Out-of-Office sent.. Out of Office

Some people like to have additional security around Out-Of-Office response e-mails. Those are the e-mails you automatically receive when you e-mail a person and they have set their Out-Of-Office in Outlook, or OWA (Exchange 2003 only).

Some companies (including Microsoft) make it corporate policy not to send these Out-Of-Office messages out of the company. I'm not exactly sure *why* you would want to do this, but I'm sure you have your own reasons.

Regardless, following KB Article 262352, I was able figure out a set of steps (mainly because they are provided) to disable this as this functionality is enabled by default on SBS 2003.

Here's how:

1. Open Server Management, then Advanced Management, First Organization (Exchange), Global Settings and click on Internet Message Formats


2. In the left-hand pane, right-click Default which is the * domain and choose Properties


3. On the Advanced Tab, un-select the Allow out of office responses

It seems confusing, but if you sit back and think about it, you're working primarily with the Internet Message Formats, and this is an Internet thing.

Oh, one last thing; Restart the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and the Microsoft Exchange Routing Engine services for the change to take affect.

Enjoy!
Sean

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Catfood, Dogfood it all Tastes Good

Sidebar: I appologize for not posting the past couple of days, I ended up taking a class, and also having an offsite. Combine that will a common cold, and there really isn't much free time to sit infront of a computer. As a result, I'm posting twice today (to kind of make up for lost time)

Microsoft has been dogfooding their own products for years. This means that Microsoft uses their own products first, in beta, release candidate and then finally in RTM. What many people don't know is that the Small Business Server team does the same thing, except we call it Catfooding.

Why Catfooding?

Well, it's a long story, let me explain, since I think it's kind of fun.

Microsoft also uses code names for each of our products because we start working on the product long before deciding what to call it. Windows Server 2003 has the codename Whistler (yes, after the mountain). When we sat down to give SBS 2003 a code name, we decided, well, it was built on top of Windows Server 2003, so why not pick a run on the mountain. Bobcat won the majority vote.

Since the choice of Bobcat as the code name, many things fell out of this

• Bobcat Orange - for those of you who installed the beta 1, you probably remember it


• FC Bobcat - The indoor soccer team that consisted of co-workers


• and Catfood - the dogfooding network for Bobcat

So now you know what Catfood is, what do we do with it?

Well, using a single SBS box, we host roughly 70 users. Trust me, we're power users. Moreover, we probably have the biggest Active Directory you've every seen on a single box! So what hardware do we use? nothing too powerful

• Dual Processor 2.8 GHz


• 1 GB of Ram


• RAID 5, SCSI disks

Sure it's a pretty heafty machine, but hey, it's got a pretty heafty load. Still, I've seen machines like this out there for 10 users! Wow! Administration is a little slow, but the users don't have any problems with use.

Catfooding is where it's at

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Disabling RPC/HTTP UI in Outlook

I was trying to figure out why I couldn't configure RPC over HTTP for Outlook 2003, I had XPSP2 installed, I was running Office SP1, It's all supposed to be functional.

Apparently, because of my wacky installation point, I had a registry key set which prevented the UI from showing up. Frustrated about this, I got to thinking. Some people out there like to disable things they don't want their users to play with, so I thought I'd post it here.

In the registry key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\RPC there is a DWORD EnableRPCTunnelingUI. If this DWORD is set to "1", the UI shows up regardless of how the server is configured. If the DWORD is set to "2", the UI will not show up.

Seems simple now. I guess that's why they say hindsight vision is 20/20.

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Using Templates ... not your brain

SBS 2003 has a feature that Windows Server does not have... ok it has a few features standard server doesn't have, but in this particular post, I wanted to share with you the wonder of using user templates.

You may have noticed that SBS has 4 templates out of the box

• Administrator Template - template to create additional administrators, consider using this template sparingly


• Power User Template - users who can add users and have limited administrative functionality


• Mobile User Template - template to create users who can use VPN/dial-up functionality of the server


• User Template - This should be the most common template for users. All of these users can use the Remote Web Workplace

What is so cool about templates? You can make as many as you like!

I spend time building templates and then when I add new users to my system, I can simply use the standard Add User Wizard and choose the appropriate template, each user will be added to the correct distribution groups, security groups, quotes, etc.

Play around with templates, get to know them, they can help you keep your environment consistent.

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Browsing a Pocket PC versus a SmartPhone

I've been using mobile devices for some time now. I like to do heavy customization, to ensure that the device is mine, and not a cookie cutter view of a graphic designer in building 118. I change the backdrop, the ring tones, the start menu, all to make my life easier so the device is more available to me.

How do you browse a device?

Simply doc it to your workstation, and click Explore on ActiveSync, or open My computer and open Mobile Device.

This is handy to browse the phone and copy files to and from your device. I typically get a picture and size it to the screen size of the device, and use it as my device backdrop.

So what's the key difference?
On the Pocket PC, you can copy files to any location on the device (at least the ones that I've played with), on the SmartPhone, you are limited to your Storage Card or your Storage directory on the phone (IPSM on Smart Phone 02 devices).

This is ok, as the OS will search the entire device for files of the correct format for what you're looking for.

I just wanted to mention it since it caused me some confusion when I was trying to customize my SmartPhone.

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How to spot the Microsoft Guy ...

I thought it would be kind of fun to point out a few things that Microsoft folk seem to do. How would you spot the Microsoft guy in a crowd?

• The Microsoft t-shirt toutes an internal url.


• The words "free food" take on a whole new meaning


• People ask how to fix anything, even though you don't work on it


• Lots of toys.

Enough said.

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Smarthosts .... The good, The bad, and The Ugly

Using DNS to route email is a great idea, except perhaps if you're on a dynamic IP Address like myself. Sure it works great for receiving mail, the problem is sending it.

Some domains on the internet consider mail from dynamic IP addresses to be spam, and the message is just rejected. But you're not a spammer (neither is Susan Bradley). What's going on here?

Well, the remote host is doing a reverse lookup on the IP address, which of course, since the SBS server is on a dynamic IP address, won't return the proper domain name. Bam, spam filtered, or so the remote host thinks.

How do you fix this? Smarthost.

Usually ISPs provide an smtp server, that is a Smarthost IP restricted to the IP addresses that they give out. Simply run CEICW and choose "forward all email to the specified host" and put the ISPs smarthost into the box.

Now you're problem is fixed!

Ok, time for some more information, what is a smarthost exactly? A smarthost is an email host that will an email from any email address and forward it to any email address. Sounds like a spam server eh? Yup, that's what it is. ISPs generally use IP restrictions and extensive logging to make sure that you're not spamming from within their network. A report from someone on spam can result in your account being disabled.

So what you don't want to do, is turn your SBS server into a smarthost, but what you might want to do have one SBS server forward mail to another SBS server. How do you do this? On the server you want to be the smarthost, follow these steps:

1. Open Server Management, expand Advanced Management, {Servername} (Exchange), Servers, {Servername}, Protocols and SMTP>.


2. Right-click Default SMTP Server and choose properties.


3. On the Access tab, click the Relay... button.


4. Click on Add, and add the IP Address of the other SBS server which will use this computer as a smarthost.

**Important: Be extremely careful which IP addresses you add, and do not add any more than neccessary, you wouldn't want your SBS server to be a spam relay server

One last note that when SBS server 1’s IP changes, you’ll have to re-do this sequence.

Enjoy the limited relay

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XBOX Live & Routers

So I've had a few issues recently connecting to games via XBOX live. This of course is no fun at all, especially when you want to play instead of troubleshoot networking issues.

Hopefully this post will help out.

My issue was, I was able to connect to XBOX live, and see my friends, and the games they were trying to host, then for some reason, when I attempted to connect to the game I would get "The game is no longer available".

Struggling and surfing the net for a while, I found that opening port 3074 (UDP) and pointing it to your XBOX will fix this issue.

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SBS Backup Event Logs

I see all too often posts in the newsgroups and Yahoo groups about SBS Backup failing with Event log ID 5634. This is not a surprise, Event ID 5634 means that backup failed.

Let me take a step back here and tell you how the reporting mechanism works.
A program called bkprunner.exe will launch via Task Scheduler and drop event 5632 into the event log, thus marking the start of the backup process. At this point bkprunner.exe will read a bunch of registry settings to figure out what to do. Using the registry, bkprunner will call NTBackup.exe with the correct parameter set according to the registry settings.

NTBackup performs the actual backup. Bkprunner.exe will simply just wait for NTBackup to finish it's task.

Hours later, NTBackup happily exits and bkprunner comes alive. At this point, bkprunner will look for any NTBackup errors scattered around the system, if it finds one, it logs Event ID 5634 as an error, if it doesn't find one, it logs 5633 as a successful backup, then reports the result to the admin console passing along the NTBackup log file.

So, what does this mean? "SBS Backup failed with Event ID 5634" does not mean anything other than it failed. The best way to find out WHY your backup failed, is to actually read the NTBackup log file from the Backup snap-in.

Don't forget that there is a tone of information in the Backing up and Restoring whitepaper. Also, if you're stuck, you should check out the Troubleshooting Backup & Restore online.

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Don't just use Outlook, Conquer it!

Outlook 2003 does so many tiny things to aid your productivity. I wanted to share with you a few tips that I use to move around Outlook (which is really the application I spend the majority of my time in).

Let's not waste time, let's just jump right into the tips!

• If someone sends you an email and asks you to setup a meeting, what's the easiest way to do this? Simply drag the mail with the right mouse button onto the "Calendar" button, you'll get a menu, like this one:
  
  and you can choose to copy the text of the email into a new calendar request. This tip works the same way for tasks and contacts. Play around with it!


• Quickly jump around Outlook without using the mouse. You can use the CTRL+# key's to jump to sections, CTRL+1 is mail, CTRL+2 is calendar, CTRL+3 is contacts, and so on.


• Everyone knows that you can use CTRL+N to create a new {whatever section you're in}, but what if you want to create a new contact, do you have to press CTRL+3, CTRL+N? Seems like too many keystrokes. I guess the Outlook team thought so too:
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+M - New mail message
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+A - New Calendar item
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+C - New Contact
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+B - Open your Address book
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+U - New Task (Also CTRL+SHIFT+K)
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+N - New Note
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+L - New Outlook Distribution List
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+I - Change to the Inbox from anywhere
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+O - Change to the Outbox from anywhere
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+F - Advanced Find
  
  
  • CTRL+SHIFT+X - Open a new Fax
  
  
  • INS - Toggle the flag on a mail message

Hopefully this will make you more productive with your primary email tool. I know it's nice for me not to have to move my hand over to the mouse every time I want to see what's coming up on my calendar.

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Give SBS the 'Bling-Bling' Shell

Ever wonder why the SBS server is all gray, and your Windows XP box looks cool, slick and shiny new? The themes service isn't started. Why isn't the themes service started? because it uses RAM. Servers generally are quite do-gooders that sit in the courner. They don't have to be pretty, they just have to help each user on the netowrk get their job done.

Well, in my case, I wanted to make sure SBS was as bling-bling as it could be, plus I had the extra ram.

Here is what I did:

1. Click on Start, Run, and then type in services.msc and hit Enter


2. Scroll down in the list until you find the Themes service, right-click it and choose Properties


3. Enable and Start the service

That's all you have to do, now you can right click on the desktop and choose a bling-bling theme. I choose the silver one just to make sure I don't confuse it with my client.

if you've got the RAM, and you want to put a face on your SBS box, choose bling-bling baby!

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Essential Free Downloads

As you have probably have guessed, I spent far too much time on the computer. One thing I'm a big fan of, is free downloadable software that makes my life easier. I wanted to list a few peices of software that I install on every clean install of Windows XP.

• Open Command Prompt Here - right click on any folder in Windows Explorer and choose to open a command prompt directly at that location


• Tweak UI - Change tones of registry settings customizing your system from one all encompassing UI


• Image Resizer - Resize images directly from the shell, doesn't keep pictures the highest quality, but perfect for resizing pictures for the web


• The Google Toolbar - This was more important pre-XPSP2 for the pop-up blocker, but now it's just handy to search from the web. I feel inclined to mention the MSN Toolbar, depending on which search engine you want to use


• Win Zip - I used the Windows XP shell zip for about a year after Windows XP shipped, it does everything you need. Winzip provides a few cool features around creating folders, and installing zipped applications that are quite good. (mostly free)

I also install Office, Image library software and some other things, but these are the free ones.

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MSN Messenger Face lift?

Are you an MSN User? I am, and the emoticons, while good, got a little old for me. I decided to upgrade them and get some new icons.

I can't say that there are all "clean" but they are definitely cool icons. Click here to check out the largest MSN icon library that I have found on the Internet.

Happy messaging!

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Killing Nasty Spyware!

My last post was on Layers of Spam Protection. Reducing spam makes you a more productive person. But Spam isn't the only thing that can get in your way. Spyware, that is installed along side many of the applications you download from the internet.

That's right, you may think you are just getting a disney software screensaver, but in reality, you're getting the screensaver, a handy pop-up opener application, a hard drive crawler designed to slow your system to a crawl and plug in for Outlook that reads your contact list (this is just a nasty example).

How can you clean your system of such horrible applications?

The hard-way
If it's running, it's doing something, stop all the services you don't need, stop programs from running in your registry, start menu, win.ini file. Delete un-neccessary plug-ins from Outlook, IE, etc, scrap the registry for signs of spyware applications and remove them... Pretty tedious *and* you have to know what you're doing in order to be successful.

Luckly, there are other people on the Internet that hate spyware as much as I do. Microsoft helps point these out with Security at Home: Fight Spyware!

The easy-way
I used to do the hardway, but there are so many spyware programs that this could take forever, let alone me being able to detect all the different forms of spyware. I leaned on the website above, and found Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. I've used both of these applications, and they both do an excellent job for free! I like the name Search & Destroy, so I typically use Spybot as a result of my mindset when I get a pop-up that I wasn't expecting.

But keep in mind, that not all pop-ups come from spyware, some come from the website you're browsing. XP SP2 comes with a free pop-up blocker, and there are other tools out there too like the Google Toolbar or the MSN Toolbar.

Safe Computing!

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