denied

October 7, 2011 by Robert Pearman 22 Comments

Had a puzzler last week. Client called up to say one of his contacts couldn’t email him. It was being rejected.

Message Rejections will be a common problem for many people, and the best thing to do is get a copy of the rejection message or what i call NDR (Non Delivery Receipt (or Report) )

Luckily in this case, there was actually an NDR generated, because some times email can just seem to vanish into the ether, and you’re left with little to go on…

Also luckily for me the third party was happy to send on the NDR via my client’s secretary.

The smart ones reading will now have figured out that the rejections were only to my caller – the third party was able to email the secretary successfully.

Here is the NDR

You can see that the Error Code is #5.1.0 smtp; 554 5.1.0 Sender denied

Sender denied i thought… sounds like something was configured in Exchange… which it turns out it was, but not what i thought.

Also, the NDR in question was generated by their Exchange server, not by their Offsite AntiSpam service, which helped me quickly identify that the issue was at their Exchange, not at the Anti Spam service.

Sender Filtering, is one of the Anti Spam tools enabled and running by default on SBS 2011 Standard.

Usually the NDR above would be associated with an address that is blocked by the Sender Filter running on the Hub Transport Role.

However in this case there were no addresses blocked by the Sender Filter at the server level.

(if you want to look at the Anti Spam tools, i have covered their location at the end of the post)

In this case the address was defined by the users own Junk Mail settings.

I logged into the SBS RWA (Remote Web App) and logged into Outlook Web App (OWA)

Clicking on to Options, then More Options, there is a ‘Block or Allow’ option in the menu on the left hand side.

If you click here you can see a list of Allowed Senders, and a list of Blocked Senders. Scroll Down to see Blocked Senders.

Sure enough the email address being rejected was set to be blocked. Removing the address from this list will allow emails to be received from that address. Make sure to save the changes and that should solve the problem.

It wont solve the mystery of how the address ended up as a blocked sender, but that mystery will live on, like the other great mysteries we face, such as using a PC during a power cut, Photocopying a floppy disk to use as a backup, and using the optical drive as a beverage cup holder.

Exchange Anti Spam Tools

You can find the Anti Spam tools on SBS by opening up Exchange Management Console, Navigating to..

Organization Configuration, Hub Transport, Anti Spam Tab

And Under …

Server Configuration, Hub Transport, You will find another Anti Spam Tab..

Exchange 2010 Anti Spam Related Links

MS TechNet – Enable Anti-Spam on a Hub Transport Server

MS TechNet Managing Anti-Spam Features

Filed under General, Quick Fix, SBS S, Tips & Tricks Tagged with SBS. Exchange.

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