Category Archives: SBS 2003

Exchange, Online Tools, SBS 2003

Remove Administrator Deny Permissions in Exchange 2003

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In Exchange 2003, Administrator accounts are denied access to mailboxes. As such, the EXMERGE utility will fail to export mailboxes when run using the Administrator account. To enable the Administrator account to use EXMERGE for exporting user mailboxes in archival situations, the following fix must be applied.
 
Open Server Management, browse to Advanced Management, First Organization (Exhcange), Servers, [servername]
 
Right Click on the server name, and select properties.
 
Select the Security Tab, and click the Advanced Button.
 
Untick the Check Box, Select Copy. Then select all Deny Permission Types, and click Remove.
 
EXMERGE should now run properly.
Registry Hacks, SBS 2003, SBS 2008, Server 2003, Server 2008

Auto Login to PC after restart

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Sometimes, there are background processes and application that need the user to be logged on to the PC before they will run. On a domain PC, this is normally not possible. However, you can modify the registry to enable this. NOTE: the password will be clearly seen.
 
 
In regedit, navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
 
Add or modify the key, AutoAdminLogon (String) to 0
Enter in the user credentials in the three keys – DefaultDomainName, DefaultUserName, DefaultPassword.
 
Fixes, SBS 2003, SBS 2008, Server 2003, Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Daylight Savings for Western Australia 2009

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… is not happening.
 
Therefore, a hotfix has been released to deal with this issue. This is an out of band update, and should be applied to all systems used by WA users.
 
The Daylight Savings Planning Guide (September 2009) can be found here – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/bb821275.aspx
 
The hotfix (KB974176) can be obtained here – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974176
 
Fixes, Registry Hacks, SBS 2003, Windows Vista

Vista networking issues with SBS2003

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I have come across an issue which has come up regularly when using Vista workstations in a SBS2003 network. A network share cannot be accessed properly from the Vista PC. Files can be created, copied to, or deleted off the network share. However, when an attempt is made to rename the file, or edit and save the file, an error pops up similar to the following – “The file cannot be found” or “The network resource is no longer available”.
 
One way to fix this is to reset the Offline Folders database, which may be corrupted. To do this:
 
1. Open Regedit
2. Go to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters
3. Edit or add the DWORD value called FormatDatabase to 1
4. Restart the computer
 
Alternatively, disable Offline Files in the Control Panel and restart the PC.
 
Features, SBS 2003, SBS 2008, Server 2003, Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Using Dual Monitors in Terminal Services with Remote Desktop

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How to obtain dual monitor mode within Terminal Services when connecting with Remote Desktop.
 
The prerequisites are Remote Desktop Connection client version 6.0 or higher. Windows XP and 2003 users can obtain the client here – http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6E1EC93D-BDBD-4983-92F7-479E088570AD&displaylang=en
Windows Vista and 2008 user already have this version.
 
Obviously, you would already have two or more monitors. Some rules are:
  • The monitors must be the same resolution
  • The total resolution must not exceed 4096 x 2048
  • The top left monitor must be primary
  • The monitors must be horizontally oriented

From the start menu, open a Run dialog. Type in mstsc /span /v:servername

Optionally, you can also use the /w:HorizontalResInPixels /h:VerticalResInPixels switches.

 
Hardware, SBS 2003, SBS 2008

Configuring the iPhone for Exchange Sync

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The iPhone is really easy to set up. I don’t particularly like the onscreen keyboard input or the lack of cut and paste (edit: fixed in OS v3.0), but it is really easy to set up a connection to Exchange.
 
All you need is:
email address – This is the email address of the user
domain – Leave this blank in most cases
username – the username for logging into the domain
password – the user’s password
 
Click next, and the iPhone will attempt to connect to the server automatically. In most SBS cases, this will fail, and the phone will request a servername.
 
servername – the FQDN for the domain where Exchange OWA is located. In many SBS2003 installations, this is typically mail.domain.com. On SBS2008, this will normally be remote.domain.com.
 
When you are done, the screen should look something like this.
Registry Hacks, SBS 2003

Server on, no connections

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In the past few months, I have had random situations where a server would restart, and following the restart, no one could connect in or the server would not connect out. Normally, a second reboot would fix the problem.

I have discovered that this is caused by the application of the MS08-037 patch. If the randomly assigned ports conflicted with the IPSEC service, this service would fail, causing the server to start in block mode where all network connectivity to the server is blocked. The proactive solution as documented by Microsoft in http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/07/17/some-services-may-fail-to-start-or-may-not-work-properly-after-installing-ms08-037-951746-and-951748.aspx is to modify a registry entry as follows.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\ReservedPorts
Add the following port ranges and reboot.
3343-3343
1433-1434
1745-1745
1080-1080
1720-1720
1645-1646
1701-1701
1812-1813
2883-2883
4500-4500

There is more information on this problem along with other scenarios which I have not yet encountered.

Fixes, SBS 2003, SBS 2008, Server 2003, Server 2008

How to change Terminal Server’s listening port

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An oldie but goodie. I use this often – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/187623

Regedit.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp

Change the port number from Decimal 3389 to something else.

You will have to restart the server after this.

PS. To access Remote Desktop quickly, type mstsc -v:[server, IP, or net address] from a command prompt.