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Distribution lists in outlook have a size restriction that will not allow you to add more members once a certain limit is reached depending on how big each contact’s information records are.  A work around is to split the distribution list up into multiple groups, or what I did was create a distribution list in AD and allow the user “owner” privileges on it.  After adding members, you can also remove it from being listed in exchange global address book and add the global DL contact to their local contacts list.

General, Outlook,
 

In troubleshooting a very obscure error in Outlook 2003 (0x800…error unknown), I ran across a very helpful tool called the Inbox Repair Tool (scanpst.exe). This tool can be used to find and fix errors in a .pst or .ost file. Scanpst.exe file is found at C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033\ on a standard Windows XP and Office installation. One of the less obvious things about .pst and .ost files is that they never reclaim unused space. They just keep growing much like Microsoft Access jet databases. If you want to shrink the size of your .pst or .ost file, you must manually compact it. If you use Office 2k3, go to Tools -> Options -> Email Accounts -> View or Change an Existing Account. Then select your Exchange account and click “Change”. Select “More Settings” and on the “Advanced” tab, there is an “Offline Folder File Settings” button. Click that and choose the “Compact Now” button.

General, Outlook, Office 2003,
 

Excessive log files can be generated by both the Symantec AV client and the Windows Application Event Log when running ThinkVantage Away Manager and the Symantec AV client.  These programs conflict with each other and generate several log events per second.  On the laptop of one of our team members, the Symantec log files had grown to 5GB in size.  There are two methods for stopping the conflict.  [more]1) Turn off Tamper Protection in the Symantec AV client.  2) Uninstall ThinkVantage Away Manager.  It is basically Lenovo’s version of Windows Scheduler and did not appear especially useful.

Symantec stores the log files at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition\7.5\Logs.
General, ThinkVantage, Symantec,
 

We recently started having trouble with our voicemail system failing after we rebooted our Cisco Unity server.  It turned out that every time we would reboot the Unity server, the Microsoft Message Queuing Service would hang on startup causing the voicemail to fail.  While on the phone with Cisco technical support, We were informed that if the MSMQ folder (located on Unity at C:\WINNT\System32\msmq) gets larger than 1.5 GB, then the service will never start. [more]We looked at it, and sure enough, it was 1.56 GB. After some trial and error of removing the files in the folder, trying to start the service, failing, and putting the files back in, he finally informed us that we would probably have to reinstall the service.

We reinstalled the Microsoft Message Queuing Service, and the voicemail system started right up. Since then, we have not any high CPU usage problems, no extreme lagging in the voicemail system (that I know about), and hardly any delays in the administration website.

Networking, Cisco, VoIP, Cisco Unity,
 

We supply most of our electronic documents to customers in pdf format.  We also have been using watermarking documents as DRAFT during the write and rewrite process.  As we print word docs to pdf, the document becomes much larger (5 to 6 times bigger) as Adobe converts the DRAFT mark to a graphic on each page.  It can make it difficult for customers to print.

Using Adobe Acrobat Professional there is a feature that also allows you to create a watermark.  If you use Acrobat to create the watermark, the final file size is much smaller (less that half the size.  You find the watermark feature in Acrobat under Document in the Title menu.   There are several options.  You can input any text in the provided source box, click on “Fit to Page” and select color, transparency, etc.  Also, you can choose if you want the water mark to display on the screen, only when printed or both.
General, PDF, Adobe Acrobat,
 

I needed to upgrade a Cisco IOS on a 2691 Router from a 12.3 track requiring 32 MB of flash memory to a 12.4 track requiring 64 MB of flash memory.  When I looked for the current flash memory installed on the device, it reported 62592K bytes of ATA System CompactFlash (Read/Write) which divided by 1024 came out to be 61.125 MB of RAM. 

I sent in a ticket to Cisco asking if I would be able to use the new image since my Flash memory showed less than what was required.  They told me that "The router has 64MB of flash memory.  Sometimes the router does not recognize the total amount of Compact Flash.  The compact flash sizes you can find for Cisco routers are: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128MB.  Although the 12.4 version's minimum requirement is 64MB, the total size of the code itself does not exceed 60 MB".

The code was actually around 34 MB, so it wouldn't fit on a 32 MB flash card.  You would have to have the next available amount which is 64.

Networking, Cisco, Router,
 

The recovery partition on ThinkPads installs in two different sizes depending on how you install it.  If you revert to factory settings, the recovery partition should be 4-5 GB.  If you restore the system from a Rescue and Recovery backup, the recovery partition will only be about 500MB.  The down side is that Rescue and Recovery installs/upgrades write files to the recovery partition.  The 500MB partition fills up very quickly and prevents you from upgrading/installing Rescue and Recovery.  Your two options at that point are 1) research Rescue and Recovery to see if there is an install parameters that prevents files from being written to the recovery partition (in the interest of time, I have not done this), or 2) remove the recovery partition and then install Rescue and Recovery.

General, Backup, ThinkPad,
 

Symantec published a paper in conjunction with Indiana University describing how attackers could be using unsecured home wireless access points in pharming attacks. The vulnerability is related to easily guessed credentials on the wireless routers and default installations are definitely easily guessed.

The ploy described in this paper (http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/reference/Driveby_Pharming.pdf) involves the use of javascript on a malicious website that changes the DNS settings on the wireless router - provided the router credentials can be guessed by the application.

So, there is more to it than being sure your wireless transmissions are encrypted.

Networking, Security and Compliance, Symantec, wireless, Security,
 

Engineers beware….enabling Symantec network scanning features of real-time protection will slow the network to a crawl. Symantec actually recommends turning off network scanning on Symantec v10.0 and below because of the severe performance impact it causes. In v10.1 and above, Symantec supposedly “improved” the network scanning functionality as well as introduced the ability to trust a server that was running real-time protection to prevent double scanning of a file. Unfortunately, the network scanning features don’t seemed to be improved in any way and the trust stuff looks to be all fluff. Additionally, after troubleshooting and testing it looks like when Symantec is configured to do network scans, instead of scanning the files on the client side as they traverse through the network stack, Symantec actually opens up literally hundreds of file handles to the files remotely and attempts to scan the on the share remotely on the share. This behavior has been verified to be the cause of several network performance issues at one of our customers lately.

Networking, Symantec,
 

New Daylight Savings Time dates effective for 2007:

  • Begin: 2:00 AM, March 11, 2007 (was April 1, 2007)
  • End: 2:00 AM, November 4, 2007 (was October 28, 2007)

Given the broad range of technology in use today and the integration of systems between customers, vendors, and partners, IT managers should determine what actions should be taken to mitigate the affects of DST 2007 on their organizations. [more] 

Microsoft is providing updates for supported systems and applications. If these updates are not applied:
  • Outlook calendar entries will be off for 1 hour for a 3 week period at the beginning of DST, and for one week at the end of DST.
  • Any process that relies on a calendar/time entry, i.e. backup jobs, will run one hour earlier than intended.
The following Microsoft products have an update available for Daylight Savings Time:
  • Windows XP SP2
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows Server 2003 SP1
  • Exchange Server 2003 SP1
  • Exchange Server 2003 SP2
  • Office Outlook 2007/2003/XP/2000

The following products are not supported, but can be updated manually:

  • Windows XP SP1
  • Windows 2000
  • Windows 95/98
  • Windows NT4

Please take the following steps to determine if your systems or applications are supported for the Microsoft updates:

  1. Determine the Operating System version and Service Pack level for all servers and client computers.
  2. Determine version and Service Pack level for Microsoft Outlook. Outlook is usually installed as a part of Microsoft Office.

For more detailed information, go to:
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/dst_topissues#a2

Once the updates are applied, please check Outlook calendar entries to be sure they are scheduled for the correct time. Microsoft has suggested that you enter the time in the subject of the appointment or meeting request so that none of the attendees are confused.

IT Security Alerts, Office,