How to force the address book to update

13May09

When a new email account is created in Exchange it will not normally appear in the address book of others until the following day. This procedure shows how to force newly created accounts to be visible in the address book:

1. Force an address list update on the Exchange server
2. Pull down the address list in Outlook.

Force an address list update on the Exchange server

1. On the server running Exchange, open Exchange System Manager.
2. Expand “Recipients”.
3. Select “Offline Address Lists”
   In the default configuration there will only be one offline address list shown in the right hand pane – “Default Offline Address List”. If other address lists have been created then they will also be listed.
4. Right click the address list to update (typically “Default Offline Address List”) and select “Rebuild”
   A message will be shown warning that this may take a long time depending on the number of recipients in the domain. Allow it to rebuild the offline address list.

Pull down the address list in Outlook

This needs to be done on each pc running outlook which requires the latest address book:

1. Start up Outlook.
2. Tools → Send/Receive → Download Address Book…
3. On the “Offline Address Book” dialog click [OK]

Filed under: Exchange Server   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: How to force the address book to update

How to configure Exchange to allow users to forward emails (by rule) to external accounts

13May09

When Exchange is installed, the default configuration is to block any user defined rules that would forward their email to an external account. (They can still forward emails manually.)

Why might someone want to define a rule to forward to an external account? One reason is that if someone is out of the office forwarding emails to another account (such as on a blackberry) may be a convenient way of keeping in touch.

Why is this blocked by default? The reason often quoted is that it makes the system vulnerable to email looping. For example, if someone defines a rule that forwards all of their email to home, and then on their home system defines a system for forwarding all their email to work, then the system will be forever forwarding emails. Consider this carefully before allowing emails to be forwarded (by rule).

To enable forwarding by rule:

1. Log on to the server running exchange server.
2. Run “Exchange System Manager”.
3. Expand “Global Settings”.
4. Click on “Internet Message Formats” to highlight it.
5. In the right hand window pane, double click on “Default” to open its properties.
6. On the “Advanced” tab, check “Allow automatic forward”.
7. Click [OK] to save.

Filed under: Exchange Server   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: How to configure Exchange to allow users to forward emails (by rule) to external accounts

How to change the default email address for an account

13May09

A user can have any number of email addresses, but only one default email address. The default email address is the address that outgoing email will appear to have come from and where replies will be sent.

To change the default email address for a user:

1. Log on to the server running exchange server. (This is necessary because Active Directory Users and Computers does not display the necessary “E-Mail Addresses” tab if you try this from a different server.)
2. Run Active Directory Users and Computers.
3. Navigate down to the user account.
4. Open the properties for the user account.
5. Open the “E-Mail Addresses” tab.
6. Highlight the SMTP address that is to be the new default email address.
7. Click [Set As Primary]

Filed under: Exchange Server   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: How to change the default email address for an account

How to allow an account to receive email for two or more email addresses

13May09

A user can be configured to receive email on any number of email addresses.

To add a new email address to a user:

1. Log on to the server running exchange server. (This is necessary because Active Directory Users and Computers does not display the necessary “E-Mail Addresses” tab if you try this from a different server.)
2. Run Active Directory Users and Computers.
3. Navigate down to the user account.
4. Open the properties for the user account.
5. On the “E-Mail Addresses” tab add click the button [New ...]
6. Select “SMTP Address” and click [OK]
7. Enter the new new email address that you want the account to receive.

Note:

• Be sure not to set any of these new ones to be the primary for the account, or this will change the email address of the user when he/she sends out email.

Filed under: Exchange Server   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: How to allow an account to receive email for two or more email addresses

How to configure Exchange to accept email for a second email domain

13May09

If you ever need to allow exchange to accept email for a second domain (or for multiple domains) the procedure is as follows:

1. Start Exchange System Manager
2. Expand Recipients and select “Recipient Policies”
   • It is the recipient policy that defines the default SMTP addresses to use when creating an account.
   • There will only be one policy unless you have created additional ones.
3. Open the default policy (or the relevant policy if you have defined additional ones).
4. Select the “E-Mail Addresses (Policy)” tab.
5. Click [New...] and select “SMTP Address”
6. In the “SMTP Address Properties” dialog enter “@<new-domain>” (where <new-domain> is the new domain for which you want to be able to receive email).
7. Click [OK]
8. Tick the check-box next to the domain in the list to activate it.
   You will then be asked whether you wish to apply the changes to all recipients. This is asking whether Exchange should automatically generate an email address for each exchange account for this new email domain. Select Yes. (If you select No then you will need to manually add email to each account 
9. Click [OK] to close the recipient policies dialog.

The above handles the configuration at the Exchange server. In addition to this, remember to ensure that the MX record for the domain points to your server – this needs to be done via the company dealing with your domain name registration.

Filed under: Exchange Server   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: How to configure Exchange to accept email for a second email domain

How to upgrade Windows 7 from beta to RC 1

12May09

Here’s what you can do to bypass the check for pre-release upgrade IF YOU REALLY REALLY NEED TO:

1. Download the ISO as you did previously and burn the ISO to a DVD.
2. Copy the whole image to a storage location you wish to run the upgrade from (a bootable flash drive or a directory on any partition on the machine running the pre-release build).
3. Browse to the sources directory.
4. Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor like Notepad.
5. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000 (pictured below).
6. Save the file in place with the same name.
7. Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed.

These same steps will be required as we transition from the RC milestone to the RTM milestone.

Filed under: Windows 7   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: How to upgrade Windows 7 from beta to RC 1

How to clear Vista’s offline folders cache

12May09

If you are using Vista’s offline folders feature and you suspect that the offline cache has gone corrupt, or if you simply want to reset the cache, follow these steps.

1. Open up registry editor (WARNING: Only for Advanced Users)
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Csc
3. Add a new key (folder) called Parameters
4. Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Csc\Parameters, add a new DWORD called FormatDatabase and set its value to 1

If you want to completely disable the offline folders functionality, you must also stop and disable the offline folders service:

net stop "Offline Files"

WMIC SERVICE WHERE Caption="Offline Files" CALL ChangeStartMode "Disabled"

Filed under: Windows 7, Windows Vista   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: cache, clear, folders, offline, vista

Windows Wallpaper Rotator V1.0

28Apr09

I really like to find and use new wallpaper designs for my computer. About once a week or so I go out and hunt for new ones that I have not yet seen before. Having a lot of variety in my desktop background helps me keep things fresh. Nobody wants to look at the same desktop every day.

That is where the Windows Wallpaper Rotator comes into play. It is a freeware program that will help you use all those wallpapers you have found over the years. Here is what the folks behind the program have to say about it.

Specify a Windows directory full of JPG files that you want to rotate as your desktop wallpaper. You can have it rotate the wallpaper at regular intervals, like once a day for example.

The only “catch” I guess you could say that the program has is that it does require the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. Once you get that out of the way though, it is a nice and simple program that gets the job done. If you want to configure it, it does have a system tray icon that is looking back at you all of the time.

So what are you waiting for? Put those wallpapers to good use, and sync them up with the Windows Wallpaper Rotator.

[10K] [Win98/ME/2k/XP] [FREE]

Filed under: Windows   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Rotator, Wallpaper, Windows

How to Hide specific Drives ?

28Apr09

This tutorial illustrates how to hide and show your computer drives from Windows XP. You can hide or show as you want both drives in your computer and drives in the computer network. This way can be safe for data in your computer and prevent others from accessing to your drives that may contain important information. This example I will hide drive D and you can apply this method to another drive you want, just change a value that I will explain “how to” in detail. Let you hide drives now.

• Access to the Registry Editor program, running regedit.
• Find the path like below,

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

• Right click on the Explorer folder and select New > DWORD Value.
• Name the registry NoDrives.

• Double click on NoDrives which is in the right page.
• In the DWORD Value window, select Decimal.

• In this case I want to hide drive D, so I must fill 8 in Value data. The number you filled varies with drive you want it to be hidden. If you want to hide the other drives, you must put the drive-related number like below,

A=1, B=2, C=4, D=8, E=16, F=32, G=64, H=128, I=256, J=512, K=1024, L=2048, M=4096, N=8192, O=16384, P=32768, Q=65536, R=131072, S=262144, T=524288, U=1048576, V=2097152, W=4194304, X=8388608, Y=16777216, Z=33554432, All drive=67108863

For example, I can hide drive J only if I put the number 512 under selecting Decimal. What to do in case I prefer to hide more than one drive ? That is easy just plus the numbers. To illustrate, I want to hide drive C and E so I put the result number of 4 plus 16 that is 20.

• Click OK button and close the Registry Editor program.
• Log off and Log on your computer. Finish !

Filed under: Windows   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: How to Hide specific Drives

How to Manually Create a Virtual Drive in Windows XP

09Apr09

*Click Start and then Run. Now type cmd on the text field. The command prompt will appear. On the command prompt, type subst x: “C:\windows”. 

*The letter “x” represents the drive letter of the virtual drive you wish to create. You can choose any letter as long as it doesn’t already exist on your computer. However, do not use the letters A, C, E, F, or Q because they are common drive letters and your computer may already be using these letters. 

*C:\windows represents the directory that you want to place your virtual drive. You choose any directory or file on your computer. 

After you have input this information in the command prompt, you can view the new drive by going to My Computer.

Filed under: Windows   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: drive, mount folder, virtual, windows xp