I have just had this problem and it was driving me mad, I was thinking it was down to Windows Live Writer, which I had just installed but after a little investigation turns out it is a common word 2007 issue, anyway here is the fix.

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Delete the Word Data registry key:
Most of the frequently used options in Word are stored in the Word Data registry key. A common troubleshooting step is to delete the Word Data registry key. The next time that you start Word, Word rebuilds the Word Data registry key by using the default settings.

To view these options in Word 2002 or Word 2003, click Options on the Tools menu.
To view these options in Word 2007, click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options.

Note When you delete the Word Data registry key, Word resets several options to their default settings. One such option is the "most recently used file" list on the File menu. Additionally, Word resets many settings that you customize in the Options dialog box.

To delete the Word Data registry key, follow these steps:
1. Exit all Office programs.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate the following registry subkey, as appropriate for the version of Word that you are running:

• Word 2002: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Data
• Word 2003: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Data
• Word 2007: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data

4. Click Data, and then click Export on the File menu.
5. Name the file Wddata.reg, and then save the file to the desktop.
6. Click Delete on the Edit menu, and then click Yes.
7. Exit Registry Editor.
8. Start Word.

If Word starts and works correctly, you have resolved the problem. The problem was a damaged Word Data registry key. You may have to change several settings to restore your favourite options in Word.

I have been recently looking a for a remote printer script so that when I setup a domain server I can attach one batch file to each user and when they logon to the new machine on the domain the script would install the printers, you can see below the script I found:

“rundll32 printui.dll,PrintUIEntry /in /n\\<servername>\<printer  sharename>”

Obviously replace the server name and share name with you server name and share name.

I will admit this isn’t the best script as it installs the printer whether it is already installed on the machine or not but at least you know it will always be installed for the user, if you do find anything better then please let me know.

Environment

• BlackBerry® smartphone
• BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange versions 2.1 to 5.0
• Microsoft® Exchange Server versions 5.5 to 2007

Overview

Wireless calendar synchronization occurs only one-way from the Microsoft® Outlook® calendar to the BlackBerry smartphone calendar. It does not synchronize from the BlackBerry smartphone to the Microsoft Outlook calendar.

Cause

This issue may be caused by one of the following:

1. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server services are not running under the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account.
2. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account does not have the appropriate permissions.
3. The Collaboration Data Object (CDO) is not present or supported with the Microsoft Exchange environment.
4. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account is a Domain Administrator.
5. The Microsoft Exchange Server’s Public Folder database is not mounted.

Resolution

Complete the appropriate resolution for your cause.

Cause 1

The BlackBerry Enterprise Server services are not running under the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account.

Resolution 1

Verify that all BlackBerry Enterprise Server services are running under the appropriate BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account.

Note: Several BlackBerry Enterprise Server services run under the Local System account (for example, the BlackBerry Attachment Service or the BlackBerry® MDS Services – Apache Tomcat™ Service).

To confirm that the correct account is specified, complete the following steps:

1. In Administrative Tools, select Services and double-click the BlackBerry Enterprise Server services.
2. From the Log On As tab, verify that the correct BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account name is specified.
3. If a different BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account name is specified, complete one of the following steps:

• If the BlackBerry Enterprise Server was installed using the administrator account or another administrative account, switch the service account to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account. For instructions, see one of the following articles:
  • For BlackBerry Enterprise Server software version 3.6, see KB04334.
  • For BlackBerry Enterprise Server software versions 4.0 to 5.0, see KB04293.

OR

• If the BlackBerry Enterprise Server was installed using the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account, switch the service account to the one that corresponds to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server services.

Note: This occurs if a BlackBerry Enterprise Server service pack or hotfix was not installed using the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account.

Cause 2

The BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account does not have the appropriate permissions.

Resolution 2

To update BlackBerry smartphone users’ mailboxes, the appropriate permissions are needed. Modify the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account permissions by completing the following steps:

Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

1. In the Exchange System Manager, right-click the Exchange administrative group name and click Delegate Control.
2. Click Next, then click Add to open the Delegate Control window.
3. Click Browse to open the Select Users, Computers or Groups window, and select the new BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account.
4. From the Role drop-down list, select Exchange View Only Administrator and click OK.
5. Click Next, then click Finish.
6. Open Exchange System Manager, and go to Administrative Groups/First Administrative Group/Servers.
7. Right-click the Microsoft Exchange Server name, click Properties, then click the Security tab.
8. Verify the Allow inheritable permissions from parent to propagate to this object check box is selected.
9. Choose the service account name and select the appropriate check boxes to allow Administer information store,Receive As, and Send As permissions.

10.  Verify that no denied permissions are selected for the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account.

11.  Click Apply, then click OK.

12.  In Administrative Tools, select Active Directory Users and Computers.

13.  Right-click the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account, then click Properties.

14.  On the Member of tab, verify that Domain Users is displayed in the list.

15.  If the BlackBerry Enterprise Server is installed on a domain controller, verify that Administrators is listed.

Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5

1. In Exchange Administrator, enable the Service Account Admin permission for the new BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account in both the Site and Configuration containers.For more information, see KB00886. For more information on setting permissions on Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5, visit the Microsoft Support web site.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

1. Open the Microsoft Exchange Shell by going to Start > Programs > Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 > Exchange Management Shell.
2. To set the Exchange View Only Administrator role, type the following command:

add-exchangeadministrator BESAdmin -role ViewOnlyAdmin

Where BESAdmin is the name of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account.

To check the Exchange View-Only Administrator role, type the following command:

get-exchangeadministrator | Format-List

The BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account should be displayed with a ViewOnlyAdmin role.

1. To set the Send As, Receive As, and Administer Information Store permissions, type the following command:

get-mailboxserver server_name | add-adpermission -user BESAdmin -accessrights GenericRead, GenericWrite -extendedrights Send-As, Receive-As, ms-Exch-Store-Admin

Where server_name is the name of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 or Microsoft Exchange Cluster, and BESAdmin is the name of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account.

To check the Send As, Receive As, and Administer Information Store permissions, type the following command:

get-mailboxserver server_name | get-ADpermission -user BESAdmin | Format-List

Where server_name is the name of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 or Microsoft Exchange Cluster and BESAdmin is the name of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account.

Important: Make sure that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account is not a member of any Microsoft® Active Directory® groups that have the required permissions denied. For more information, see KB04557.

Cause 3

The Collaboration Data Object (CDO) is not present or supported with the Microsoft Exchange environment.

Resolution 3

Verify that the CDO.DLL file is supported with the Microsoft Exchange Server environment.

For Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

1. Go to the Exchsrvr\bin directory to check the version of the CDO.DLL file on your Microsoft Exchange Server.
2. Verify that the CDO.DLL file on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server is the same or later version of the CDO.DLL file on the Microsoft Exchange Server.

Note: If multiple versions of the CDO.DLL file exist, verify that all copies match.

1. At a command prompt, go to the directory where the CDO.DLL file is located.
2. Type regsvr32 cdo.dll, and press ENTER. A confirmation will display indicating that the file registered successfully.

For Microsoft Exchange 5.5

1. Go to the System32 directory to check the version of the CDO.DLL file on the Microsoft Exchange Server.
2. Verify that the CDO.DLL file on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server is the same or later version of the CDO.DLL file on the Microsoft Exchange Server.

Note: If multiple versions of the CDO.DLL file exist, verify that all copies match.

1. At a command prompt, go to the directory where the CDO.DLL file is located.
2. Type regsvr32 cdo.dll and press ENTER. A confirmation will display indicating that the file registered successfully.

Note: For information on how to obtain and apply the CDO.DLL file, see KB02937. To verify that the CDO.DLL file is registered, see KB04912.

Cause 4

The BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account is a Domain Administrator.

Resolution 4

Verify that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account is not a Domain Administrator.

Note: If Domain Administrator is found under the member of tab,  perform a switch BlackBerry Enterprise Server service accounts, see KB04293.

Cause 5

The Microsoft Exchange Server’s Public Folder database is not mounted.

Resolution 5

Mount the Public Folder database on the Microsoft Exchange Server.

Additional Information

If the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account is a member of the Domain Administrators or Enterprise Administrators groups, the Send As permission will automatically be revoked. Without the Send As permission, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server will not be able to update the BlackBerry smartphone user’s calendar on the Microsoft Exchange Server. Verify that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server service account does not inherit this role from Microsoft Active Directory groups, such as Domain Administrators, or is not a member of this role.

See KB02466 for more information on one-way calendar synchronization when connected to BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 3.5.

See KB03784 for more information on the Windows Server® 2003 domain controller memory leak that affects wireless calendar synchronization.

Visit the Microsoft Support web site at www.microsoft.com for additional information on how to assign service account access to all mailboxes in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003.

When you install Windows, Setup requests that you enter your name, and optional…

When you install Windows, Setup requests that you enter your name, and optionally, the organization name.

This registration information is displayed under Registered to in the General tab of System when you click Start, click Control Panel, click Performance and Maintenance, and then click System.

To change your name and company information after Windows is installed on your computer, follow these steps:

1.  Click Start, and then click Run.

2.  In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

3.  Locate the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

4.  To change the company name, do the following:

In the right pane, double-click RegisteredOrganization. Under Value data, type the name that you want, and then click OK.

5.  To change the name of the registered owner, do the following:

In the right pane, double-click RegisteredOwner. UnderValue data, type the name that you want, and then click OK.

6.  Click Exit on the File menu to quit Registry Editor.

Important

This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 322756 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ ) How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

The AV Science Forums have a post for Windows Home Server users about a new tool that helps with drive balancing.

The utility balances all the data on your drive pool equally, the main purpose being that when a person adds a drive to the pool, it doesn’t necessarily start getting used for a while. While Microsoft has made changes to the usage of the Landing Zone (as in it doesn’t exist anymore), some people’s systems might still be in a non “evened out” state and wish to correct this. On the authors own system, he routinely gets within 2% of perfect balancing on all pooled drives.

NOTE: Usage instructions are available in the following forum post. Make sure you download the latest version, which at the time of publishing is version 1.01 and remember it can take a few hours to balance some systems.

A while ago now, Kevin Royalty wrote an article on how to use the Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) using your Windows Home Server. What this meant is that you could use WSUS to download any Microsoft updates and have your computers get the updates from the WSUS instead of each one having to go out to the Internet for updates. This also meant that you could control what updates are installed.

Kevin has since updated the article to include an automated way of performing maintenance. So, here it is – thanks Kevin!

By Kevin Royalty, SBS MVP

Thanks to many of the Small Business Server and Home Server MVPs for their invaluable input and suggestions to improve this document. I’m proud to be one of you.

Thanks to Andrew Edney for hosting this update on UsingWindowsHomeServer.

Part 1 – Windows Server Update Services v3 (WSUS)

Most of the computer savvy folks know what Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) are. Basically, it is a local copy of Windows Update/Microsoft Update that you control what gets “approved” for installation on the PCs that report to it. Why would you want to do this at home you may ask? Well, if you want to know that your PCs are being kept up to date on all Microsoft patches, or even block certain patches until you want them (IE 7 for example).

There are a myriad of things you can do with WSUS, so to get the full skinny on it, surf tohttp://technet.microsoft.com/wsus to read up on it. Documents you want to have handy for reference are: WSUS 3.0 Overview, Deploying WSUS 3.0, WSUS 3.0 Operations Guide and most importantly the WSUS Deployment Whitepaper. I do recommend that you read these to get familiar with WSUS before diving into the rest of this HowTo. If you are not a computer-savvy person (an IT Pro), you should not continue beyond this point.

Keep this in mind before embarking on this project:

· You will probably need more than the minimum of 512MB of RAM in your WHS box before proceeding.

· WSUS uses a Windows Internal Database instance that runs all the time, and this takes up ram/resources. This can be more important for some of the pre-made WHS units (like the HP MediaSmart Server) that are known to use more RAM than is installed (task manager is your friend).

· We will “limit” the RAM this instance takes at the end of the installation to keep it under control and allow you to do more with your server.

· YOU control what gets installed on your PCs from Microsoft, so PCs that STAY on your network are good candidates. There is a way to update “roaming” computers – see later in this document for how to do this.

· The more PCs you have on your network that report to WSUS, the overall bandwidth savings you should see, but this can vary wildly based on what is in your environment. YMMV.

Let’s get the pieces!

We need to download some pieces from Microsoft to get started.

· WSUS 3.0 x86 installer (WHS is currently 32-bit only, so skip the x64 version for now)

· .NET Framework 2 Service Pack 1

· Microsoft Report Viewer 2008 (find this on www.microsoft.com/downloads and search for it or grab this one at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933137

Also, you will need to download the following utilities from http://www.codeplex.com/wsus

You want to download the “WSUS Cleanup Tool” athttp://www.codeplex.com/WSUS/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=17612

If you have selected the “Drivers” category, you want to also grab the “Driver Decline tool” athttp://www.codeplex.com/WSUS/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=16459

1. Install the report viewer first. Accept all the defaults and you are done. No reboot required.

2. Install .NET Framework 2 Service Pack 1, accepting the defaults and reboot when done (you will be prompted to do so).

3. Now we want to install the WSUS software. (some text from Microsoft’s document titled WSUS 3.0 StepbyStep.doc. Screenshots from an HP Mediasmart 2-drive unit)

4. Double-click the installer file, WSUS3Setupx86.exe.

5. There should be an Open File security warning. Click RUN.

6. On the Welcome page of the installation wizard, click Next.

7. On the Installation Mode Selection page, click Full server installation including Administration Console.

8. On the License Agreement page, read the terms of the license agreement carefully, click I accept the terms of the License agreement, and then click Next.

9. On the Select Update Source page of the installation wizard, you can specify where clients get updates. If you select the Store updates locally check box, updates are stored on the WSUS 3.0 server, and you select a location in the file system to store updates. If you do not store updates locally, client computers connect to Microsoft Update to get approved updates.

Note

We only have a limited amount of disk space on the WHS C: drive, so we want to put this on a larger internal or external drive. Best Practice is to put it on an external drive that won’t be part of the WHS “Drive pool” of space. The internal database is actually installed to C:\WINDOWS\SYSMSI\SSEE\MSSQL.2005\MSSQL\Data The SQL log will continue to grow unless you backup the database or manually truncate the log. Now click Next.

10. On the Database Options page, select the software used to manage the WSUS 3.0 database. By default, WSUS Setup offers to install Windows Internal Database, if the computer on which you are installing runs Windows Server 2003 (the OS that WHS runs on).

Note

It should auto-detect the largest amount of free space and select that drive, but you can override it if you wish. Best Practice would be to use an external drive connected that isn’t part of the WHS “drive pool”. Click Next to continue.

11. On the Web Site Selection page, specify the Web site that WSUS 3.0 will use. On WHS, create an alternate site on port 8530 by selecting the second option. Depending on the way your WHS server is configured, you may only have the 2^nd option available and this is ok. Click Next.

12. On the Ready to Install Windows Server Update Services page, review the selections, and then click Next.

13. The final page of the installation wizard will tell you whether or not the WSUS 3.0 installation was completed successfully. After you click Finish the configuration wizard will be launched. If you don’t see the wizard you can start it manually by clicking Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Microsoft Windows Server Update Services 3.0. Once it launches, drill down to the Options, scroll down the center screen, and click the WSUS Server Configuration Wizard.

Note

You can accept most of the defaults of the configuration wizard – almost all of them won’t apply to you in this home environment. We now want to start the administration console for WSUS 3 and configure it.

14. On the server console, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Microsoft Windows Server Update Services 3.0. (you might want to shortcut this to your desktop, or pin it to the start menu)

15. Skip to “Connecting your PCs” if you used the wizard to configure your updates. The next section is for going back later to make changes to your selections.

Configure Updates and Set Up Synchronization

Before downloading updates, you will need to specify which updates you want to download. This section describes how to configure the set of updates you wish to download.

The next four procedures describe how to configure your updates using the configuration wizard.

Choose update languages

Choose update products

Choose the update classifications

Configure the synchronization schedule

After you have completed all of the above configuration steps, select the Finished page in the configuration wizard. You can launch the WSUS Administration console by leaving the Launch the Windows Server Update Services Administrations snap-in check box selected, and you can start the first synchronization by leaving the Begin initial synchronization check box selected.

Note

You cannot save configuration changes that are made while the server is synchronizing. Wait until synchronization is finished to make your changes.

Getting Notified

If you’d like to be notified by your WSUS of any updates or status of updates installed, you need to do the following.

1. Launch the WSUS Administration console: Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Microsoft Windows Server Update Services.

2. Select Options under your WSUS server in the left pane.

3. Click Email Notifications

4. Fill out both tabs (you will need a valid SMTP server for this to work)

5. Filling out “send e-mail notifications when new updates are synchronized” will send you at least one email a day from your WSUS telling you about all the update details it has synced. Note that it won’t actually download the updates, just the metadata describing them. It only downloads updates that actually are needed, and only when you tell it to do so (unless you have auto-approve rules).

6. The “send status reports” is what you may want to use, as it will tell you if a computer failed an update, so you can go back into the WSUS console and see what happened. Normally, I have this set to weekly.

The following procedures explain how to perform the above configuration steps through the Options page of the WSUS Administration console:

· Choose products and classifications

· Update files and languages

Choose products and classifications

Update files and languages

After you configure the network connection, you can download updates by synchronizing the WSUS server.

Synchronization involves the WSUS server contacting Microsoft Update. After making contact, WSUS determines whether any new updates have been made available since the last time you synchronized. Because this is the first time you are synchronizing the WSUS server, all of the updates are available and are ready for your approval for installation. The initial synchronization may take a fairly long time.

Note

This document describes synchronizing with the default settings, but WSUS includes options that enable you to minimize bandwidth use during synchronization.

To synchronize your WSUS server

Note

If you do not see the Actions pane on the right side of the console, on the console toolbar click View, click Customize, and ensure that the Action pane check box is selected.

After the synchronization finishes, click Updates in the left panel to view the list of updates.

Connecting your PCs:

Now we need to “join” your WHS connected PCs to WSUS. Here is a registry script that sets things to a best practice default. This was taken from an SBS Server network running WSUS 3. If you wish to research and modify it yourself go ahead.

Copy and paste the following text into notepad and save it with a name like WHS-INT-WSUS.REG filename. The .REG extension is necessary when we get to the workstations and install it.

Disclaimer: Use Registry Editor at your own risk. If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. This information is provided on an “as is” basis and all risk is with you. Improper use of Regedit can also make you sterile.  I make no warranties, express, implied or statutory, as to any matter whatsoever, and I do not guarantee that problems that you cause by using Registry Editor incorrectly can be resolved.

Important Safety Note: Since we are messing with the registry, please BACK UP your registry or at least the key below before overwriting with the below info.

— begin cut-n-paste below —

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]

“WUServer”=”http://server:8530/“

“WUStatusServer”=”http://server:8530/“

“ElevateNonAdmins”=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]

“NoAutoUpdate”=dword:00000000

“AUOptions”=dword:00000004

“ScheduledInstallDay”=dword:00000000

“ScheduledInstallTime”=dword:00000005

“NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers”=dword:00000001

“AutoInstallMinorUpdates”=dword:00000001

“NoAUShutdownOption”=dword:00000000

“NoAUAsDefaultShutdownOption”=dword:00000000

“UseWUServer”=dword:00000001

“RescheduleWaitTimeEnabled”=dword:00000001

“RescheduleWaitTime”=dword:00000005

“DetectionFrequencyEnabled”=dword:00000001

“DetectionFrequency”=dword:00000004

“RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled”=dword:00000000

“RebootWarningTimeoutEnabled”=dword:00000001

“RebootWarningTimeout”=dword:00000005

“IncludeRecommendedUpdates”=dword:00000001

“AUPowerManagement”=dword:00000001

– End cut-n-paste above –

Save this file in the \\server\software folder. Go to a workstation and open the Shared Folders on Server icon. Open the Software folder. Double-click on the WHS-INT-WSUS.REG file and acknowledge that you want to add this to the registry.

Once you’ve done this, click Start then Run and type WUAUCLT /resetauthorization /detectnow and click OK. This will force the PC to check in with the WSUS service on the WHS server.

You can do this on all your Internal networked PCs now, or do one and wait before doing the others.

Note

I don’t recommend you have your WHS server report to WSUS for it’s updates, due to the fact that currently WHS updates aren’t under their own classification, and you may miss updates you need. So, please don’t run the REG file on the WHS server.

External/Roaming PCs

If you wish to control PCs that are not internal to your network (college students away from home) take the same REG file above and change the URLs on the WUServer and WUStatusServer lines to the external names for your WHS server. E.G. http://myserver.homeserver.com:8530/ where “myserver” is the domain name you chose when configuring external access to your server. Save the new file as WHS-EXT-WSUS.REG and run it on the roaming computers. When the machines “come back home” you’ll need to use the WHS-INT-WSUS.REG file on them, and vice-versa when they leave again.

Note

You’ll also need to open up port 8530 in your router and forward it to the WHS server. Consult your router documentation for how to do this.

Create a Computer Group for Updates

Computer groups are an important part of WSUS deployments, even a basic deployment. Computer groups enable you to target updates to specific computers. There are two default computer groups: All Computers and Unassigned Computers. By default, when each client computer initially contacts the WSUS server, the server adds that client computer to each of these groups.

You can create custom computer groups. One benefit of creating computer groups is that they enable you to test updates before deploying updates widely. If testing goes well, you can roll out the updates to the All Computers group. There is no limit to the number of custom groups you can create. A suggestion would be to have a “test” group that auto-approves everything and the other group “normal” would be set to manual approval.

To set up computer groups

You can use this step to set up a test group that contains at least one test computer.

· Create a group.

· Add a computer to the group.

To create a group

Use the next procedure to assign a client computer to the test group. A client computer appropriate for testing is any computer with software and hardware indicative of the majority of computers on your network, but not a computer assigned to a critical role. In this way, you can tell how well computers like the test computer will fare with the updates you approve.

To add a computer to the group

Approve and Deploy Updates in WSUS 3.0

In this step, you approve an update for any test client computers in the test group. Computers in the group will contact the WSUS server over the next 24 hours. After this period, you can use the WSUS reporting feature to determine if those updates have been deployed to the computers. If testing goes well, you can then approve the same updates for the rest of the computers in your organization.

· Approve and deploy an update.

· Check the status of the update.

To approve and deploy an update

Note

Many options are associated with approving updates, such as setting deadlines and uninstalling updates.

After 24 hours, you can use the WSUS reporting feature to determine whether the updates have been deployed to the computers.

To check the status of an update

If the updates were successfully deployed to the test group, you can approve the same updates for the rest of the computers in your organization.

Automated Maintenance of WSUS

In the previous version of this guide, it was a good idea manually run maintenance every month. Now this process is automated J

Unzip the WSUS Cleanup Tool and optionally the Driver Decline Tool into the WSUS directory on your home server

Set up a Scheduled Task (start..control panel…scheduled tasks) for the WSUS_Cleanup_CL.exe to run weekly at an off time that doesn’t conflict with backups or normal use of the server

The Driver Decline tool you can run once (only needed if you have the Drivers category selected), or schedule it to run monthly if you wish.

Now your WSUS cleanup is now totally automated!

Limiting the RAM for the Windows Internal Database instance

The Windows Internal Database instance can eat up RAM if we let it, and we don’t want it to do that. WSUS instances can be safely tuned for small networks. We easily do this via a script. Feel free to experiment with the script for your network, but this is what I use at many customers for networks of up to 75 computers.

We need more downloads before we can continue. Browse to here to get Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=993C0BCF-3BCF-4009-BE21-27E85E1857B1&displaylang=en install it, then http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=65110  and install it. You’ll need tool to help you manage SQL 2005 embedded. 

Run the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express (via start..all programs). Enter\\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query in the computer query field.

Click “Connect” and wait for the screen to change. Right-click on the top and select Properties.

The below settings change the RAM limit for WSUS to 256Meg. As I mentioned on page 1 of this article, that works fine for networks I manage of up to 75 computers. You may be able to lower it and have no ill effects for networks of under 10 PCs connected to your WHS server. I wouldn’t go below 128 however.

Once you make the changes, click OK and close the SQL Management Studio. You are done! The changes made take effect immediately and do not require a reboot of your WHS server.

The Windows 7 Sidebar and Gadgets do not work correctly if a user disables the User Account Control in Windows 7. There is however an easy way to make the gadgets and sidebar work again without having to replace system files (that was the way suggested in many forums).

All that needs to be done is to change one value of a parameter in the Windows 7 Registry to make the sidebar and gadgets work even with UAC disabled.

Open the Windows 7 Registry by pressing [Windows R], typing [regedit] and hitting [enter]. Now navigate to the Registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Sidebar\Setting and change the value of AllowElevatedProcess to 1.

Restart the computer or logout and login again to see if the changes work as intended. The Registry setting ensures that the gadgets and the sidebar are working in Windows 7 properly even if UAC is disabled.

Update

This post was originally written for Windows 7 beta but since the Windows 7 RTM has arrived the reg path has changed to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Sidebar\Settings

You should probably notice that settings is not present so you will need to right click sidebar and create key called settings. Once created you will now need to create a “DWORD” inside settings called “AllowElevatedProcess” and giving it the value of 1 when asked, click ok and then logoff and then log back on, you should now find your gadgets working without fault.

Windows 7 can run on machines with lower specs than required for Windows Vista, and many users are actually finding it runs better than Windows XP on lower spec machines. It’s also ideal to run on newer netbook machines, but unfortunately many of these do not include a DVD drive so how do you install windows 7 on a machine without a DVD drive?

I spent yesterday researching this exact problem and I managed to install Windows 7 on my Acer Aspire One netbook in around 20 minutes using a 4GB USB Drive. Setting up the USB drive to install Windows 7 was fairly easy in the end, and the installation was quicker than a DVD drive, so this method is perfect if you want to install Windows 7 quickly on several machines.

How To Install Windows 7 From A USB Drive

1. Find a standard 4GB USB Drive and plug it into your machine
2. Click Start in your enter ‘cmd’ in the run field. Once cmd is open type in ‘diskpart’ and a new window will open
3. In the new diskpart window type:

• ‘list disk’ : This lists all the disk drives attached to your machine
• Look for your USB drive and note the number and then type: ’select disk #’, where ‘#’ is your USB disk number
• then type ‘clean’
• then type ‘create partition primary’
• then ’select partition 1′
• then ‘active’
• then ‘format fs=fat32 quick’

Once you’ve finished these steps you then need to copy your Windows 7 files to the USB. To do this you have to mount your Windows 7 ISO as a virtual DVD. Doing this is easy:

1. Install MagicDisk (free)
2. once installed, right-click on MagicDisk in your system tray click on ‘Virtual CD/DVD-Rom’, select your DVD drive
3. then ‘Mount’ and in the dialog window that opens up, select your Windows 7 ISO
4. Now in windows Explorer, click on your DVD drive and you should see all the Windows 7 Files. All you have to do now is copy and paste all the files to your USB key and you have a Windows 7 USB Installation Stick!
5. Install the stick in the PC you want to install Windows 7 on and boot up. Remember to change your bios to allow booting from USB

If you follow the steps above then you should have no problems installing Windows 7 from a USB key. But if you do, leave a comment below.

Exchange Failed Mail Folder

Where does failed mail disappear to in Exchange?

“c:\program files\microsoft windows small business server\networking\pop3\failed mail”

all have *.eml extensions so you can open them with outlook express.

Moving all emails from here “c:\program files\microsoft windows small business server\networking\pop3\failed mail” to here “c:\program files\microsoft windows small business server\networking\pop3\incoming” will force exchange to re-distribute the email to the relevant mailboxes.

“Send As” allows one user to send an email as though it came from another user. The recipient will not be given any indication that the email was composed by someone other than the stated sender.

“Send As” can only be granted by a system administrator. “Send on Behalf of” may be more appropriate in many situations, it allows the recipient to be notified both who the author was and on who’s behalf the email was sent. 

The following procedure will allow system managers to grant users the ability to send as another:

1. Log onto the server running Exchange.
2. Run Active Directory Users and Computers.
3. Under the “View” menu ensure that “Advanced Features” is ticked.
4. Find the user’s account that you want to be able to send as, and open up the account properties.
5. Select the “Security” tab.
6. Click [Add ...] (under “Group or user names”) and add the user (users or group) that is to be granted permission to send-as this account.
7. For each account added, highlight the account under “Group or user names” and in the “Permissions for …” window grant the account “Send As” permission.
8. Click [OK] to close the account properties dialog.

Note:

• If there is an account for which a number of people need to be able to send as (such as an account used as a single point of contact for a distribution lists) then administratively it may be simpler to add a group of users who should have that permission and grant the permission to the group and not to the accounts individually.