Alexander’s Blog

A lot of people, especially those who are relatively new to managing and editing Web sites, use Microsoft FrontPage. More experienced people prefer other tools, such as Dreamweaver or Microsoft SharePoint Designer, or even Expression Web because they do a much better job of editing HTML pages than FrontPage. This blog post is for those individuals or Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who are using FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE).

Once you’ve upgraded your Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 (WS08) you may realize that the IIS 7.0 in WS08 no longer supports FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE). Same is true for IIS 7.0 in Windows Vista. Because there are tons of Web hosting providers who rely on FPSE, Microsoft and Ready-to-Run Software offer a special version of FPSE. This new version is called FPSE 2002 and will work on IIS 7.0 running on 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and WS08 computers. You can download FPSE 2002 here.

To install FPSE on your WS08 server, login as an administrator account, or start the command prompt using “Run As Administrator” and type the following command.

msiexec /i <path to FPSE 2002 file>\fpse02_win2008_vista_rtm_ENG.msi

Installing FPSE 2002 on WS08 requires that you install several additional services and features. If you don’t want these services installed then you can’t install FPSE 2002. These include the following:

Web Server (IIS) Role Services

Web Server
- Common HTTP Features (Static Content, Default Document, Directory Browsing, HTTP Errors)
- Application Development (ISAPI Extensions, ISAPI Filters)
- Security (Windows Authentication, Request Filtering)
- Health and Diagnostics (HTTP Logging, Request Monitor)
- Performance (Static Content Compression)

Management Tools (Role Services)
- IIS 6 Management Compatibility (IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility)
- IIS Management Console

Features

Windows Process Activation Service
- Process Model

I should point out that Microsoft’s FrontPage Server Extensions have a history of known issues so be very careful. Backup your server before installing FPSE 2002. Make sure you read the note at the end of installation, as shown below.

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Copyright ©2009 Zubair Alexander. All rights reserved.

Microsoft has created a special site for all of us to provide feedback for Microsoft’s AD BPA. There’s also a page for FAQs, along with some other useful links, such as the WS08 R2 Management Forum.

Here are some of the Q&As that are already posted on the AD BPA site.

Q. How is AD BPA installed?
A. AD BPA becomes available once AD DS role is installed on the WS08 R2 Windows Server. BPA UI is available as part of Server Manager UI and exists as one of the tiles in the Server Manager AD DS role home page.

Q. How is BPA different from Management Pack or other Monitoring solutions?
A. BPA focuses on corrective and actionable guidance, once it identifies the root cause of a potential  issue due to some misconfigured AD settings. Apart from reporting on the Symptoms on how the misconfigured AD settings can cause to the customer’s AD environment, it addresses the root cause of the issue and how it can be resolved.

Q. Is AD BPA only available on WS08 R2 DC?
A. Yes, AD BPA is only available from a WS08 R2 DC, and it will validate the AD settings as long as  you have one WS08 R2 DC in your AD forest.

Q. Does AD BPA collect data only from WS08 R2 DC or can it collect data from WS08 and WS03 DCs ?
A. AD BPA will collect as much directory information from the local DC, WS08 R2, on which it is running, except for DNS Server if hosted on different Server. As long there is one WS08 R2 DC in the AD forest, customers will be able to run AD BPA.

Windows Server 2008 (WS08) Server Core can be used in lots of useful scenarios. However, because WS08 does not have a GUI, you need to use the command prompt to accomplish the administrative tasks. You may find it convenient to manage the Server Core from another computer.

By default Remote Desktop is not enabled on the Server Core. There are two steps you need to take to get Remote Desktop working: Enable Remote Desktop & open default RDP port, which is TCP port 3889.

STEP 1 – Enable Remote Desktop

You can look at your settings by using the following command:

cscript c:\windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /AR /v

The scregedit.wsf script will either return a 1 or a 0. If you see a 1 then the Terminal Services (i.e. Remote Desktop) is disabled, a 0 means it is enabled.

To enable Terminal Services use the following command:

c:\windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /AR 0

To disable Terminal Services use the following command:

c:\windows\system32\scregedit.wsf /AR 1

NOTE: The /AR switch is used for Vista and WS08 computers. For Windows XP computers replace /AR with /CS.

STEP 2 – Open RDP Port

To open Remote Desktop, you need to make sure that your firewall is not blocking the default Terminal Services/RDP port 3389. On a WS08 Server Core, run the following command to open TCP port 3389.

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”remote desktop” new enable=Yes

You should expect the following response when you execute the above command.

C:\Windows\system32>netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”remote desktop” new enable=Yes

Updated 2 rule(s).
Ok.

You might want to check out Microsoft KB article 947709 for additional information on opening ports at the firewall or how to enable ICMP requests.

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Copyright ©2009 Zubair Alexander. All rights reserved.

As you may know, Microsoft doesn’t support upgrading Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC and most likely it won’t support upgrading of Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 final version. It is, however, possible to upgrade the beta version to RC.

To upgrade Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC, follow the procedure described below.

- Copy the source files from Windows 7 RC CD to your local hard drive on your Windows 7 Beta computer.

- Go to the folder where you just copied Windows 7 files.

- In the Sources folder you will see a file called cversion.ini.

- Double-click the cversion.ini file to Open it in Notepad, or use any other text editor.

- The cversion.ini contains the following entries:

[HostBuild]
MinClient=7077
MinServer=7000

Change the first entry (MinClient) 7077 to 7000 so that both the entries will have the same value, as shown below.

[HostBuild]
MinClient=7000
MinServer=7000

If the version has a different value, do the same thing (e.g. change it from 7100 to 7000).

- Save the cversion file in it’s original location (i.e. “Source” folder).

- Run the setup from within Windows 7 Beta. The setup program will use the new value from the cversion.ini file and you should be able to upgrade your Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC.

When the final version of Windows 7 is released, you might want to try the same technique and upgrade from Windows RC to Windows 7 final version.

Neetu Rajpal, the Group Program Manager for the Forefront Sever Security team at Microsoft recently wrote this article on Forefront Security for Exchange Server. In her article she describes some of the capabilities of the next generation Forefront Security for Exchange Server. With multiple scanning engines and filtering capabilities, the product protects e-mail while allowing you to take performance into consideration. You can also handle configuration and management as you prefer, using either the administration console or Windows PowerShell.

Check out her article on TechNet here.