The Microsoft EBS Team Blog

How to install FSE SP2 on EBS

2009-11-20T21:20:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill] Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server with Service Pack 2 (FSE SP2) is now available. This is an optional but recommended update for FSE customers, including EBS customers. The download is available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2ceb14d4-404b-4d8f-8a21-ebfc71b2e82b The release notes are available here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=EE7829A3-0AE8-44DE-822C-908CD1034523&displaylang=en...(read more)

Best Group Policy Manager in the 2009 Redmond Reader’s Choice Awards for Windows Essential Business Server!

2009-11-12T19:45:00Z

In the Redmond Reader’s Choice Awards newly expanded 2009 survey, Windows Essential Business Server 2008 won Best Group Policy Manager honors in a field of 22 products. Although new to the category, Windows Essential Business Server 2008 came out on top with 15.7 percent of the votes. If that’s not enough good news, Windows EBS also came in third for Best Storage-Management Product in a field of 29 products. In past years the 2009 Redmond Reader’s Choice Awards had become almost routine, so the editors...(read more)

Installing Security Server behind existing firewall in Windows Essential Business Server

2009-11-11T22:29:00Z

While Windows Essential Business Server 2008 ( Windows EBS) Security Server can be installed as the single perimeter security solution it is common to have it coexist with existing security solutions like hardware firewall on the perimeter. In this configuration, Forefront TMG is the “back end firewall” to the existing “front end” firewall, providing a defense in depth setup. In this case, there are few choices available – this blog post calls out the decision points and provides an outline of the...(read more)

Using the Check Out Feature with WSS Behind TMG

2009-11-11T00:00:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill] When trying to use the Check Out (or Check In) feature of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 published behind TMG in a default EBS installation, checkout fails with the error below: Error Code: 500 Internal Server Error. The request was rejected by the HTTP filter. Contact the server administrator. (12217) Resolution To allow documents to be checked in and checked out through WSS 3.0 behind TMG, you must disable normalization...(read more)

Gatherer Event 2436 Logged Every 5 Minutes on EBS Management Server

2009-11-09T23:05:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill] On EBS Management Servers with the Windows Essential Business Server SharePoint Add-in installed, you may see the an event similar to the one below in the Application Log in Event Viewer every 5 minutes: Log Name: Application Source: Windows SharePoint Services 3 Search Event ID: 2436 Task Category: Gatherer Level: ...(read more)

Site to site VPN and Windows Essential Business Server

2009-11-06T02:12:00Z

[Today's post comes to us courtesy of Alok Goyal] My name is Alok Goyal and I am a part of the Essential Business Server (EBS) team. Today, I wanted to talk about a new document I posted on the Microsoft Connect site. The document is titled "Site to site VPN and Windows Essential Business Server ." It talks about how to establish site to site VPN tunnel in an Essential Business Server environment. The core audience of this document is the network engineers who need to configure and test a site to...(read more)

OWA Address Book "Could not connect to a directory server” errors on EBS

2009-11-05T20:47:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill] When trying to browse through the OWA Address Book on a default EBS configuration, the first page of the address book will load, but attempts to browse to subsequent pages will fail with the error: Could not connect to a directory server. If the problem continues, contact technical support for your organization. This error occurs because the default “Microsoft Exchange Server Publishing: Outlook Web Access” web site publishing rule is configured...(read more)

How to Enable Exchange 2007 Autodiscover in EBS 2008

2009-11-04T15:45:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Shawn Sullivan] The Autodiscover service, which allows Outlook 2007 and Windows Mobile 6.1 ActiveSync clients to obtain mailbox connection settings with little user intervention, is not configured by default in EBS 2008. In order to open the Autodiscover service to both internal and external clients, you must follow several steps on both the Messaging and Security servers: Configure the correct DNS records that will point external clients to the proper URL for...(read more)

EBS, SCE, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7

2009-10-30T18:11:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill] System Center Essentials 2007 SP1 (SCE 2007) included with Essential Business Server 2008 now fully supports Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 clients, but there are a few manual steps that must be performed before these clients can be managed from the SCE Console. Because the SCE engine is derived from System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), it is important to be familiar with the supportability statement in KB 974722 as well. Step 1: ...(read more)

Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Preparation Wizard/IT Environment Health Scanner fail with DNS WMI Provider error

2009-10-29T13:00:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Vikramjit Singh, Stephen Li, and Mark Stanfill] Updated 10/29/2009 to reflect IT Environment Health Scanner information. If you are preparing to install EBS 2008 in an environment with Windows 2000 DNS servers, you may receive the following error while running the EBS Preparation and Planning Wizards : DnsConfig A connection cannot be made to the WMI provider with a scope of \\Win2kDNS.contoso.local\Root\MicrosoftDNS and a path of MicrosoftDNS_Server. For more...(read more)

How to run the IT Environment Health Scanner in an EBS Environment

2009-10-28T13:05:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill] By default, TMG disallows WMI traffic as part of its security hardening. However, the Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner ( direct download ) requires WMI to collect data for its analysis. To work around this limitation, you must temporarily create an exception to allow the Health Scanner to successfully complete. On a default run, you will see an error like the one below: To prevent this error, you must explicitly...(read more)

Understanding EBS Client Licensing

2009-10-12T16:42:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill] We get a fair number of queries about CAL enforcement in EBS support, so I’d like to try to clear up some of the common questions that our partners have. Because EBS enforces client licensing in a fairly strict manner, it is important to understand the repercussions of being out of compliance in order to ensure that your clients are able to successfully connect to the network. How to Properly License Clients Assigning CALs to users is a simple...(read more)

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (KB951847) Fails to install on EBS Servers

2009-10-12T15:57:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Mark Stanfill and Chris Puckett] Updated 10/12/2009 – new version of script linked. You may see installation failures of Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (KB951847) on the 3 EBS Standard Edition Servers. Clients and other servers are not affected. The behavior is that the update will fail to install and continually be offered each time you check for new updates. The following event will be logged: Log Name: ...(read more)

Top 3 Ways to Get More Out of Exchange with Windows Essential Business Server 2008

2009-10-06T20:32:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of David Fabritius] Midsize businesses interested in upgrading to Exchange Server 2007 should consider Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) 2008. EBS 2008 is an integrated software suite that is designed and priced for midsize businesses and includes Exchange Server 2007 as one of its core components. When you deploy Windows Essential Business Server 2008, in addition to getting all the value of Exchange Server 2007, you will also see added benefits from the...(read more)

Upgrading Your Servers? Consider Essential Business Server 2008.

2009-09-28T20:16:00Z

[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Becky Lymberis] For many midsize businesses, a day in the IT department is often about putting out fires and running to users’ desktops to troubleshoot issues. Problems like this are not uncommon; with fewer resources than their enterprise counterparts, managing and keeping an updated IT department is extremely challenging. As the business needs evolve, servers tend to proliferate and suddenly the business is running on multiple versions, all with different tools...(read more)