Unified Communication Solutions: Critical to Success – Monday 02 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: Disaster Recovery in Communications Server 2007 (Level 200) – Monday 02 June 2008

Unified Communication Solutions: Critical to Success – Wednesday 04 June 2008

Exchange Labs Webcast- Free Email for K12 Students Overview  - Wednesday 04 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: All About Communications Server 2007 Security (Level 300) – Thursday 05 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: Going Big! Deploying Large Mailboxes with Exchange Server 2007 Without Breaking the Bank (Level 300) - Thursday 05 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: Forefront Security for Exchange Deployment Best Practices (Level 300) – Monday 09 June 2008

TechNet Webcast: Deploying and Managing Your Unified Communications Devices (Level 300) – Tuesday 10^th June

Written by Daniel Kenyon-smith 

Microsoft released Windows mobile 6.1 on the 1^st April which is full of new enhancements, such as:

·         Instant messaging-like texting - Messages are threaded together to allow you to track your conversations, this provides you access to the chain of discussions that have just taken place

·         Improved Internet browsing – Adds the ability to easily view full-screen web pages and multimedia on the web

·         Simpler e-mail and Bluetooth setup

·         New Home screen interface

·         New Getting Started Center

·         Security enhancements – Mobile VPN access to Line Of Business Applications (LOB)

·         Easier Wi-Fi connection

·         More personal choice

 To compare versions of Windows Mobile starting from 5.0 see the compatibility chart. Smartphones listed on Windows Mobile devices list all devices that can be updated with Windows Mobile 6.1, there is also a full listing of Windows Mobile phones.

To managed your windows Mobile 6.1 device you can use Windows Mobile Device Center 6.1 for Windows Vista (6.1 is only supported on Windows Vista) or you can use Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 (SCMDM) which provides a powerful management tool for your mobile devices. Using SCMDM 2008 you have control over and can centralised the management of over-the-air devices, set advanced policies, run inventory and reporting using Active Directory Group Policy (GPO).

 SCMDM 2008 features:

·        Over 130 GPO’s can be applied to user and device groups to allow your organisation to apply consistent settings across your enterprise devices

·         Self-service device provisioning and bootstrapping can be used to setup new devices quickly

·         Device Models, make and software updates that have been deployed for deivices can be determined in one central console (this information can be stored and retrieved from SQL 2005 databases)

·         Deploy software and firmware updates

·         Allows IPSec-based mobile VPN capabilities to access Line of business (LOB) applications to run on mobile devices such as SharePoint.

·         Improved certificate support, allowing better certificate enrolment, support for wild card certificates and AES for SSL

·         Allow or Restrict applications that can be run on devices in the enterprise

Speaking of applications that can be run on your mobile devices, see Microsoft Office Mobile to use applications such as Excel Mobile, Word Mobile and PowerPoint Mobile while on the move.

Written by Daniel Kenyon-Smith

Now Windows 2008 has been released to manufacturing (RTM), all new implementations of Exchange 2007 SP1 can be designed using Windows 2008 Server (SP1 is a minimum requirement for Windows 2008, a full list of prerequisites can found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691354.aspx ).

Windows 2008 new features

For a full new and updated list of features in Windows 2008 see the following link http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/compare-features.aspx

Topology

If you are running Windows 2008 Read-only DC’s (RODC) or Read-only Global Catalog servers (ROGC), be aware that no version of Exchange supports these new types of server roles and Exchange requires a writeable server. However Exchange 2003 SP2 and Exchange 2007 are supported in a Windows 2008 AD environment.

Windows Upgrades

In place upgrades cannot be performed when the server is running Exchange, so in order to run Windows 2008 and Exchange 2007 SP1 you will need to build a fresh server. Official guidance for migrating from Exchange 2007 running on Windows 2003 to Exchange 2007 running on Windows 2008 can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc296562.aspx

Exchange 2007 Sp1 new features when running Windows 2008

These are only a few of the new and improved features of running Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows 2008

·         Faster log shipping – Windows 2008 includes SMB v2, which increases the throughput performance by around 30-40%

·         Support for multi-subnet failover cluster – Running a Windows 2008 failover cluster with Exchange 2007 SP1 includes support for geographically dispersed cluster for failover across 2 subnets

·         Improvements for Client Access Servers (CAS) – Windows 2008 removes RPC Proxy service TCP connection limits. Previous versions of Windows had a limit of 65,535 connections per server, Windows 2008 now supports 65,535 connections per IP address

·         Easier deployment – Windows 2008 includes Windows PowerShell

·         Support of IPv6 – IP addresses can be entered using IPv4 or IPv6 (the default installation supports both versions)

Written by Daniel Kenyon-Smith

If you want to install Antigen on an Exchange server that doesn't have access to the internet to install updates there is a work around, see the steps below:-

Create the UNC Update Folder structure.

·         Create a directory that is named "Forefront."

·          In the Forefront directory, create a directory that is named "Engines."

·         In the Engine directory, create a directory that is named "x86."

·         In the x86 directory, create a folder for the engine on which you are working.
For example, create a folder that is named "Norman."

·         In the %EngineName% directory, create a folder that is named "Package."
An example of the UNC Update Folder path is as follows:
C:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package

Download the latest scan engine files.

·         Save the Manifest.cab file to the Package folder for the engine that you are
updating. An example of the path of this file in the directory is as follows:
C:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package\manifest.cab
To obtain the Manifest.cab file, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://forefrontdl.microsoft.com/server/scanengineupdate/x86/Norman/Package/manifest.cab

·         Extract the Manifest.xml file from the Manifest.cab file, and then open the
Manifest.xml file by using a text editor, such as Notepad.

Search for the "version=" string in the Manifest.xml file. After one of the
instances of "version=," a 10-digit number is displayed.

For example, locate the entry that resembles the following entry:
version="0805080001"
In this entry, the 10-digit number represents the update version number of the
latest update at the time this was written. It is different now and just needs to
be update based on the instructions just stated. The update version is the year,
month, day with the last 4 digits for the particular update version for that day.
For this article, this update version number is represented by the update_version
placeholder.

·         Save the Norman_fullpkg.cab file to a directory that has the same version name
within the Package folder. An example of the path of this file in the directory is
as follows:
http://forefrontdl.microsoft.com/server/scanengineupdate/x86/Norman/Package/0709170001/norman_fullpkg.cab

Important In this URL, replace update_version with the update version number that
you located.
For example, use a URL that resembles the following sample URL:
http://forefrontdl.microsoft.com/server/scanengineupdate/x86/Norman/Package/0709170001/norman_fullpkg.cab

·         Copy the Manifest.cab file in the Package folder, and then paste the file into
the "%Version%" folder. An example of the final structure of the file is as
follows:
c:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package\manifest.cab
c:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package\0805080001\manifest.cab
c:\Forefront\Engines\x86\Norman\Package\0805080001\Norman_fullpkg.cab

Update the engine.

·         Open the Antigen Administrator.

·         Under SETTINGS, click Scanner Updates.

·         Select the engine on which you are working. For example, select Microsoft.

·         Change Network Update Path to the parent directory of the x86 folder. For
example, change this item to "C:\ Forefront \Engines."

·         Click Save.

·         Click Update Now.

Written by Daniel Kenyon-Smith