So here is my first look at IE 8 and I am impressed! The installation is simple and the customization is in two simple steps.

Some features that are really cool…

Accelerators are cool add-on's that help you do things..with just a couple of clicks. Take a look at how you can know where to go…

Simply highlight the address and use the Map accelerator to locate it.

Compatibility View assures you that you can still browse web sites that are not IE8 ready!

Check out the new facebook site;
Before ‘Compatibility View’;

After ‘Compatibility View’;

Private Browsing, aka Porn mode for obvious reasons, is another new thing in IE8.

InPrivate Browsing prevents Internet Explorer from storing data about your browsing session. This includes cookies, temporary Internet files, history, and other data.

InPrivate Blocking helps prevent the websites you go to from automatically sharing details about your visit with other websites. To help protect your privacy, some website content might be blocked.

Now remember that the product is still in beta so it may crash and hang but it recovers quite fast! ;)

There are more new features that make IE8 better that the rest. Try it out and see it yourself.

On Wednesday, September 24^th, Mark Russinovich will host a virtual roundtable for IT pros worldwide to  explore top of mind performance issues, common misconfigurations, and tips on how to fix them. From boot times and applets to disk performance and battery life, this is chance for IT pros to find out how to optimize Windows Vista and what they can do to improve overall system performance.

As part of the “virtual” experience, IT pros will be able to submit their questions about performance and optimization to the panel live during the event—or submit questions in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

Add it to your Calendar!

Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable
Under the Hood: Windows Vista Performance...Need Answers?
Join Mark Russinovich and a panel of industry experts for a LIVE virtual roundtable to explore your top of mind performance issues, common misconfigurations, and tips on how to fix them. From boot times and applets to disk performance and battery life, find out how to optimize Windows Vista and what you can do to improve overall system performance. 

Submit your performance questions live during the event or send them in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

Save the date!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
9:00am Pacific Standard Time

Find answers to your Windows Vista adoption questions with resources, tools, monthly straight-talk articles, and upfront guidance based on early adopter and community feedback. To learn more, visit www.microsoft.com/springboard,

Springboard Series: The resource for Windows desktop IT professionals

I love this little utility from Sysinternals.

Desktops v1.0

By Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell

Published: August 21, 2008

Introduction

Desktops allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you’re not using. After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys.

Now you can IM me from my blog. Drop in and ask me a question or just say hi!

Talk to you soon!

The day I never wanted to see is closing!

End of sale does not mean end of support. Read more on;

Curious George on TechNet and more...: Windows XP end of sales date is 30th June 2008 - so what does that actually mean?

Join Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich and a panel of IT professionals and security MVP’s as they discuss Windows Vista deployment, security configurations, challenges and real-world solutions. Ask your questions live during the event or email them in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

Register today to join the discussion in June. This event will be broadcast live on this site, at 9:00am Pacific Standard Time, June 18, 2008, available on demand shortly after its conclusion.

Rest of the details and registration on: Springboard Registration and Login.

Disclaimer: This is not a Microsoft recommended step nor is it a whitepaper. This is simply my attempt to learn.

Ubuntu needs no introduction nor does SBS. :)

What do you need?

> SBS 2003 SP2.
> Ubuntu 8.04, Updated!

Ensure Network Connectivity:

After you install Ubuntu 8.04, ensure that you have network connectivity and you have Internet connection. Check for updates, using Update Manager and install all the updates.

On SBS, you don’t really need to do anything however you could add a host record in DNS for the Ubuntu machine.

On Ubuntu 8.04, open Terminal window and type the following commands;

ping servername.domain.local
and
ping servername
and
ping domain.local

Make sure that you can resolve the small business server by all the above methods. If you cannot resolve these names then do the following;

sudo nautilus [sudo because you will need to be root in order to edit and save the host file.]
Enter your user password.

Once you are in nautilus navigate to /etc/host and open it. Add entries like this;
Example:
192.168.0.1 domain.local
192.168.0.1 servername.domain.local
192.168.0.1 servername

Install Likewise Open:

Likewise Open enables Linux, Unix and Mac authentication on a Microsoft network using Active Directory. A user can now interactively log in to the Linux, Unix or Mac machine using Active Directory credentials, and can access any kerberized services that the non-Windows machine hosts.

More on the company website.

To install likewise open, do the following;

sudo apt-get update

then run the following command;

sudo apt-get install likewise-open
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
krb5-config krb5-user libkadm55
The following NEW packages will be installed:
krb5-config krb5-user libkadm55 likewise-open
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4421kB of archives.
After this operation, 12.3MB of additional disk space will be used.

Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y

Get:1 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main krb5-config 1.17 [16.1kB]
Get:2 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main libkadm55 1.6.dfsg.3~beta1-2ubuntu1 [146kB]
Get:3 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main krb5-user 1.6.dfsg.3~beta1-2ubuntu1 [131kB]
Get:4 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main likewise-open 4.0.5-0ubuntu3 [4129kB]

Fetched 4421kB in 32s (135kB/s)

Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously deselected package krb5-config.
(Reading database ... 113352 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking krb5-config (from .../krb5-config_1.17_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libkadm55.
Unpacking libkadm55 (from .../libkadm55_1.6.dfsg.3~beta1-2ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package krb5-user.
Unpacking krb5-user (from .../krb5-user_1.6.dfsg.3~beta1-2ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package likewise-open.
Unpacking likewise-open (from .../likewise-open_4.0.5-0ubuntu3_i386.deb) ...
Setting up krb5-config (1.17) ...
Setting up libkadm55 (1.6.dfsg.3~beta1-2ubuntu1) ...
Setting up krb5-user (1.6.dfsg.3~beta1-2ubuntu1) ...
Setting up likewise-open (4.0.5-0ubuntu3) ...
* Starting the Likewise-open auth daemon [ OK ]
Processing triggers for libc6 ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
root@Ubu13:/home/grajan# ping fareast.corp.microsoft.com
PING fareast.corp.microsoft.com (157.60.222.63) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- fareast.corp.microsoft.com ping statistics –-
13 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 12035ms

This installs Likewise.

Joining the Domain.

Use the following command;

sudo domainjoin-cli join microsoft.local Administrator
Joining to AD Domain: microsoft.local
With Computer DNS Name: U11.microsoft.local
Administrator@MICROSOFT.LOCAL's password:
SUCCESS

Now run the following commands to make likewise services run at startup;

sudo update-rc.d likewise-open defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/likewise-open start

Now when you reboot you should be able to login to Ubuntu using domain credentials. You may have to use DOMAIN\user as username.

You should be able to see your computer in Active Directory.

After you create a user account you should be able to login to Ubuntu with your domain account. You will have to supply the credentials as DOMAIN\user.

Once you login you should be able to see your home folder under nautilus (File Browser for Ubuntu)

Some issues that I ran into;

After rebooting when I tried to login I got the following error;

Busted! had to rebuild Ubuntu. Could not find a way out.

In another instance I got a message asking me what I would like to do. I choose the repair damaged packages option and after the reboot, I was able to login fine.

Accessing Email, companyweb and shares from Ubuntu.

Configuring default email client, Evolution, to receive emails.

Simply click ‘Forward’ on both of these unless you want to restore from a back where you would use the restore option.

Here choose server type to be Microsoft Exchange.
Further you can enter the username. The user name in my case was simply ‘user’.
For OWA URL: https://servername/exchange
In my case since server name is SBS2003. Make sure you type https if you have ran CEICW on SBS and configured IIS with a certificate.

Once you click on Authenticate and enter the password, you should be able to see the “Forward” button. It would no longer be grayed out.

Next you have receiving options, you can fill appropriate response here, no rocket science here, actually anywhere in this article!

Now when you click on ‘Apply’, Evolution will open and ask for password again;

Once you check on “Remember this password” you should not be asked for it again.

You will see the new mail icon once configured cos you have two email from SBS administrator! :)

Accessing companyweb

Here you simply need to enter the URL and enter the password once.

You can choose to remember the password, so that you wont have to enter it all the time.

Done!

Adding shares.

You can add commonly used share simply by going to Places>Connect to Server.

Now you can easily access the shares.

Windows Essential Server Solutions pricing* is as follows:

• Windows Small Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $1,089 (U.S.); additional CALs $77 each (U.S.)
• Windows Small Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $1,899 (U.S.); additional CALs $189 each (U.S.)
• Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Standard Edition software, including five CALs, $5,472 (U.S.); additional CALs $81 each (U.S.)
• Windows Essential Business Server 2008 Premium Edition software, including five CALs, $7,163 (U.S.); additional CALs $195 each (U.S.)

Read more on;

James.Random() - SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 Pricing Announced

Press Release;

Microsoft Announces Public Preview and Pricing for Windows Essential Server Solutions

Sysinternals Site Discussion : Updates: Autoruns v9.2, Process Monitor v1.33, AccessChk v4.1

Here is a brief of how radical the change might be for some SBS 2003 customers when SBS 2008 comes out or others its a good FYI and something to look forward for.

SeanDaniel.com - Small Business Server and Other Technology: Preparing your Network for Small Business Server 2008

This is bound to make you happy! No more frustrating waits and long holds in the queue or on phone to get a hotfix.

Simply open up the hotfix on support.microsoft.com, the KB I mean and if its a hotfix package then you will see the following on top of the KB;

Simply follow the link and get it on ur email within seconds!

Don’t believe me? take this KB for an example:

KB 943669: When you try to restart a Windows Server 2003 R2-based computer that has both VSS and the FSRM quota enabled, the computer stops responding

A must watch.

"Mark Russinovich - The Case of the Unexplained..."

Windows Group Policy Fundamentals - 14 Part Webcast Series

Windows Active Directory (AD) - Inside Out 11 Part Series

24 Hours of Windows Server 2008

The Official SBS Blog: Vista Service Pack 1 Considerations

We, as in the EMEA SBS Team have started rolling out newsletters. Subscribe to it from The Asksbs Blog and see if it is useful.