Vol. 11, #41 - Oct 9, 2006 - Issue #597 Vista And Exchange 2007 Adoption EDITORS CORNER Vista And Exchange 2007 Adoption Take A Minute And Vote For CSE And Ninja? October Seminar in Toronto, Canada Quote Of The Week ADMIN TOOLBOX Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without TECH BRIEFING Moskowitz GPanswers Newsletter #20 Released How's your Infrastructure Comparing? Installing Microsoft Virtual Server From The Ground Up When Beta Doesn't Mean Beta Resetting Microsoft Outlook's 'nickname cache' WINDOWS SERVER NEWS Microsoft Buy Promises Easier Group Policy Management Chapter Download: Windows Server 2003 Overview New Anti-Piracy Tools Will Delay Vista Enterprise Adoption WINDOWS SERVER THIRD PARTY NEWS Data Protection for Healthcare Wanted: Spyware Warriors WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. WServerNews - PRODUCT OF THE WEEK "Should I Replace Antigen With Ninja?" Run Exchange? Sunbelt Messaging Ninja works out of the box! Compared to your current Antispam & Antivirus, Ninja is: Much easier to manage Better multi-engine spam detection Integrated multi-engine antivirus Policy-based, great end-user control Excellent reporting And... more cost effective! Save 30-50% over your current antispam / antivirus product and upgrade to the first true third-gen messaging security tool: Ninja. http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Ninja EDITORS CORNER Vista And Exchange 2007 Adoption Thanks for responding to the last SunPoll on Vista adoption. With Vista's promised ship date to corporate customers less than two months away, the latest rumor is that Redmond might release a new test build this week. Here was the SunPoll question, we got well over 1,000 answers to it: "Now that Vista is close, what are your plans for rolling it out?" And your answers are enlightening. It's not going to be fast! I'm deploying it the moment I can get my hands on it!: 9.4% We'll wait 3 months: 5.4% We're going to give it 6-12 months: 18.4% We'll wait till Vista SP1 comes out: 32.7% We're going for a slow-and-steady replacement process, when new machines get put in.: 33.8% So here is the new SunPoll. This time about Exchange 2007. The question is: "Gartner claims adoption of Exchange 2007 will only begin in 2008, with the installed base reaching 40% in 2010. Let's see if that is true. What are your plans?" Here are the answers you can vote for: We plan to adopt right away after release in 2007 We are going to roll it out in 2008 We are going to roll it out in 2009 We are going to roll it out in 2010 Vote here: bottom middle column: http://www.sunbelt-software.com Take A Minute And Vote For CSE And Ninja? SC Magazine has their yearly vote in the categories Best Anti-Malware and Best Email Security Solution. Could you do me a biiig favor? If you have not done so already, take a minute (this one is really fast) and vote for CounterSpy Enterprise and Ninja? Thanks a million in advance! Best Anti-malware Solution - CSE is 7-th from the top http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Vote-CSE Best Email Security Solution - Ninja is 8-th from the bottom http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Vote-Ninja October Seminar in Toronto, Canada We'd like to invite you to attend the following seminar that we are hosting: "What Every IT Manager Should Know About Protecting Microsoft Exchange and Centralized Backup" - Join Sunbelt and Double-Take Software as we discuss strategies for implementing high availability, remote availability and offsite disaster recovery solutions for Exchange and other mission critical apps using Double-Take. Hosted at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto, ON on Wednesday, October 25th. Register here: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Toronto-Seminar Quote Of The Week "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." - Groucho Marx PS: Remember, support for WinXP SP1 ends next week! It's really time to upgrade to SP2 if you haven't yet and want tech support. Hope you enjoy this issue of WServerNews! Warm regards, Stu  |   Email me: feedback@wservernews.com ADMIN TOOLBOX Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without The biweekly TechNet Flash IT newsletter delivers the latest IT news, security bulletins, product updates, event announcements, and more: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-TechNet-Flash-IT System Center Capacity Planner 2006 helps size and plan deployments of Exchange 2003 and MOM 2005. Tools to deploy and "what-if" analysis. http://www.wservernews.com/061009-System-Center-Capacity-Planner Did you know that Andrew Baker, one of the MVP's on the NTSYSADMIN list has a KB, built from YEARS of answering questions on the list? http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Andrew-Baker-KB Tired of resetting passwords? Let end users reset their own passwords for AD and ADAM. Check out myPassword from Namescape: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Reset-Passwords TECH BRIEFING Moskowitz GPanswers Newsletter #20 Released A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Here comes IE7. Does that mean here comes trouble? And can you stop it if you wanted to? Group Policy for Vista is coming. And there's a lot to learn. Let's at least get the ball rolling. What about MS latest acquisition of DesktopStandard? Will the face of Group Policy ever be the same? Find out in Issue #20: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-GPanswers How's your Infrastructure Comparing? Learn what the Infrastructure Optimization Model has to say about the state of your organization's IT systems, and discover the steps to take to move to the next level. By answering the questions, you'll receive an assessment that shows where your IT infrastructure fits into the model in four areas: identity and access management, desktop lifecycle, security and networking, and disaster recovery. A results page will summarize next steps at the MS technet site: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Infrastructure Installing Microsoft Virtual Server From The Ground Up Got a ticket for the virtualization train? Jump in with Anil Desai, and he'll teach you how to install Microsoft Virtual Server from beginning to end, starting with this article at SearchServerVirtualization: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Virtual-Server When Beta Doesn't Mean Beta Software betas were once treated as unfinished products that you needed to use in test situations, but now they're marketed as ready for technical prime time, which can cause big problems in your operations. At SearchWinIT: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Beta Resetting Microsoft Outlook's 'nickname cache' Microsoft Outlook uses name lists called "nickname caches" as part of the auto-complete feature. These lists occasionally become corrupted and need to be manually erased and rebuilt. At SearchExchange: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Outlook-Cache WINDOWS SERVER NEWS Microsoft Buy Promises Easier Group Policy Management Microsoft snapped up closely held DesktopStandard, a small software company that specializes in policy-based management tools. IT managers looking to manage their complex Group Policy environments may get the help they need with Microsoft's acquisition today of a small company that makes policy management tools. Microsoft acquired privately held DesktopStandard Corp., based in Portsmouth, N.H., for an undisclosed sum. The deal includes the acquisition of the DesktopStandard's tools GPOVault, ProfileMaker, PolicyMaker Standard Edition and Share Manager. The acquisition does not include DesktopStandard's PolicyMaker Application Security business. That tool will be spun off into a separate company called BeyondTrust Corp., both companies said. Read more at SearchWinIT: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-DesktopStandard Chapter Download: Windows Server 2003 Overview What does Windows Server 2003 offer that earlier NT 4 and Windows 2000 Server didn't? Is it worth the upgrade? Will it "play well" with NT 4 and Windows 2000-based domains? Find out the answers to these questions and more in Chapter 1 of Mark Minasi's book "Mastering Windows Server 2003." (free registration required) http://www.wservernews.com/061009-W2K3_Overview New Anti-Piracy Tools Will Delay Vista Enterprise Adoption eWEEK reported that the the new anti-piracy and validation tools that MS plans to ship starting with Windows Vista and Longhorn Server will help ensure that there will be little corporate uptake of these OSen in 2007, according to analysts. That is because when Windows Vista is released to manufacturing in the next month, it will include the volume-license KMS (key management service), which will also be available for the beta of Windows Server Longhorn. The same applies to Microsoft's Volume Activation Management tool, which will help with proxy activation. That tool can be run on a single machine that talks to all the machines in, say, a lab, and harvests the hardware identity data from them. The single proxy machine talks to Microsoft, gets the activation identities back for all the machines, and then shoots this out to those machines and activates them. Customers can also use this method to activate their entire organization. But the problem is that many enterprises are not allowed to run client or beta server software in production environments, so they will not be able to use these new tools until they are made available for existing production servers like Windows Server 2003, which is expected some six months after Vista is released to manufacturing. Read more at eWEEK: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Vista-Adoption WINDOWS SERVER THIRD PARTY NEWS Data Protection for Healthcare The need for business continuity and disaster recovery planning is as vital in the healthcare industry as it is in any major industry. Traditional backup systems, commonplace in many organizations, do not offer the level of data protection that is critical to professional productivity and practice continuity. Realizing the need to offer 24/7 support, paired with government regulation requirements, many healthcare organizations are looking towards a more complete data protection solution paired with business continuity and disaster recovery plans. Is your organization disaster-prepared? What will you tell patients when you can't access their records in an emergency? Who's going to pay the price when HIPAA or JCAHO compliance is not met? HIPPA ensures money moves quickly between healthcare providers and insurance companies. What happens if that breaks? Breathe Easy. With Double-Take Software solutions offering real-time data replication, you can ensure up-to-the-minute access to business-critical data instead of relying entirely on the tape backup from last night. Thousands of companies including over half of the Fortune 500 protect their data with Double-Take. Many like Jefferson City Medical Group use it today instead of tape-only backup solutions to provide cost-effective data protection and disaster recovery for their headquarters and branch offices. With Double-Take data replication, patient data is always available through continuous data replication and fail over capabilities. Your applications are also protected and compliant. Double-Take also complements your existing tape backup solution and provides a comprehensive disaster recovery solution as mandated by regulatory organizations. Lastly, the entire system stays running at all times. Regardless of multiple applications, platforms and companies, Double-Take ensures reliable data protection and availability. http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Healthcare-Data-Protection Wanted: Spyware Warriors Got a friend who is a developer and their job got outsourced? We develop and support all our tools in the U.S. and we're hiring. Could you please forward to them? Thanks in advance! Cutting edge apps, exciting challenges! You get the chance to be one of the White Hats and keep the bad guys out. Your code will make a difference, it will run on hundreds of thousands of machines. Come and help Sunbelt Software fight malware! C++ Developers (2 openings) Job summary: A senior engineer to develop and maintain commercial Windows security applications using Microsoft C++. This is a lead engineer position. Qualifications: Qualified applicants will be a design-focused developer with a minimum of 5 yrs of experience in MS Windows development in C++. Required skills: C++, Win32, MFC, STL, multithreaded programming. Desirable skills: XML/SOAP, COM, ATL, STL. http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Wanted-Spyware-Warriors WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. Roy Raphaeli demonstrates an amazing card trick: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Card-Trick A while ago a well meaning friend forwarded an email about an 8 year old boy caught stealing, punished in a public place. It was disturbing as it looked like a car ran over his arm. Snopes has the truth about this though: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Snopes This is a Forum for airline crews. The discussions about repairs and celebrities are quite enlightening! http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Airline-Crew-Forum Aunt Calamity Strikes Again: "Ghost in the machine. Sometimes I swear it's alive. Other times, I just swear. When Microsoft announced its 'IntelliSense' initiative in 1994, I laughed. But since then, I've been keeping an eye on those dialog boxes, which seem to have become much more than just 'context sensitive.' " http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Dialog-Boxes Fly a lot? Germophobe? Here's the solution. Throwaway airplane seat covers, in appropriate colors both for ladies and gentlemen: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Airplane-Seat-Covers MousePrint.org, turns advertising on its head by focusing on an ad's asterisked fine print footnote rather than the headline. Interesting! http://www.wservernews.com/061009-MousePrint Yup, I decided that this is going to be my Halloween costume! http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Halloween-Costume Grappa is a java applet that allows you to create artworks with your mouse in a fun way. Click to clear, move mouse to draw! http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Grappa This is a much more advanced site to doodle, and it needs shockwave. The results are quite impressive though, cuz' you can do 3D doodles! http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Doodle This week's fave video. Four billards, lots of dominos... http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Billiards-Domino And talking about dominos, here is a better use for maxtor hard disk drives than store data! Video at YouTube: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Hard-Drive-Dominos Peter Coffee's Dirty Dozen IT Embarrassments. Real World IT screwups that caused a lot of damage... http://www.wservernews.com/061009-IT-Embarrassments Ikea is know for its creative and sometimes naughty ads. This site is specialized in searching for videos and has a bunch of Ikea funny ads: http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Ikea-Ads What are the most expensive items on eBay? You can actually buy whole castles... http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Expensive-eBay-Items WServerNews - PRODUCT OF THE WEEK "Should I Replace Antigen With Ninja?" This is a real question and the answers are real too. Q: "Our Antigen is about to expire... I'm seeking advice about either renewing Antigen or trying Ninja's Anti-virus module. We're already using Ninja for spam... Having spam and anti-virus in one easy to manage product sounds enticing, but, that is weighed against having all your apples in one basket... Any thoughts?" -- Bill A1: "That is what I would suggest, I have messaging Ninja for both spam and Anti-Virus and could not be happier." A2: "We demo'd Antigen with Trend and Symantec's mail solution and we found Ninja easier to configure, simpler to use, and very cost effective. We are pretty happy with the product right now." A3: Bill, We switched from McAfee Groupshield Exchange to Sunbelt. We still use McAfee for our client side stuff, but after testing Ninja's AV, we decided to drop Groupshield. Our reasons: We wanted to kinda "mix things up" by using a different email AV vs our client-side. This way if a virus gets through our email AV, hopefully the client-side will catch it. The reports. It is nice having one place to get reports on the "health" of our email system. We can see virus counts, plus spam counts in one place. The ninja AV seemed to be updating it's defs more often then McAfee. I don't know if it really was, but it SEEMED to be. (take this one with a grain of salt..) Ease of use and configuration. Groupshield required Java on the Exchange server. Ninja did not. The pricing. We save a BOATLOAD of money switching to Ninja AV and dropping Groupshield (while still keeping McAfee on the client machines.) The pricing. Did I mention the pricing? ;) http://www.wservernews.com/061009-Sunbelt-Messaging-Ninja