MSN have produced this download that allows you to install all the world cup fixtures into Outlook. Thats a sure way to avoid double booking any important games.

Great idea. You can get it here: http://www.bcentral.co.uk/msn/worldcup/default.mspx

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We have now released the long awaited for Email Generator. We put together this tool to help us out with Routine Exchange tasks.

Check IMAP4 mailboxe connections

Check POP3 mailboxe connections

View mailbox messages

Send test messages to populate mailboxes

Visit the Email Generaor website: http://www.yellowpark.net/emailgenerator/blog/

I welcome comments on this. We will also post the source code, and welcome ideas for features or code submissions. Please email cdalby@yellowpark.net or leave a comment on this blog.

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We’ve been getting good results while trying out a POP3 connector called PopCon. Although the visual design is less than innovative, it really does do a great job. You can also see the emails being physically moved to differenent mailboxes. I must say, when setting up, and tracking message flow, this is the best one I’ve used. Plus it seems to do exactly what it says on the tin. All this without having to read a manual, because set-up is quick.

This is a great connector if you need to retrieve POP3 email. Whether one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many. It’s easy to use and to get you head around, you can very quickly start using this connector.

Plus it’s got all the features you would expect to distribute email to multiple mailboxes within an Exchange organisation.

Get it here ::http://www.christensen-software.com/popcon.htm

Price: There is a cost, please check for up-to-date pricing.

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OK, I was hoping to have posted the first release of the window app I’ve put together - Email Generator.

But we got a bit carried away and tried to buld in a few extra features. Angel has been working on this project too and has made great progress, so we should see this available for download at some point next week.

Del.icio.us : email, exchange, test, tools

I recently did a job to upgrade Windows Small Business Server 2000 to Windows Small Business Server 2003. This server was running on a network of around 30 PCs (XP and 98), 30 users, with numerous different types of printers. The server ran Pervasive and SQL databases and Exchange 2000.

We did a huge amount of research for this upgrade. Microsoft Pre-sales Technical Support offered two routes for doing the upgrade:

“If you have an existing server in your network, you can upgrade it to Windows Small Business Server 2003. There are two options for completing an upgrade:

• Upgrade the existing server to Windows Small Business Server 2003

• Install Windows Small Business Server 2003 on a new server and then migrate the existing server’s data and settings”

We decided to do the inplace upgrade, as the customer had an existing installation and was not likely to buy a new server box. We tested the upgrade in a test lab, mirroring the same environment as near as possible. The test upgrade went through without any problems. In fact, the documentation we found regarding this upgrade all pointed to be a straight forward upgrade, with no significant problems. Exchange included.

However, this was not a straight forward upgrade. When dealing with SBS, you have to be careful not to annoy it, because it starts stamping its foot and wanting to be in-charge. The main draw back with SBS is that the SBS server needs to be the root Domain Controller in the forest. You can’t have more than one SBS server in a forest at any one time. Disobey these rules at your peril.

Needless to say, the upgrade didn’t go as planned. Half an hour before the end of the upgrade, we got major registry errors and the installation could not continue.

Having been through this, I would now only offer ONE route for an SBS upgrade. The SBS should be decommissioned from the existing domain, be clean installed and then promoted back into the domain. Again this sounds easy, but do not forget that SBS is a control freak and wants to be in-charge of the whole forest. So asking it to take a back seat needs slow and carefull attention. Plus if you throw exchange into the mix, this makes for quite a complex operation. Do not experiment on a live system. The slightest error and you loose the whole domain. In fact, when we did this, we ran a test lab alongside the live system so we could completley test all steps beofre working on the live sysem.

Microsoft don’t really have documentaion covering this complete process. We kida figured this out for ourselvs and worked backwards on a couple of the tutorials.

The basic process to remove an SBS server from a domain while keepng all Exchange and domain settings is:

1. Join a Windows Server 2003 Stardard to the domain as a member server.

2. Install DNS on the new server

3. DC promo the 2003 Standard server.

4. Make the 2003 Standard Server a Global Catalog server. Reboot and wait for event 1119 or 1869 showing the new DC is now a GC - This very important. Remember no Global Catalog means no one can log on!

5. Change the IP address of the new DC to point to itself. Change the IP address of the SBS to point to the new DC.

6. Transfer the FSMO roles to the new DC

7. Wait for replication to happen. Give it a good 15 minutes, depending upon the size of your network.

8. Install Exchange onto the new DC. Accept defaults.

9. Transfer mailboxes and public folders from SBS to the new DC Follow KB822931 to remove the SBS exchange server from your organisation.

10. Uninstall exchange from SBS. Dcpromo SBS out of the domain.

After all these seps, you are now ready to clean install SBS 2003 and then do the reverse to get it back in the domain.

Follow KB884453 to install the new SBS 2003 back into the domain. This gives you all the steps required to join your new SBS server into the existing domain, including the exchange steps. Good luck.

Stay alert till the last moment. Don’t start smoking cigars until everything has been transferred over and the 2003 Standard Server has had exchange uninstallaed and it has been dcpromo out of the domain.

——————————————————————————————————

Essential documents to do the upgrade

KB822931 How to remove the first Exchange Server 2003 computer from the administrative group

KB884453 How to install Small Business Server 2003 in an existing Active Directory domain

Resources for doing an inplace upgrade (not recommended without a safety net)

From Small Business Server 2000 to Small Business Server 2003

For information about completing an upgrade, see Chapter 3Bof the Getting Started guide.

For step-by-step instructions to complete a server migration, see Migrating from Small Business Server 2000 or Windows 2000 Server to Windows Small Business Server 2003.

Note To complete an upgrade, you must be running Small Business Server 2000 Service Pack 1. If you are not running Service Pack 1, see Knowledge Base article 326924 on the Microsoft Support site for information about downloading the service pack.

Windows Small Business Server 2003 Upgrade Best Practices

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I have started writing an admin application. Its quite simple in function, but I have designed it to make my life easier when doing mundane tasks. I’ve called it Email Generator v0.1. It allows you to quickly test out connections to exchange servers and populate mailboxes with bulk amounts of email.

The idea was borne out last weekend when I was doing some configuration testing. I needed to create a test environment and populate mailboxes with some data. So I initially designed the tool to send however many emails I wanted to whatever mailboxes on any servers. I got through this quickly and decided to start building in extra functionality to connect via POP3 and get a list of the email headers in the mailbox.

As is always the case, one thing led to another and I kinda got carried away. Now I’ve got a .NET 2.0 windows app designed in Visual Studio 2005 with a great bunch of features. .NET 2.0 has exposed some great features. Specifically the System.Net.Mail namespace, amongst ohers. This means quite complex tasks can be initiated realtively quickly when you know how.

I’ll be rounding out the app this week and I’ll be posting the app free for download by the start of next week. Morfe on Email Generator v0.1 soon…….

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I’ve steered clear of POP3 connectors since usng Exchange 2003. I’ve never had the need to use them. Afterall, I route all my mail through our Exchange Servers. In fact it never occurred to me that you could use this way to get your mail until I saw a couple of our SBS clients using POP3 connectors to collect their mail.

The Microsoft Pop3 connector in SBS 2003 Exhange is very clunky. You’ve got a two choices for routing mail to mailboxes.

One to one - one pop3 account delivers to one mailbox

One to many - one pop3 account delivers to many mailoxes in the exchange organisation

Having experimented with the One to many type system on SBS 2003, I would recommend using a third party Pop3 connector. That way, you get email downloaded from the pop3 mailboxes and forwarded using the exchange smtp server onto the appropriate mailboxes. We used one from www.quantumsoftware.com.au

Search the pages on msexchange.org for a range of POP3 connectors.

Technorati : POP3
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I was alarmed to read on the MSExchange Team Blog that there has been a spate of people putting E12 into a production environment. Please stop! Dont’t do it! Step away from the server.

Its very tempting to do this. In fact it crossed my mind about trying to get some kind of “Live Test”. But seriously, it seems that putting E12 int a production environment is not a good thing to do. Sounds like a few people had a few major problems.

E12 extends the Active Direcory schema. Because E12 is a beta, some of the schema might not make it into the final release. So who nows what damage could be done.

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There is a known issue when installing E12. E12 requires MMC 3.0 and .NET Framework version 2. Even with MMC 3.0 installed, installation fails:

“Exchange Server ‘12′ requires Microsoft Management Console 3.0.”

There is a workaround for this problem. Open the registry and navigate to the following:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\

Add a new key:

MMC30Core

Works first time with this key. Checkout the Exchange Team blog for more details.

Technorati : bug, e12