Today the long awaited RTM (Release To Manufacture) of SBS 2008 formerly know as Cougar is a reality.

This marks a major milestone in SMB technology as we wave goodbye to 32 bit technology and welcome in the new world of mainstream 64 bit technology. Years of effort have gone in to building this long awaited upgrade to the almost 6 year old SBS 2003 product base.

This new release is going to make adoption of SBS so much easier for folks moving from P2P whether they are a DIYer or were smart enough to hire a pro from the get go. Either way I am betting the adoption rate for SBS doubles over the next 12 months even in the tight economy. This is by far the easiest OOBE (Out Of Box Experience) for SBS since its inception. A little harder of a sale to existing SBS 2003 customers since 2003 was such a great product, there is no ”I just have to have this today” but there are a lot of cool new things SBS 2008 not the least of which is the new image based backup. 

I want to publicly congratulate the entire SBS team on a job well done, SBS still Rocks!

My pal Kevin Weilbacher  SBS-MVP and famous for Song of the Week on the sbs2k yahoo list has just put together a little diddy for MS and Cougar, hop on over to KEVIN’s SITE and listen. A bit of a hint, download the words before you start listening, it is hard to make them out. For those of you who have been around a while some nice nostalgia in the video.

One of my favorite powershell guru’s Michael Pope (who also runs the Triangle SBS Group) posted this handy note. So of course I stole  borrowed it from him to share it with you.

As always use at you own risk, ymmv

I know some of you may still be wondering what good PowerShell is for. It’s relatively new and shiny but what can it do?

Someone on the Kaseya forums was asking how to script the update of a MULTI_SZ registry value because they wanted to push out an update related to this post 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

This is something I had been meaning to script so I took some time last night and put it together. This is just an example of something that’s simple to do with PowerShell that is very difficult to do otherwise.

For those of you that are interested, save the following to an Update-ReservedPorts.ps1 script file in Notepad:

$NP=”1645-1646″,”1701-1701″,”1812-1813″,”2883-2883″,”4500-4500″

$P=”HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters”

$RP=(Get-ItemProperty -Path $P -Name “ReservedPorts”).ReservedPorts

$RP=$RP+=$NPSet-ItemProperty -Path $P -Name “ReservedPorts” -Value $RP

RTP Computer Services, Inc.

105 West NC Highway 54

Suite 265

Durham, NC 27713

Phone: 919.806.8845
Fax: 800.853.3365
Email: michael AT rtpcomputer.com
Web: http://www.rtpcomputer.com/

Then, run it within PowerShell and you’re done. I tried scripting this with REG.EXE and it was very difficult because this is a MULTI_SZ registry value.

I just needed a place to put this note about fixing MU and WU KB956703 so I could find it later :>)

Here is a list of the current Microsoft PALs, no they are not MS employees, they are your community representatives. Have you talked to your local PAL lately?

• Australia - Hilton Travis - Quark IT, PO Box 995, Sunnybank  Qld  4109, Tel: 07 3105 9101
• New Zealand - Ben Walton - Tiger Networks, Level 1, 96 New North Road, Eden Terrace, Auckland 1003, New Zealand, Tel: +64 9 358 5480
• Canada - Elisabeth Vanderveldt - Conamex, 9780 Hamel, Montreal, Quebec H2C 2W7, Tel: (514) 381-1900
• Canada - Brad Kowerchuk - Bralin Technology Solutions, 104, 2062 100th Street, Box 422, North Batteford, SK S9A 2Y4 Canada, Tel: (306) 445-4881
• Denmark - Klaus Juhl - PC SYS, Midtager 29, 2605 Brøndby, Tel: +4543432929
• France - Elisabeth Gervais - Likinia, 1 rue des Primevères, 14210 Noyers-Bocage, Tel: +33 (0)2 31 25 41 41
• Germany - Oliver Sommer - Trinity Computer, Rötkersiek 44; 32760, Detmold; Germany, Tel: +49 (0)5231-458986-0
• Germany - Oliver Kiel - PingUs Solutions OHG, Marienstraße 1a; 16552 Mühlenbecker Land – OT, Ortsteil Schildow; Germany, Tel: +49 (0)33056 / 4202-0
• India - Suresh Ramani - Techgyan, Office #4A, Shankeshwar Darshan, A.G. Pawar X Road 2, Byculla, Mumbai 400 027, India, Tel: +91-22-23717207
• Italy - Fabio Cazzaniga - Braindata s.a.s., Via Sirtori, 26/G– Casatenovo (LC), Casatenovo, Italy, Tel: +39.039.9202602
• Slovenia/CEE - Jose Antonio Morales - B4Contact d.o.o., Naselje Jožeta Kerenčiča 38, 9000 Murska Sobota, Slovenia, Tel: +386 2 530 8222
• South Africa - David Lees - Sector4 Contact Management Solutions, 3rd floor The Palms 145 Sir Lowry Rd POB 12403 Mill St 8010, Cape town, South Africa 7925, Tel: +27 21 465 0560
• UK - Vijay Riyait - iQubed, 3 Lawrence Close, Leicester, Leicestershire, UK, LE4 2SB, Tel: +44 (0)845 004 8466
• UK - Gareth Brown - Sytec Systems & Technology Ltd, 26 Parkers Close, Downtown Business Centre, Salisbury, UK, SP5 3RB, Tel: +44 (0) 8700 111 366
• US - Kim Walker - Franklin Computer, 4770 Indianola Avenue, Ste 110, Columbus, OH 43214, Tel: (614) 431-3327
• US - Jere Terrill - My Computer Mechanic, 1077 Whispering Oak Drive, Castle Rock, Colorado 80104, Tel: 303.663.9082
• US - Neil Pearlstein - PC Professional Inc., 1615 Webster Street, Oakland, California, 94612, Tel: 510-874-5859
• US - Mark Crall - Charlotte Tech Care Team, 10700 Sikes Place, Suite 280, Charlotte, NC 28277, Tel: (704) 248-8328 x33

You may have seen my post earlier about the upcoming SBS Partner Tour, well if you are lucky enough to be in the Charlotte area, here is an added bonus;

Here is a note from Eric’s Blog that may explain your temporary problems.

Over the years, the various components of the Microsoft SMB Channel Community have continued to grow and expand to better address the needs and requests of those in the Community. These components I am referring to are our MSSMALLBIZ.com WebSite, our User Group, and our Blog.

This is one bullet you don’t want to dodge. Microsoft has brought back the Second Shot Progam, that is the one where you register before taking the exams and if you don’t pass the first time, you get to take it again for free. Make sure you register HERE first!

A few weeks ago I saw a post on Eric Ligman’s Blog and I followed the directions to enter for a chance to win 50 Mid Market Brochures. Well today the box arrived and I just wanted to say thankx to Eric and let him know they will go to good use. I will be handing them out at the next Triad SBS Group meeting.

These brochures are chalk full of talking points. They will make great conversation starters on your sales calls.

Keep an eye on Eric’s Blog you never know what goodies you are liable to bump into accidently :>)