Vol. 11, #43 - Oct 23, 2006 - Issue #599 IE7 Is Here. What Now? EDITORS CORNER IE7 Is Here. Now What? Sunbelt Is At Tech.Ed Europe November 2006 New Messaging Security Practices Report Quotes Of The Week ADMIN TOOLBOX Admin Tools We Think You Shouldn't Be Without TECH BRIEFING The Hidden Costs Of Virtualization 64-bit Watch: Software Drivers Preparing For Exchange Server 2007 Recovering Encrypted Files From An NTFS Partition Step-by-Step Guide: Installing SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services WINDOWS SERVER NEWS Ballmer: Microsoft To Increase 2007 R&D Spending Developers Do Not Pay For Virtualization Software Redmond Postpones XP SP3 to 2008 WINDOWS SERVER THIRD PARTY NEWS InvisiTasking Makes Diskeeper Disappear Third Party Tools Bundled By Redmond For SA Customers Double-Take in the HIPAA-Regulated Healthcare Industry WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. WServerNews - PRODUCT OF THE WEEK Upgrade to Next-Generation Antispam/Antivirus for Exchange. And save 50% over your current product! Looking for an instant view of your Active Directory Objects? Download a FREE version of rDirectory at Namescape.com. rDirectory Community Edition allows you to deploy a professional employee directory website and search engine in minutes! An excellent GALMOD replacement for Microsoft AD. Upgrade to the fully customizable Enterprise Edition for Directory Cleanup, Password Reset Group Management, Role-Based Delegation, Self-Edit Capabilities and more. Your end-users will love this. Download it now and take back your weekends! http://www.wservernews.com/061023-NameScape EDITORS CORNER IE7 Is Here. Now What? As a system admin you need to get ready fast. Because if you run either automatic updates or WSUS, this more secure beastie will all on its own update in November, and might break things. So the time has come to TEST, TEST, and TEST some more with all your existing applications and make sure that users do not update it on their own. Many apps are not supporting it yet, for instance Juniper warned that their VPN product does not support IE7. Microsoft has released an IE7 Blocker toolkit to prevent premature update. Here is the announcement and it also makes sense to read the FAQ: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-IE7 FAQ at TechNet: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-IE7-FAQ If you want a copy to test with, use the official Redmond site instead of a fake IE7 site that has popped up its ugly head and tries to entice users with email from "support at Microsoft.com". Warn users to not mess with IE7 or better yet just block running setup if you can. And oh, there is a claimed 'vulnerability' in IE7 which is really a setting that can be managed through GPO. Here is the advisory: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-IE7-Advisory And this is the official Redmond download site: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-IE7-Download Sunbelt Is At Tech.Ed Europe November 2006 We're going to be in Barcelona, Spain - November 14-17. Look for the QBS booth and check out Ninja and CounterSpy Enterprise! Here is the link to the Microsoft site: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-TechEd-Europe New Messaging Security Practices Report Aberdeen Group's Information Security practice recently published a new research report "The 2006 Messaging Security Benchmark Report: Strategies for Securing Corporate Communications." Sunbelt Software co-sponsored this research, which is now available to you at no cost. We encourage you to take a moment and download this report. It focused on messaging security trends in today's IT market, and found that while 80% of companies are aware of the threat of loss of confidential data by insiders, only 43% have implemented messaging security solutions that will stop that outbound threat. Did you know that Sunbelt's Messaging Ninja provides internal and outbound email security for your organization? With extensive policy creation capabilities, Sunbelt Messaging Ninja ensures enforcement of how messages are handled based on your company's business processes and corporate messaging and security policies. Additionally, policy-based rules ensure regulatory compliance and protect against unauthorized outbound email. This report will be available for eight weeks at no charge. To access a complimentary copy of the Aberdeen Group 2006 Messaging Security Benchmark Report, visit: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Security-Benchmark-Report Quotes Of The Week "Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug" -- John Lithgow "The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it." -- P. B. Medawar 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 Centralize account admin for UNIX, Linux, Mac using Active Directory while maintaining granular access control. Free white paper, webcast: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Centrify The psTools list of sysinternals command line tools are very, very handy in many occasions. Here is an overview of all these gems: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-PSTools ShortKeys is a utility that allows you to set up replacement text or paragraphs for any given number of user defined keystrokes. Time saver: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-ShortKeys Pando is free software that lets you send and receive files and folders of any size up to 1GB with your existing email address. http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Pando TECH BRIEFING The Hidden Costs Of Virtualization Although virtualization brings lots of benefits and features such as higher server utilization and increased operational efficiency, it may not be appropriate for every situation or environment. In this tip, we examine several key issues that can cause problems in a virtualization adoption. At SearchServerVirtualization: (free registration required) http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Virtualization-Costs 64-bit Watch: Software Drivers SearchWinIT.com's reference guide on 64-bit, has recently been updated to include a section on software drivers. This easy-to-read table provides the following product information: company name, product name, product type, whether it's 64-bit ready, and supported platforms. Check it out today! (free registration required) http://www.wservernews.com/061023-64-Bit Preparing For Exchange Server 2007 Because of major Exchange Server architecture changes, moving from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 is going to be as dramatic and complex as upgrading from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000. SearchExchange.com contributor Brien Posey discusses the hardware and infrastructure issues you need to start preparing for now. SearchExchange.com http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Exchange-2007 Recovering Encrypted Files From An NTFS Partition To recover encrypted files from an NTFS partition, you need to understand how the encryption process works, and how the Encryption File System (EFS) encrypts files on Windows' NTFS file system. Learn more in this tip. http://www.wservernews.com/061023-NTFS Step-by-Step Guide: Installing SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Install SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services with detailed help from this step-by-step guide and avoid any potential hassles. Edgewood Solutions' Jeremy Kadlec includes the current service pack for the complete install of this feature. At SearchSQLServer: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-SQL2005-Reporting-Services WINDOWS SERVER NEWS Ballmer: Microsoft To Increase 2007 R&D Spending Microsoft plans to spend $7.5 billion in research and development in fiscal 2007, a figure that increases the R&D spending analysts and industry-watchers previously expected from the company, CEO Steve Ballmer said Tuesday. He was talking at a luncheon event in Madrid, Spain. Developers Do Not Pay For Virtualization Software Microsoft said software developers would no longer need to pay or license technology it provides to help one computer run multiple operating systems at the same time. It said it would provide access to a "virtualization" format on an open source basis, saying this was the best way to get the broadest audience for its own specifications. The technology makes it easier for users to access programs or look at documents made by non-Microsoft vendors. MCPMag has the story: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Developers-and-Virtualization Redmond Postpones XP SP3 to 2008 InformationWeek Mag reported that Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), the next significant update to the operating system, now won't appear until the first half of 2008. In January, Microsoft had promised SP3 in the last half of 2007. Although Microsoft gave no reason for the delay in its revised Windows Service Pack Road Map, which was updated Tuesday, it effectively pushed back SP3 by at least six months. SP3 for both the Home and Professional editions of Windows XP is now scheduled to release in the first half of 2008. Windows XP's last service pack, SP2, launched in August 2004. The new schedule means that Microsoft could drop support for Windows XP within months of SP3's release. According to its published support commitments, Microsoft has promised to maintain Windows XP for two years after the release of Windows Vista. If Vista debuts on time in January 2007 and Windows XP SP3 doesn't appear until June 2008, the latter would age out in January 2009, seven months after it was unveiled. InfoWeek has the full story: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-XP-SP3 WINDOWS SERVER THIRD PARTY NEWS InvisiTasking Makes Diskeeper Disappear Once Diskeeper 2007 is installed on your servers, they will run better and faster than they ever have before, AUTOMATICALLY, for the life of your system. Diskeeper 2007 Server Enterprise is able to accomplish this through revolutionary breakthrough technology called InvisiTasking. For the first time, InvisiTasking allows the vital system performance enhancements in Diskeeper, such as defragmentation, to run in the background with total transparency. Gone are the days when you had to schedule defragmentation or other system maintenance tasks on nights and weekends. InvisiTasking ensures that there will never be a conflict in system resources or a loss in system..... http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Diskeeper Third Party Tools Bundled By Redmond For SA Customers Coming January, Redmond plans to ship a suite of tools they recently acquired that hopes to make it easier for large sites to deploy and manage apps and desktops. They have called it with a mouthful the "Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance". (MDOPSA) The bundle combines four tools for: application virtualization asset inventory services diagnostics and recovery, and advanced Group Policy management Microsoft will offer the Desktop Optimization Pack globally as an add-on subscription for customers with Software Assurance agreements. Customers with Open Value, Select, Enterprise Agreement (EA), EA Subscription and Campus and School agreements will be able to subscribe through volume licensing, for an estimated $10 a year per desktop. More at: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Desktop-Optimization-Pack Double-Take in the HIPAA-Regulated Healthcare Industry This business value white paper addresses the contingency plan and physical access control requirements of the Administrative Simplification security provision of HIPAA. It will assist health care providers (doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, health insurers, clearinghouses, or any organization) directly handling patients' health care information, in understanding how Double-Take can be implemented to fulfill some of these requirements. White Paper (PDF) at: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Double-Take-HIPAA WServerNews 'FAVE' LINKS This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff. Now HERE is an interesting search engine. Meet Ms. Dewey! Give her some time to load, she's worth it, the site is a riot!! http://www.wservernews.com/061023-MSDewey Four GPS units talking at the same time. It's a racket: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-GPS Just think: In those days a 17-year-old could go to the motor vehicle bureau to get license plates for a homebuilt, motorcycle-powered vehicle. The folks at the office would say, "What kind of car is that?" "Oh, I made it myself." "Lights work? Horn work? Okay, here are your tags." http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Tags Dude, someone stole my datacenter! http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Stolen-Datacenter How Home Alarms can be installed completely the wrong way: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Home-Alarm How a bunch of Swiss SwarmBots are able to transport a child... http://www.wservernews.com/061023-SwarmBots This Mazda ad was produced for an online "viral and buzz marketing" campaign. It takes an amusing look at one woman's answer to 'white van man' syndrome when parking. http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Mazda The typorganism site allows you to upload an image and transform it into ASCII. Pretty cool: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-ASCII The number of 'niche sites' on the Internet never ceases to amaze me. This one is specific for cars for tall guys: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Niche-Sites WServerNews - PRODUCT OF THE WEEK Upgrade to Next-Generation Antispam/Antivirus for Exchange. And save 50% over your current product! Ninja is easier to manage, has better multi-engine spam detection, and integrated multi-engine antivirus. Ninja gives you great end-user control. It is an excellent replacement for Exchange products from Trend, GFI and Symantec. Get your 30-day full function eval and see it for yourself: http://www.wservernews.com/061023-Ninja