New Job!

I am very excited to announce that I accepted an offer to work for Avanade (www.avanade.com) as System Engineer in Madrid. Avanade is the leading technology integrator specializing in the Microsoft enterprise platform. I think the job is going to be very exciting.

BETA: Microsoft Windows 2003 SP2 Build 2721

Microsoft releases today the pre-beta version of the SP2 for Windows 2003 (x86, x64 and Itanium) and Windows XP 64 bits.

MS: Exchange Server '12' requires Microsoft Management Console 3.0

One issue that seems to come up frequently for those of you that have tried installing Exchange 12 CTP build (Exchange 2007 Beta 1) is the following error at Setup:

"Exchange Server '12' requires Microsoft Management Console 3.0."

This happens even though the final (RTM), released version of MMC is installed on the system.

The problem here is that the CTP build of Exchange 12 setup actually needs a "RC1 refresh" build of MMC 3.0, and as this build is not found - the setup fails with the above error. E12 is looking for a registry key that is not there on the machine that has RTM version of MMC 3.0 installed. This issue is going to be fixed in later builds of Exchange 12 and will definitely not be there in final release version.

You can resolve this problem in 2 different ways:

1. Download and install the RC1 refresh MMC release, see Microsoft Management Console 3.0 Pre-Release (RC1 Refresh).

2. If you would like to run the RTM version instead (as you already installed it) create the following empty registry key:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\MMC30Core

Thanks to Nino Bilic @ Microsoft Exchange Team Blog (http://msexchangeteam.com)

MS: Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment

The Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) delivers end-to-end guidance for efficient planning, building, testing, and deploying Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 edition, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and Office Professional 2003 Editions. It helps IT professionals realize a quick return on investment while also setting new standards for reliability, performance, security, and ease of use.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/desktopdeployment/bddoverview.mspx

CTX: Configuring and Securing Citrix Shadowing

Shadowing is a valuable tool released with Citrix Presentation Server, however, taking time to implement and delegate this ability to support personnel often falls to the bottom of the priority list. Enabling your first responders with the shadowing ability, and a basic understanding of Citrix, will help them to identify the source of a problem and thus decrease the amount of escalated calls. This article will go over the different methods of configuring shadowing (including order of precedence), shadowing utilities, shadow logging, and to conclude, a summary of best practices.

http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?id=583

CTX: A Listing of Free Tools for Citrix and Terminal Server Environments

There are a lot of great FREE tools and utilities out there that can really help in Citrix and Terminal Server deployments.
http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?ID=466

CTX: Unlicensed server error

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX104959

CTX: Troubleshooting and Explaining Citrix ICA Shadowing

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX040083

Reliability Survey: Windows Servers Beat Linux Boxes

Windows 2003 Server is a more reliable server operating system than Linux, a research firm said Monday.

According to the Yankee Group's annual server reliability survey, only Unix-based operating systems such as HP-UX and Sun Solaris 10 beat Windows on uptime. Windows 2003 Server, in fact, led the popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux with nearly 20 percent more annual uptime.

On a broader note, said Yankee analyst Laura DiDio, the major server operating systems all have a "high degree of reliability," and have showed marked improvement in the last 3 to 5 years.

On average, individual enterprise Windows, Linux, and Unix servers experienced 3 to 5 failures per server per year in 2005, generating 10 to 19.5 hours of annual downtime for each server.

But standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Linux distributions from "niche" open source vendors, are offline more and longer than either Windows or Unix competitors, the survey said. The reason: the scarcity of Linux and open source documentation.

The Yankee Group made a point of stressing that the survey was not sponsored or supported by any server OS maker.

VMWARE: How To Increase (Or Resize) The Size of VMware Hard Disk

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_disk_manager_running.html

MS: GPO Loopback Processing

Loopback processing is a feature that allows a more precise level of control over user policy settings for a targeted machine. Usually, user policy settings are derived entirely from the GPOs associated with the user account (based on it's location in the Active Directory). With loopback processing, however, the user policy settings in the GPOs associated with the machine are applied.

http://grouppolicy.editme.com/Loopback

MS: How to lock down a Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 Terminal Server session

You can use Group Policies to lock down a Terminal Server session on a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based or Microsoft Windows 2000-based computer. With the following settings, even the administrator account will have restricted access. It is highly recommended that you create a new organizational unit instead of modifying the policies on an existing one.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278295

CERTIFICATION: Citrix Test 1Y0-251 passed!

Today I passed the Citrix Test 1Y0-251: Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0: Management and Maintenance for the Enterprise. I got today the Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator for MetaFrame Access Suite 3.0 (CCEA) certification.

Exam Statistics:

10 Citrix Exams
04 Citrix Certifications
17 Microsoft Exams
07 Microsoft Certifications

http://www.musumeci.com.ar/Web_English/certificaciones_eng.htm

CTX: Tools for Printing Optimization

triCerat ScrewDrivers
http://www.tricerat.com/screwdrivers.php

ThinPrint
http://www.thinprint.com/

MS: UNIX/Linux Authentication with Windows Active Directory

http://www.microsoft.com/emea/itsshowtime/sessionh.aspx?videoid=103

CTX: Citrix Change Management Process

Identifying the Change Management Process:

* Identify and Define
* Assess the Risk
* Validate and Test in Lab
* Document Procedures
* Seek Approval
* Schedule and Communicate
* Implement Change
* Evaluate Effectiveness: Proceed or Rollback
* Close Out

Scope of the change:

* Emergency (Break/fix) - Production is down or security is compromised.
* Urgent - Full review is deferred. The change is scheduled ASAP with affected parties notified prior the change taking place.
* Time Sensitive (Standard/Routine) - Review is requiered but change may be scheduled outside of the normal maintenance window.
* Normal (Standard/Routine) - Change is implemented during the normal maintenance window.

CTX: Services for the Citrix License Server

* Citrix Licensing Service
* Citrix Licensing WMI
* ASP.NET State Service
* IIS Admin
* W3SVC (World Wide Web Publishing Service)

MS: "Send as" and "Send on behalf" permissions in Exchange 2000 Server and in Exchange Server 2003

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;327000

MS: How to disable the Knowledge Consistency Checker from automatically creating replication topology (Active Directory)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;242780

MS: Common Mistakes When Upgrading Exchange 5.5/2000 To a Exchange 2003

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555262