Windows Small Business Server and Essential Business Server Documentation : Tips and Tricks

Are you in the know? Watch this screencast to discover how you can share your knowledge!

sbsdocsteam — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:11:00 GMT

Sure. We're good at what we do. We love to help you learn about how our software works and how you can use it in your organization! But let's face it. We're great with the nuts and bolts, but you work with our systems every day! Most of you know more about the in's-and-out's, pro's-and-con's, and if's-and-then's of our software than we do -- because you live it!

So don't be shy! Share your knowledge!

The Microsoft technical libraries at the TechNet and MSDN Web sites include a feature called "Community Content" that allows you to contribute technical information. It's easy to use, and it's a fantastic way share what you know, help others, and strut your stuff a bit at the same time.

As a slight nudge of encouragement, we recently published a screencast that introduces you to the concept of Community Content, and walks you through the basics of how to use the feature.

So plan now to set aside 11 minutes of your busy day to view "Introducing the TechNet and MSDN Community Content Feature." You might just find it inspiring. We sure hope so!

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Tip: Using Site: Query Feature to Narrow Search Results

sbsdocsteam — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:13:00 GMT

Scenario
You want to find information about Remote Web Workplace in SBS 2008. You use Google or Live Search and enter the search terms "remote web workplace" (in quotes). Lots of potentially useful links show up but you want the authoritative documentation from Microsoft. Here's a simple and easy way to narrow your search.

Search tip
In the Google or Live Search search box, enter: "remote web workplace" site:technet.microsoft.com

Using the site:<domain> query narrows your search to the specified domain and cuts out the clutter. Very useful!

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Remote Access on a Budget, Virtually

sbsdocsteam — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:48:00 GMT

The SBS writing team supports a non-profit office near us that uses SBS. They are avid users of Remote Web Workplace (RWW); using it to connect to their office PCs and work from home. "What a great SBS feature!" Recently, some folks wanted to remote in to PCs in the office but all the PCs were in use. Someone would have to get off a computer to free it up. This was happening too often and getting annoying.

What to do? Well, we discussed using a VPN scenario but the remote users wanted the same desktop experience that office users have with applications, printers, files, etc. The non-profit could purchase several computers for remote users but, besides the cost, these PCs would largely sit unused in the office taking up limited space. So VPN and new PCs weren’t the answer.

How about virtualization? "What’s that?" We took one available computer, beefed up the memory to 2GB, and installed Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 - a free download. We could just have easily used Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 - also a free download. We then created two virtual machines and installed Windows XP on each. We assigned users to separate virtual PCs and made sure the virtual PCs were available from RWW.

Now, remote users can remote in to these virtual machines any time without the need to bump someone from a physical computer. Saving money and still providing good service levels.

If the virtual world is new to you, this is an easy, inexpensive way to break into it. It's also a scalable solution as your remote connection needs expand. If you have sufficient memory and hard drive space, even older computers can be used to provide virtualization services.

Once you've got the remote virtual server/PC set up, you'll then be ready to take the next step, virtualizing your SBS server. See Using Hyper-V with Windows Small Business Server 2008.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

The Case of the Missing TOC!

sbsdocsteam — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:45:00 GMT

Maybe not a best-seller, but I thought this was interesting enough to share.

I had this horrible affliction. I was rummaging around in the Windows SBS Technical Library, and all of a sudden, the Table of Contents disappeared! What happened? What did I do? Did I break something? I search frantically on the Web site to see if there is some setting that I goofed up. Nope. Nothing there. I open my browser settings to determine the same. Ok, that's dumb, but I'm confounded. WHAT THE HECK!!

So, I put up with this condition for days on end, figuring that I would become the gumshoe once again and discover what went wrong once and for all. Yah right. Like, I have way to much time on my hands that I can dedicate to doing something other than playing around with that annoyance. Instead, I turn to Jim Holtzman, trusted co-writer on the SBS Team and plead for advice. In about 5 minutes he directs me to an article on the Exchange Team Blog.

And suddenly, life is a bit rosier. Thanks Jim! And thanks to Alison Hirsch for sharing this nugget of TechNet technomagic.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Putting Vista clients to sleep on your SBS network

sbsdocsteam — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:01:00 GMT

Ok. You've had a long day at the office and you just want the Vista clients on your network to go to sleep! But no. They just want to stay awake and play when you leave the office. You've tried fiddling with the power settings, but you're not getting the results you expect. Why does this happen? And what can you do make them rest and save you a bit of energy at the same time? Two words..."Group Policy."

For the full skinny, check out "Interested in Conserving a Little Power?" on Sean Daniels blog.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

I want to use Root Hints instead of DNS forwarders

sbsdocsteam — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:29:00 GMT

Last month when the SBS MVPs were on campus for the MVP Summit, Susan Bradley mentioned how the ability to configure DNS in CEICW (Configure E-mail and Internet Connection Wizard) to use root hints instead of DNS forwarders is kind of hidden in the wizard. Well, she’s right (of course!). It’s covered in the Help topic for each of the pages where you specify Preferred DNS server (and Alternate DNS server) settings.

Preferred DNS server

If the value of your Preferred DNS server was not defaulted by the wizard, you must type the IP address of the DNS server at your ISP. The DNS Server service provided with Windows Small Business Server 2003 will be configured to forward the DNS queries it cannot resolve to the DNS server you specify.

Note: If you do not specify DNS server information, name resolution requests must instead use root hints. It is recommended that you use DNS server information if it is available from your ISP. For more information, click Start, click Help and Support, and then search for "root hints."

Alternate DNS server

If your ISP provides a secondary DNS server to use for backup DNS name resolution across the Internet, type the IP address. This option can be left blank. The IP address of the alternate DNS server cannot be the same IP address as the preferred DNS server.

This information is also covered in the following pop-up message that appears if you leave the DNS fields blank:

"DNS server information was not specified. DNS server information is used to forward name-resolution requests intended for the Internet to the DNS servers at your Internet service provider (ISP). Without DNS server information, these name-resolution requests must instead use root hints. It is recommended that you use DNS server information if it is available from your ISP. For more information about root hints, see Help and Support."

This is not to say that we are changing our mind and recommending root hints over DNS forwarding. However, if you’re in a pinch and your ISPs DNS server is down, it’s an option.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

TIP: How to create screenshots

sbsdocsteam — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 20:18:00 GMT

A screenshot is an electronic image that captures exactly what someone sees on their computer screen at any given moment. You often see them used in training materials or attached to e-mail messages when someone is trying to explain a computer problem that they are experiencing. Sometimes a screenshot captures everything on the computer screen. Usually it is a capture of a specific program or window that is open.

Screenshots can be very useful! Have you every wondered how they are created? It's easy!

There are two kinds of screen captures:

Full screen capture. Full screen captures are a snapshot of the ENTIRE desktop with all objects and open windows visible within it.
Single window capture. These images capture only the window that has screen focus. In other words, the window that you are currently working with. You can tell which window has screen focus because the title bar of that window is much deeper in color than the other open windows.

To create a full-screen capture, press PrtScn on the keyboard. An image of the entire desktop is copied to the clipboard. The image can then be pasted into other programs. Here is an example of a full-screen capture:

Note that the title bar of the smaller window is much deeper in color then that of the larger window. The smaller window has screen focus.

To capture only the window that has focus, press the keyboard combination of Alt + PrtScn (don't press the "+" key). This key combination copies an image of only the window that has focus, like this:

Once you have captured a screenshot, you can press Ctrl + V to insert the image into an e-mail message or other program (such as Microsoft Word or FrontPage).

That's it! Keep in mind though that screenshots are bitmaps and they can be very large. If you plan to send them in e-mail, do your message recipient and mail server admin and yourself a favor and use an imaging program such as MS Paint to save the screenshot as a .jpg file before your send it. This will reduce the size of the image considerably without affecting the resolution too much.

To save the image as .jpg file, paste it into MSPaint (included with Windows), and do File | Save As and choose the .jpg file format.

By default, MS Paint saves screen captures as a .bmp image and nine times out of ten, it ends up being a multi-megabyte sized image. When these images are embedded into e-mail messages that get replied to or forwarded to others, a persons mailbox storage limit can max out in a hurry. E-mail messages with large images embedded also put a heavy burden on the network bandwidth as well as the reader's processor! So remember, save the image as a .jpg if you plan to send it in e-mail!

NOTE: Some keyboards (like mine) have the ability to toggle special function keys on and off. When capturing screenshots, make sure your keyboard is set to use the PrtScn key properly.

Happy capturing!

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Back Up Group Policy Settings Quickly and Easily!

sbsdocsteam — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 21:56:00 GMT

Have you ever made changes to your Group Policy settings and wanted to save them, but the timing didn't coincide with the schedule established for backing up server data? If so, here is a really useful tip!

It's easy to back up only the group policy settings on your Windows SBS computer without having to create a complete backup of the server. Not only that, you can also restore Group Policy settings from this backup copy without having to do a complete restore of the server. Here's how:

To create a backup of all Windows SBS 2003 Group Policy Objects (GPOs)

Click Start, and then click Server Management.
In the console tree, click Advanced Management, double-click Group Policy Management, double-click Forest: <domainname>, double-click domainname, right-click Group Policy Objects, and then click Back Up All.
In the Back Up Group Policy Object dialog box:

a. Under Location, enter the name of the folder in which you want to store the backup of the GPOs.

b. Under Description, enter a description (for example, SBS GPOs) to easily identify the file that contains the backup.

c. Click Backup.

To restore a Windows SBS 2003 Group Policy Object

Click Start, and then click Server Management.
In the console tree, click Advanced Management, double-click Group Policy Management, double-click Forest: <domainname>, double-click domainname, double-click Group Policy Objects, right-click the GPO that you want to restore from a backup, and then click Restore From Backup.
In the Restore Group Policy Object Wizard:

a. On the Backup location page, enter the name of the folder that contains the backup, and then click Next.

b. On the Source Group Policy Object page, under Backed Up Group Policy Objects, select the backup from which you want to restore the GPO settings, and then click Next.

c. Click Finish.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

What happens when I run the CEICW?

sbsdocsteam — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:18:00 GMT

Looking for a quick way to find out what settings are configured when you run the Configure E-mail and Internet Connection Wizard (CEICW)?

Each time the wizard is run; SBS automatically generates a file that summarizes the configuration details for your network, firewall, secure Web site, and e-mail. The original settings appear in the file Icwdetails.htm. When the wizard is run subsequently, additional Icwdetails.htm files will be generated.

There are a couple of quick ways to access this file:

By opening the link at the bottom of the "Finish" page of the CEICW.
Use your file or Web browser to access the folder in which the file is stored.
- To review the settings at any time, open a Web browser, and in the Address box type:

%SBSProgramDir%\Networking\ICW\

When the folder opens, double-click the file Icwdetails.htm. If you have run the wizard more than once, you will see a file for each time you completed the wizard in the form of Icwdetailsx.htm where "x" is a numeral. The file with the highest numeral indicates the most recently configured settings.

Give it a try!

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Access and Share OS Help Files between Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Computers

sbsdocsteam — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:49:00 GMT

Happy New Year from the SBS Documentation team!

Some of us took a bit of time off in December, others of us worked through the holiday period in support of the content requirements for SBS SP1. The entire team is now back in the saddle working on adding and enhancing content, and helping to improve your experience with Windows Small Business Server 2003.

From time to time, we will throw you a tip, or remind you of some little-known or little-used feature. So to usher in CY2005, we would like to point out a small feature that you may find useful!

If you administer a Windows Small Business Server 2003 or Windows Server 2003 family domain from a Windows XP-based computer, you may need access to the Help files for the server computer. Alternatively, if you spend most of your time on a server that is running a Windows Server 2003 family product, you may want to access the Help files for Windows XP to find information to help users. Both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 have built in functionality that enables you to access and share the Help and Support files between the two operating systems. This feature can be very helpful to network administrators and help desk personnel who support users from remote locations.

To learn more about this neat feature, see KB article http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308562.

To install or share Windows Help files, open Help and Support and click Options.

Have a great week!

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.