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If you want to restore a SBS 2003 box that was upgraded from SBS 2000 using tape backups from Backup Exec, here is the process…and believe me this is abbreviated. [more]

1. Install SBS 2000 so that you can get the system path to be c:\winnt and some necessary dlls that will break the kernel if you try to go directly to SBS 2003. It is temping to use an unattended install and skip directly to SBS 2003 with a  custom install point, but I speak from experience…it doesn’t work. No need to install and configure DNS…I know it sounds like it will break, but it won’t. The only component that should be installed is SBS. Don’t install Exchange, ISA, SQL or the optional components….JUST SBS. Trust me. Be sure to name the domain the same as it was before during setup.
2. Your goal is to get to SBS 2003, but before you upgrade your SBS 2000 install, you must install Windows 2000 SP3, then SBS SP 1a, then Windows 2000 SP4. Having fun yet?
3. Upgrade to SBS 2003 and then fix what didn’t work when you upgraded it….just kidding this actually works pretty well considering.
4. Your next step is to get Backup Exec up and running. So either reinstall Backup Exec on the SBS 2003 box and inventory your recovery tape or install the tape drive and Backup Exec to another server and do it there. Really doesn’t matter where you do it from. Make sure your backup exec service account has access to your restored server if you moved it to a different server.
5. Reboot your restored SBS 2003 server into AD recovery mode by pressing F8 at boot time. It’s like booting to safe mode, but it’s a different option on the same screen.
6. Do the authoritative restore, but DON’T restore anything that has anything to do with SQL, Exchange. That includes program files directories, databases, all the other items that are included in the doc link below. Yeah, this seems strange, but bare with me. Oh, and if ISA was originally installed, you can restore it, BUT if it was set up to log to a local SQL MSDE database (which most are because it is an SBS install and I think that is the default behavior), it won’t work. Exactly how ISA will act once restored is somewhat of a mystery so best of luck to you. IMO, just remove it and deal with it after all this mess is done.
7. Reinstall SQL Server and Exchange Server from media. I know, I know….you have a backup of it so why do you have to reinstall it from the CD that you don’t have. Because…
8. Using single user mode, restore the master SQL Server database first then restore all the other databases.
9. Reinstall Exchange with the /disasterrecovery option. Follow the instructions in the doc…just follow the doc. Just get ready to run eseutil on your databases because they will need it, especially if circular logging was turned on at the message store level (and if you are the one that turned circular logging on…shame on you!). Mount your databases after all the consistency checking is complete.
10. Now, take a breath, go get a burger from Whataburger because by now it is 2:00 in the morning and that is the only place open.
11. Address the literally hundreds of issues that will arise after you have done this procedure.

Here is a link to the unabridged version:  http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/243037.htm 

Oh, and in all this you better hope you are restoring to similar if not the same hardware. The support on this process from Backup Exec goes right out the window if you aren’t restoring to the same/similar hardware. And you MUST have the media to reinstall all this stuff. Gathering this type of stuff seems trivial, but it is actually one of the MOST difficult parts of this process, especially if the customer is not a volume license holder.

 

Apparently, if you use the main setup.exe instead of the SBS setup.exe when installing Exchange on SBS a registry value is created that tells the system to wait 10 minutes for Exchange services to shutdown.  For more information, see the following article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827610

A customer using Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange 4.6 needed to release an e-mail that was thought to be in the quarantine along with 2500 other items.  When the customer checked the quarantine, the page displayed a heading of 1000 of 2500.  There were no other links to click on to see page 2 or all items.  After other searching, I understood that Symantec is set to only show 1000 items in quarantine, but I could not find a way to change this setting.  Since this was an html based application, I saw that the source page was an .asp file.  Commenting out the following code will always list the entire quarantined items. [more]

File:  D:\Program Files\Symantec\SMSMSE\4.6\Server\ROOT\Quarantine.asp

*** This is where the Maximum display value is coming in.. = 1000
dwMaxDisplay = objSMSMSEGUI.GetQuarantineValue("",QUARANTINE_DISPLAY_LIMIT_ID_STR,RetVal)

*** Comment these lines here as shown with //
//if NumItemsInQuarantine > dwMaxDisplay then
//          dwDisplayCount = dwMaxDisplay
//else
            dwDisplayCount = NumItemsInQuarantine
//end if

*** This is the code part of the code that shows the items in quarantine
' loop through the items up until the maximum display or the total items whichever is larger
for i = 0 to dwDisplayCount - 1

In a bulletin released October 22, 2007, Adobe announced a critical vulnerability in its Acrobat and Reader programs. This vulnerability could allow a successful attacker to take control of the affected system. In order for the attacker to compromise the system, they must get you to open a malicious file in Adobe Reader or Acrobat.

This vulnerability affects users running Windows XP or Windows 2003 with Internet Explorer 7 installed. Vista users are not affected. Adobe versions 8.1 and earlier are susceptible to this vulnerability. Adobe categorizes this as a critical issue and recommends that affected users update their product installations.  [more]

For Adobe versions 8.1, Adobe strongly recommends that you upgrade to Adobe Reader 8.1.1 or Acrobat 8.1.1. Users can utilize the product’s automatic update feature or manually activate the update by choosing Help > Check for Updates Now from the program's menu. You can also find update files here:
•  Adobe Acrobat: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=1&platform=Windows

•  Adobe Reader: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=10&platform=Windows

For Adobe versions 7.09 or earlier, Adobe will release an update in the near future, so you should continue to check the Adobe support site for available updates.

For more information about this vulnerability, please refer to the following article on Adobe's website:
http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb07-18.html

For help applying this critical security update to your Adobe applications, please contact us.

The other week I encountered a user who wanted a specific Public Folder to display in his "Favorite Folders" windows in the [MAIL] view in Outlook (the one directly above all of the "Mail Folders"). He said he added it previously but now it wasnt updating. I asked him how he created it, and he said "I went to the public folder in the [Folder List] view, copied it, then pasted it into the "Favorite Folders" list in the [Mail] view." So that explained why it wasnt updating (b/c it was a static copy of a public folder). 

To remedy this, I deleted his copied Public Folder, browsed to the public folder in the [Folder List] view, right clicked on the public folder and selected "Add to Favorites". I changed back to [Mail] view and looked at the "Favorite Folders" but it wasnt there. I switched back to [Folder List] view and navigated to [Public Folders >> Favorites] and there it was. I right clicked on the "Favorite" that I had just created and selected the "Add to Favorite Folders"  view, then it was added to the "Favorite Folders" window in the [MAIL] view.  [more]

So in short, "Favorites" and "Favorite Folders" DO NOT mean the same thing. To add a public folder to your "Favorite Folders" view in the [Mail] view in Outlook:

1. Navigate to the [Folder List] view in Outlook.
2. Navigate to any public folder, right click, then select "Add to Favorites".
3. Still in the [Folder List] view, go to [-] Public Folders >> Favorites >> XYZFavorite. Right click on the "Favorite" that you just created, select "Add to Favorite Folders".

4. Your public folder will now appear in the "Favorite Folders" pane in the [Mail] view of Outlook.

 

If Control C will not capture text from a popup message window, you can use Alt-PrtScn, paste into Paint, save to a TIF file, open that with Microsoft Office Document Imaging, choose Recognize Text using OCR, and then Send Text to Word.  Here is an AutoIt script to do that.  Several assumptions are made:  An image is already in your paste buffer, c:\temp\ocr.tif exists, location of %windir% and %ProgramFiles%, etc.  You may have to tweak the sleep statements and as always, your mileage may vary.  [more]

<script language="AutoIt">
; Do OCR on paste buffer
Run("c:\windows\System32\mspaint.exe")
WinWait ("untitled - Paint")
WinActivate("untitled - Paint")
Sleep(500)
Send("^v")   ; Paste in image
Sleep(2000)
Send("!FA")   ; Save as a TIF file
Sleep(1000)
Send("c:\temp\ocr1.tif{TAB}T{ENTER}")
Sleep(1000)
Send("Y")   ; Yes to replace file
Send("!FX")   ; Exit Paint
Sleep(1000)
Run("C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MODI\11.0\MSPVIEW.EXE")
WinWait("Document1 - Microsoft Office Document Imaging")
WinActivate("Document1 - Microsoft Office Document Imaging")
Send("!FO")   ; Open in Microsoft Office Document Imaging
Sleep(1000)
Send("c:\temp\ocr1.tif{ENTER}")
Sleep(1000)
Send("!TR")   ; Recognize Text
Sleep(3000)
Send("!TT")   ; Send Text to Word
Sleep(1000)
Send("{ENTER}")
</script>

Do you like to use 411 directory services on your telephone but don’t like to pay $1.50 per call? Well, Google has a free 411 service for business listings, It will connect you hands free to any company you would like, it will give you a list of businesses in the category that you specify, and it will give you any details you are inquiring such as the address. You can have it send the information to you on your phone via a text message and all sorts of other cool stuff. The number you dial instead of 411 is 1-800-GOOG411 and you can find out more about it at this link: http://www.google.com/goog411/

Be aware that DHCP option 43 breaks a lot of stuff. In the past, I noted that using APCs necessary binary value in DHCP option 43 will break DHCP configuration on HP JetDirect boxes. Now, I have also found that it breaks PXE boot on HP DL360 G3 and G4 servers. With the option enabled on scopes serving machines that need to boot PXE to talk to an HP SIM (Systems Insight Manager) or RDP (Altiris Remote Deployment Pack for SIM), the PXE boot fails and displays a PXE boot menu error and automatically reboots. This option is normally deployed globally on the DHCP server. I suggest removing it and only adding it back at the scope level in situations when you must have it. Then remove it when you are done with it.

When working with ISA 2004, be very careful when disabling unneeded functionality. I had an issue arise after disabling VPN access to a customer's ISA proxy server. After the configuration was changed, ISA promptly uninstalled RRAS which disabled all routing capabilities of the box. Unfortunately, from what I have been able to gather, ISA is NOT able to dynamically build the routing table based on network ranges specified in the "Internal Network" area. I think this partly because you must specify addresses ranges not subnets and not all address ranges can be converted to a proper classless networks. In http://www.microsoft.com/technet/isa/2004/plan/bp_networks.mspx, it explains that the ISA server must be able to reach each network that is specified in the "Internal Network" area via its routing table. So, from what I have been able to gather you must either use RRAS to create the static routes or put persistent routes into the routing table using "route add <network> mask <subnet mask> <gateway> -p"