Managing SBS 2008: Q&A

Thank you everyone for attending and saying such nice things about our presentation. You have encouraged us and so we’re actively planning the rest of the series. Tune in here for dates and times.

In part 1 of our series on Managing SBS 2008, we covered User Management, User Roles, Adding Exchange email aliases, Adding addition email domains and creating a Transport rule. Time was then rounded out with an active Q&A session that continued beyond the end of the presentation and has given us some great ideas for future content in this series. At the end of the presentation, we expanded upon many of the answers provided via text during the presentation.

As promised the recording of the Live Meeting event is available and the Q&A content is below.

Q&A throughout the meeting was handed by Susan Bradley as they came in. A huge thank you to her, as this is not an easy job.

Question: Multiple Email Addresses ?

Answer:

http://sbs.seandaniel.com/2008/10/hosting-multiple-domains-on-sbs.html

Follow that blog post for info on multiple email addresses in a SBS

2008 domain

Question: I get the following message from some clients. “Critical Event Notification” “Title: Percent Free Disk Space, Source:

Performance Threshold, Description: The free disk space on this computer has dropped below its notification for low disk space threshold.” I can I switch this off for certain clients or drives?

Answer: I hope this in a test setting as this is telling you your drive space is very low. In the notification window, in the event alerts, untick the drive notification box

Question: When you remove the email quota on the user template does it take effect immediately or do you need to stop/start the IS service for it to take effect?

Answer: You stumped me. I will have to check with Eriq and have him blog the answer as a follow up. I don’t think IIS needs to be restarted but I’m not sure.

Question: There seems to be 3 ways to assign permissions. User Roles, Security Groups and OUs. what are the advantages disadvantages of using each?

Answer: User Roles are in the SBS console, Security Groups and OUs are more native. in SBS will want to focus on the User Role, as it uses Security Groups to control a lot of stuff. OUs are good for customizing Group Policy which is beyond the scope of the user role.

Question: When you remove the email quota on the user template does it take effect immediately or do you need to stop/start the IS service for it to take effect?

Answer: Answer back: I was reminded by Eriq that we’ve nuked ourselves during the beta without doing a iisreset and quotas were changed

Question: Can you export & import custom user roles?

Answer: Great question. Don’t know but we’ll follow up and get an answer on the Thirdtier.net blog.

Question: Were are public folders shown? Is it straighforward to mail enable them?

Answer: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997560.aspx

http://exchangepedia.com/blog/2007/06/how-to-add-email-addresses-to-public.html there are several pages/blogs to assist in the process of mail enabling public folders.

Question: In example for sales address does it let you reply as sales?

Answer: You will still need to look for a third party tool in Outlook to reply as different email senders

Question: What’s the difference between Accepted domain and a Remote domain?

Answer:

http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2008/09/25/how-to-configure-non-authoritative-accepted-domains-in-sbs-2008-exchange-2007.aspx there is a good overview of it here. Accepted domains are your approved domains for relay. Non authoritative domains are ones that you need to add to allow relay

Question: Is send as sales@distru,com done the same way as 2003 ??

Answer: I need a follow up question, do you mean to a distribution list or so that a specific person can respond? You can set up a mail enabled distribution list inside the Group console.

Question: Is that user role resetting a bug RWW computer blank, seems pointless if you have lots over users you would need to review each one and reconfigure it ?

Answer: The user role wizard resetting is/was the intent of the developers. They don’t consider it a bug

Question: Are user driving mapping still done using bat files when they login.

Answer: No. I (Susan) recommend using Group policy preference now and not bat/script drive mappings.

Question: This is a question I keep asking without getting a response even from Microsoft. Here it is; When will the french version of SBS

2008 be available since my client base is mosty french here in Quebec, Canada?

Answer: The French version has been released and is on TechNet.

Eriq/Amy have connections with folks in Canada and will follow up on the blog to see if it’s out in the distribution channel.

Question: Recommended tool to handle the sales email question.

Answer: I think it’s one of the mapilab products, we’ll blog it

Question: In Exchange 2007 what is the recommend MAX mailbox Size.

Default is 2gb but what is the best MAX size before curruption ?

Answer: IMHO it’s less of an Exchange issue and more of what Outlook

2007 can handle. Exchange can handle terrabytes. IMHO it’s Outlook that drives the size of the mailbox.

Question: Is there a default logon script for SBS users in 2008?

Answer: No. Logon scripts are honestly not the way to do drive mapping anymore

Question: How about 13gb !

Answer: Outlook 2007 will probably choke

Question: Mailbox size is not a corruption issue, it is a performance issue. Outlook will slow down if you go above 2GB, especially above 4GB.

Answer: Exactly.

Question: Exchange 2007 work with GFI MailArchiver?

Answer: http://kbase.gfi.com/showarticle.asp?id=KBID003086 yup

Question: One last one, when is the next SP sechedule for ?

Question: I’ve just read this comment from another tech: 1. Server 08 Has a Vista backbone, and all of the quirks and nusances that go along with being beta tested on as a customer. (shame on you MS) 2. Vista is an IT Professionals nightmare. With 7 different flavors of the same OS, all but three are essentially “home versions” that have various functionality hollowed out of them. This was done in an effort to gouge you into buying Ultimate, Business, or Enterprise additions which are the equivalent of XP Pro, respectively. Unless you have one of these 3, you can give up the hopes of remote desktop sessions, or having the ability to join a domain. 3. Vista and XP do not play nice together. Simply put….Not compatible in a networked enviroment. 4.

Unless your client has A shiny New 08 server, with all workstations being Vista Business, and some pretty deep pockets to pay you for reaserch and Admin time…. Do the smart thing and walk away. What are your comments on 2008?

Answer: That’s a lot to comment on. I won’t put old os on new hardware. Win2k8 is compatible in a network environment as is Vista.

I’m running it here. That’s a blog post to follow up on if you don’t mind

Question: Is SBS 2008 Unleashed available on electronic media as a PDF?

Answer: Eriq is answering

Question: do you recommend using Outlook 2007 in cached mode on the local network? are there disadvantages to using it?

Answer: I recommend it. Local junk mail filter works and if on the off chance the server is having issue you have access to your mailbox.

it’s always on in my networks

Question: first SBS2003 I spent hours on basic bugs,, problemley wont migrate untill first maint released.

>Answer: SBS 2008 is going to a rollup patch method so that updates will come out similar to how Exchange rollup updates come out now

Question: If a mailbox is over 4-GB to increase performance do you recommended killing off the OST?

Answer: No I recommend archiving emails

Question: Is there anyway to bypass the 4gb Ram requirment, none of our test boxes can support it..

Answer: Min it can go is 3.6 gig. Buy from Frys or Ebay.

Question: how do I get on your mailing list? Steven Brown (VA)

Answer: www.thirdtier.net register there

Question: Your hardware recommendations for sbs – 50 users

Answer: how much email… use the exchange server size to drive the size of the server. def greater than 12gig of ram

Question: Is sue part of third tier

Answer: Amy, Eriq and Dave are the technical ones

Question: Which email client should MAC users run?

Answer: Eriq — Entourage 2008

Question: Is there a Transitions pack to get out of SBS/EBS?

Answer: There will be whitepapers on migration, it’s not needed to do a software ‘unlock’ anymore

Question: Microsoft employees had a podcast for sbs2003, do you know if they will do that this time too?

Answer: Great question. I will personally ask myself as I loved those.

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