Microsoft

This is a handy link to have if you suspect there might be an issue that needs fixing. Most likely, the items listed here are fixed in SP2 when it comes out, or you can request them for PSS.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;914962&sd=rss&spid=3198

http://www.firewallleaktester.com/removewga.htm

Rationale: If you have a real copy of Windows, there is no reason to phone home everyday to Microsoft. I know any type of phoning home on my slow internet connection at home I can eliminate makes the household's internet connection better, especially if there are a few WGA'd machines there.

Stuff like this happens in all organizations, small or large. There is never a perfect company or a perfect job but this is a very interesting read into what is going on with Vista and the stumbles along the way. I am still a bit leery of the user interface changes, but the underlying core seems to be getting solid as time goes on.

I know the author is getting slammed by a lot of people, but I don't really think he puts the company in bad light overall, as long as you read it subjectively.

Either way, I recommend reading it, and the comments:

http://blogs.msdn.com/philipsu/archive/2006/06/14/631438.aspx

Hopefully, he isn't another person fired for something they said in their blog. That has always been the driving censor factor in anything I put online here. Dirty laundry is just that, every place has it. It doesn't mean it is a bad place to work overall.

Of course, if dirty laundry is piled up to the ceiling and there is nothing good overall, you work on changing it or you bail before it becomes the Titanic. Thankfully, things are pretty peachy where I am working at now, and I'm not writing that just because I know coworkers read this blog from time to time.

Tl;dr folks: Vista is late.

This is more fallout from the removal of the EMBED tags for Active-X due to the patent dispute. You will want to install this on your Exchange servers that host Outlook Web Access or else I have a feeling your help desk calls will start going up.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911829

Also, if you are having trouble using IE 7 or Vista with OWA, or you have applied the May or June 2006 IE updates, you will run into this issue unless you install this KB.

There was an earlier build available previously, but it looks like it has been updated to a release candidate build.

http://www.microsoft.com/isaserver/2006/beta.mspx

If your system performance slows down over time, and you need to restart it to restore normal functionality, you are probably running into this issue with 'Save Content on Conversion Error'. It looks like Exchange never closes the file handles related to the saved contents.

There is a hotfix available for it though:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917142

I haven't seen this one firsthand but I've been mainly retiring Windows 2000 machines as fast as I can. Any hyperthreading support for 2000 has always been a bit of an afterthought/fix-up since hyperthreading didn't exist when 2000 was being programmed.

Thankfully, it is just a registry fix to return CPU temps to pre-Update Rollup temperatures.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;919521

I can't say enough good things about this program. One of my favorite features is that you can enable 'auto-whitelisting' for various people. For instance, someone calls your help desk and complains that they can't e-mail you due to their mail server being listed on a blacklist.

Easy. Enable the auto whitelisting and send the person that called an e-mail. They are automagically added and can now e-mail your company/server.

One of the other nice things about it is that it is not mail server software specific. At a bare minimum it just needs the Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 SMTP service since it registers itself into the event sink of the SMTP service. So, for instance, you could setup a little 2000 or 2003 box as your smarthost for your business, and have a qmail server, Exchange server, Domino server, and Postfix server sitting all behind the ORF software, in theory.

Typical installs are on top of Exchange 2003 server, or on another server outside of the Exchange server.

Either way, I can't say enough good things about the program.
I've had good conversations with Peter at Vamsoft over various bugs and fixes the past few years and they always get back to me quickly. I can't say that about a lot of other places.

Read more about it here:
http://www.vamsoft.com/orf/beta/

They also have an RSS feed here:
http://www.vamsoft.com/orf/rssnews.asp

This is a new one to me. A virus that encrypts your files and then demands you send money to the developer to decrypt your files. Obviously, a bad idea overall, and people are actively working on a 'crack' for the virus already.

More info here:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/harrywaldron/archive/2006/06/06/99618.aspx

There are other fixes and speed improvements included too.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/updateservices/downloads/WSUSSP1.mspx