SMB Nation What Does Your Inner Geek Need

After the last SMB Nation I sat in on the town hall meeting. The overwhelming request was for more technical content.

Well here is your chance to help shape the upcoming SMB Nation Fall Conference. Harry has left 5 slots open for us to to tell him what we want to see. He has put up a SURVEY to gather our (ours and mine) input and then he will go out and find people to present just what you want top hear.

Please take 3 minutes and fill out the short survey it will help shape the conference to be just what you want!

Please pay particular attention to the last question, this is were you can have the most influence!

Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework is Free

The Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework is a free, centralized code sample library driven by developers’ needs. The goal of the All-In-One Code Framework is to provide typical code samples for all Microsoft development technologies, and reduce developers’ efforts in solving typical programming tasks.

The Microsoft teams listens to developers’ pains in the MSDN forums, social media and various developer communities. They write code samples based on developers’ frequently asked programming tasks, and allow developers to download them with a short code sample publishing cycle. Additionally, their teams offers a free code sample request service. This service is a proactive way for our developer community to obtain code samples for certain programming tasks directly from Microsoft.

 For more information on the Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, visit their YouTube channel or download at http://1code.codeplex.com/.

A Fine Day for Installing Exchange 2007 Rollup 4

A few days ago Microsoft released Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 Roll-up 4 and after kicking it’s tires on in my test lab, I decided today was a good day to roll it out. Thought you might like to come along on the journey.

First because it is a very good practice, reboot the server before you start any updating, it is always a great idea to start from a clean known state.

Next since there is apparently no way to tell if the Schema Update has actually been run from SP3 (remember all the trouble this caused) I thought it would be prudent to just run it again. It is a pretty simple process and won’t hurt anything if run again . Just grab a copy of Exchange 2007 SP3 and from an Administrative Command Box expand it out and run the command “Setup.com /PrepareSchema” this is what it will look like.

Once that finishes you can go ahead and run the roll-up without rebooting again. Grab a copy of 

Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (KB2509911)

  I had some trouble getting it to run correctly from an explorer window, so I went out to an administrative command prompt (I probably could have used an administrative explorer window also but did not try) 

Start RU4 Update

 Now the familiar GUI will start up with the proper permissions, so it does not bomb out in the middle of the process and roll back. 

The first few screens are the regular click next exercise

This next phase may take quite a while be patient

Still with me?

Several minutes that’s for sure

Now things are looking up, we are stopping the services so we can get busy

It is making sure we have a solid foundation to build on

Copying looks like it is quick, don’t be fooled

Ya I know the bar is all the way across, but it will start up a few more times

Now it will rebuild the files with the updates

It starts up the services, if everything went right

Removing backup files is usually a very good sign

How I do like a positive outcome, I have done this on a number of systems yesterday and today
and they took anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours, give yourself plenty of time

Yes you do have to do a final reboot, the server is not in a stable state until you do!

Hope your day and your roll-up goes smoothly!

SMB MVP Community Roadshow Triad Stop

I am excited to announce that the International SMB MVP Community Roadshow will be making a stop at my IT Pro Group “The Triad SBS Group” on August 2^nd. This is a different kind of IT event although it is sponsored by HP & Microsoft the content is totally under control of the MVP’s and SBSmigration.com who is producing the entire tour as an offshoot of their annual conference.

The content is focused on the new SMB Stack from Microsoft, but is not a bunch of marketing PowerPoint’s, it is real world content built by a team of MVP’s, presented by a rotating team of MVP’s and demo’d on current shipping HP hardware. These are all real world current solutions you can deploy today, all focused on the SMB segment. The actual presenters have the ability to adjust the presentation to the local audience at their discretion. It looks to be a great event spanning almost a year to cover some 90 cities internationally; the first wave is about 6 months and should cover some 60 cities. I look forward to attending a few of the events as the content will be a little different at each one.

You can get more info about the tour HERE and you can follow the tour by liking their Facebook Page. You can also follow the chatter on Twitter.

You can check to see if there has been a tour stop setup yet in your local area by checking HERE and if you are anywhere near the Triad Area and want to attend our event you can register HERE.

Oh Ya, there is a little gnome traveling around with the tour and you can friend him HERE to see pics and updates from local events as he travels the world.

Note: for Group Leaders, you can request a tour stop in your area HERE

TechStravaganza 2011

TechStravaganza 2011

Yes that’s right happening again after a great sucess last year is TechStravaganza in Atlanta. If you are anywhere in the SouthEast Region try and make it. Mark Minasi is doing the keynote this year and the event is still FREE, so I don’t want to hear it’s not in the budget :>) More details and to register CLICK HERE

New IT Pro Group Forming in South Michigan

My friend Amy Babinchak is forming a new IT Pro Group in the South Michigan area. She asked me if I would speak at their inaugural meeting, how could I refuse the most awared IT Pro in SMB :>)

 Since my new found love for Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 and how well it interacts with my Old Love SBS, I though what a perfect topic. So I will be bringing up a WMS Server with me and as many clients as I can acquire in the short time I have. I will be putting on a live demo and discussing my first production implementation of WMS into an SBS 2008 network last month as well as a new one I am working on for another client for the end of this month. If you are wondering, WMS also plays well with my new friends MAX & Vipre.

So Kathy and I are taking a road trip, I didn’t realize it but Amy is only a half hour from Kathy’s best friend from our days in Silicon Valley, so we will be staying an extra day so they can hang out and reminisce.

Amy does not have a website for the new group yet, but if you are in the area and want to attend see Matt’s blog  or E-Mail Amy directly at amy@harborcomputerservices.net  or better yet sign up for the event on the LinkedIn Event Page

I hope you can stop by and help make their first meeting a success!

Did you get bitten by the Win7 SP1, be careful

There is a lot of bad advice floating around the Internet about how to recover from the faulty SP1 install for Windows 7, please read this TECHNET ARTICLE before trying any of them. Of course if you have the option to restore an image from the day before via WHS, ShadowProtect or some other imaging tool that is your best option.

UPDATE FROM MS http://blogs.technet.com/b/joscon/archive/2011/03/16/new-information-on-error-code-0xc0000034.aspx

HA interviewed by MicrosoftFeed

A few days ago I was contacted by Ali Raza Shaikh of MicrosoftFeed and he asked if he could interview me for the site. It was actually a pretty painless process :>)

If you would like to know a bit about my history as an MVP you can read the INTERVIEW HERE

You may recognise some of the pictures and the people mentioned in the post.

Have a Great Day,
HA

Karl brings the Intel Hybrid Cloud to NC

HA takes home the grand prize!

Tuesday I drove to Charlotte for Karl’s Intel Hybrid Server Roadshow. This was a joint event between Dave’s Charlotte IT Pro Group and my own Triad SBS Group. We had close to 200 attendees. Karl did a great job, even playing off an expired password at the beginning of the live demo. Never broke a sweat, a true pro! And the highlight of the evening (for me anyways) yours truly won the grand prize an Intel Hybrid Server by Lenovo. Karl has more of these events coming up, to check if he is stopping by your area check the Official Intel Site.

Congratulations Walter Scott Named In Top 10 3rd Party Execs 2010

I wanted to offer my congratulation to my friend Walter Scott, CEO of GFI Software; he was listed in the Redmond Magazine December issue. The article was titled, 10 Third-Party Execs to Watch. I was going to post a link but it appears the article is only available in the printed magazine; whoever said paper was dead may have been a bit premature. Anyways congrats again Walt!