Network Administrator Knowledgebase:

June, 2008

Jun 28 2008   3:06PM GMT

Outlook Web Access New Mail Notification for Exchange 2007, Soon



Posted by: Michael Khanin
Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Outlook Web Access, Exchange, OWA, Outlook Web Access New Mail Notification, OWANotify

Dean, developer of well know “Outlook Web Access New Mail Notification” for Exchange 2003, recently announced that he started work on an Exchange 2007 version of OWANotify.

Jun 27 2008   11:22PM GMT

BESadmin and ‘Send As’ Right



Posted by: Michael Khanin
BES, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, BESADMIN

If you are working with BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) you can get a problem, when users cannot send emails from their Blackberry. And, I guess you already familiar with a “Send As Permission” problem :).

So, I created a script, that allows set all neccesasry right to the BESADMIN account. When you run script, you should provide an OU, where the particular user exist and user’s email address.

NOTE: In my script I used linex.exe and dsacls.exe. Just use Google to download those very POWERFUL tools ;)

@echo off
SET Tools=C:\Tools
SET TEMP=C:\TMP

SET SOU=
SET BES=
SET ou4user=
SET BES-USER=

DSQUERY OU domainroot > %TEMP%\ou.txt
%Tools%\linex -n < %TEMP%\ou.txt

SET /p SOU=”Please type # of OU where the user located: “
SET /p BES=”Please type user’s email address: “

FOR /F “TOKENS=* delims==,OU” %%a in (’%Tools%\LINEX -l %SOU% ^<%TEMP%\OU.txt’) do set ou4user=%%~a

FOR /F “TOKENS=2 delims==,” %%a in (’dsquery * “%ou4user%” -attr mail distinguishedName^|find /i “%BES%”‘) do set BES-USER=%%~a

@echo “%BES-USER%”

dsacls “CN=%BES-USER%,%ou4user%” /G “%USERDOMAIN%\BESADMIN:GR”
dsacls “CN=%BES-USER%,%ou4user%” /G “%USERDOMAIN%\BESADMIN:CA;Send As”


Jun 27 2008   10:56PM GMT

Send a Message to All Users in an OU



Posted by: Michael Khanin
Microsoft Windows, send, message, Command line

By using the DSQUERY command and “Net Send” we can send a message to all users in a given OU.
It’s really simple, create a script, name it NetSendOU.bat and use the following syntax:

NetSendOU OU Message

Where OU is the organizational unit, like “OU=Users,DC=AdminInfo,DC=Ca”, and Message is the message text, like “Hello from AdminInfo.ca”.

NetSendOU.bat contains:
@echo off
if {%2}=={} @echo Syntax: NetSendOU OU “Message”&exit /b 1
setlocal
set query=dsquery user %1 -o samid
set message=%2
for /f %%u in (’%query%’) do (net send “%%u” %message%)
endlocal
exit /b 0


Jun 26 2008   6:59PM GMT

It’s here! Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is available for download…



Posted by: Michael Khanin
Microsoft Windows, Virtualization

Just recieved anonce about this and here it is:

 

Today, Microsoft reaches a significant milestone for customers and partners with the release of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization feature included in select versions of Windows Server 2008. Those who have already deployed the x64 versions of Windows Server 2008 can receive Hyper-V from Windows Update beginning July 8, while new customers and partners can download Hyper-V later today (12:00 pm PT). The Windows Virtualization team will be counting down the days to download from Windows Update, so be sure to visit the Windows Virtualization Team blog to see daily spotlights on specific features and benefits of Hyper-V technology, as well as to read about customer stories and see postings from guests.

 

Since the beta release of Hyper-V in February, more than 250 customers have participated in Hyper-V’s early adoption program. Microsoft’s own deployment and results with Hyper-V is showcased today in Rob Emanuel’s guest blog and video on the Windows Server Division blog, specifically on customers using Hyper-V and partner benefits, visit the Microsoft PressPass site.


Jun 25 2008   2:58AM GMT

Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer



Posted by: Michael Khanin
Networking, Microsoft Windows

Quite old (released 10/2/2007) but very powerful and useful tool, Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer. Additionally, I discovered that many IT Admins are not using it. The Microsoft Active Directory Topology Diagrammer reads an Active Directory configuration using ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), and then automatically generates a Visio diagram of your Active Directory and /or your Exchange 200x Server topology. The diagramms include domains, sites, servers, administrative groups, routing groups and connectors and can be changed manually in Visio if needed.


Jun 25 2008   2:45AM GMT

Windows 2008 Server and Wireless Network Card



Posted by: Michael Khanin
Microsoft Windows

If you are going to use Wireless Network Card in Windows 2008 Server, keep in mind to install Wireless LAN features under Server Manager - Features - Add Features. After that then install all updated drivers.


Jun 25 2008   2:39AM GMT

Sorry, Windows Live programs cannot be installed on Windows Server 2008 :)



Posted by: Michael Khanin
Microsoft Windows

Recently, I’ve installed a Windows 2008 Server on my notebook. Then, I started to install all software that I’m using daily. Of course, MSN Messenger is on my ‘Must to have” list. As you may or may not know, Windows 2008 Server doesn’t support Windows Live Messenger. When you try to install it you’ll get the following error:

Sorry, Windows Live programs cannot be installed on Windows Server, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, or Windows operating systems earlier than Windows XP SP2

I have no idea why MS decided to do that, however after some searching I found the following MSI package which really works in Windows 2008 Server. It’s a silent install. It will install Messenger Live silently, just remember to reboot your system.


Jun 25 2008   2:27AM GMT

A reliability and performance update is available for Windows Vista SP1-based computers



Posted by: Michael Khanin
Microsoft Windows

An update is available that will help improve the performance and reliability of Windows Vista.

Source: support.microsoft.com 


Jun 23 2008   12:27AM GMT

Windows NT Backup - Restore Utility on Vista or Windows 2008



Posted by: Michael Khanin
Microsoft Windows, Windows Computing

I guess it’s impossible to find IT person who doesn’t know very old and at the same time very powerful program, NTBACKUP. For me, it a best program to backup and restore Windows systems, like NT, 2000, XP and 2003 :).

If you have an old backups that was made by NTBACKUP and you want to restore it on Windows Vista or Windows 2008 you can use recently released Windows NT Backup - Restore Utility.

If you have a reason ( I do) to use the old NTBACKUP program to do backup on Windows 2008 it’s also possible, but I’ll talk about how to do that in one of my next articles :).


Jun 18 2008   4:40PM GMT

Plug-in for Exchange backups on Windows Server 2008



Posted by: Michael Khanin
Microsoft Windows, Exchange

Scott Schnoll’s announced a new Microsoft plugin that will do Exchange VSS Backups on Windows Server 2008. Windows Server 2008’s new Windows Server Backup utility, the replacement for NTBackup, doesn’t do Exchange backups out of the box.