Silicon Shecky

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SBS 2008 First Impressions

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So I finally got a test box to load SBS 2008 on. Having worked with SBS 2003 R2 for a number of years, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The install, which was from scratch, went pretty smoothly. I did notice that there was no place to do much customization of the install, which meant everything was going on the box from the start.

When the install got ready to start it did ask if I wanted to check for and download updates to be installed at that time, which I thought was a nice little touch. The full load time was about 2 hours.

Once installed, I noticed that it had a new Management interface. With the Vista base for the GUI, I was expecting changes, but not quite the ammount that I got. I didn’t see many of the things I’ve come to trust with the SBS 2003 interface, namely the advanced options such as computer management, Exchange browsing, etc. Midn you I have not looked hard into it all yet.

The other thing I noticed was that it gave itself a static IP without any input from me. This to me is a big no no especially if you are initially hooking it onto an existing network, as it could pick an IP Address that is used by a machine already on the network.

Outside of that right now, It seems like a nice system. I still have to run through the wizards to set up everything on it. It definitely is an experience though. The next thing to see is how intuitive it is and is the learning curve any different than looking at a Linux GUI or Mac GUI for the first time.

March Patch Tuesday

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So here it is, the second Tuesday of March and we all know what that means. Yep Microsoft Patch Tuesday! So lets ee what good old Microsoft has patched up for us this month.

The only Critical is a Windows Kernel update, which is patching a hole that, “could allow an attacker to take complete control of your computer if you view a website, email, or document that contains an evil graphic or picture,” according to Eric Schultze of Shavlik Technologies.

Now we all know that a hole in the kernel is bad, and the way this is made to sound this hole can be even worse than other kernel hole, but still I would recommend installing the patch in a test environment first if possible, or at least on a non-mission critical machine. Something about making changes to the Kernel always make me a little leary.

Then there is a series of 4 patches for DNS. Not surprisingly these are for lesser used holes along the Kaminsky DNS attack lines. Definitely get these installed especially with some of the odd ways some viruses seem to be showing up from spoofed DNS.

Finally a patch related to SSL spoofing. Again important, but like the DNS patches, not listed as critical.

Personally, all the patches seem to adress some very serious issues. How SSL and DNS spoofing are not thought of as critical for patching is beyond my comprehension though. At least Microsoft did patch them. Now where is the Excel patch for a major hole in that program?

Mike

Server 2008 First install impressions

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So this week has been an interesting week for me from an install standpoint. I got to load up from scratch my first Windows Server 2008 machine, and let me say that I am actually impressed.

The machine is going to a remote office, and needed to be laoded upto be a DC and file/print server on a Windows 2003 SP1 network, which I thought would make life interesting. Usually you find all sorts of odd things when integrating different Server OSes. Not as much in this case.

Active Directory was going to be my biggest worry, yet once I ran the adprep off the 2008 disk on the 2003 DC, everything jsut slipped right into place. The wizards that 2008 uses are fairly simple and straight forward, and did a great job of promoting the server.

The other item of big importance was DFSR for file replication and again, the install and setup of it was amazingly simple.

Yes, 2008 uses that darn Vista GUI, and yes I still don’t like how exploring files and folders (especially the network) is set up with it, its a small, superficial complaint to the ease of 2008. After install I found that 2008 booted faster than 2003, and was just as capable of a server OS. The other complaint I have about it is that it is too simple. I did not see a chance to customize my install initially, which I would like to have the option of.

The whole install and configuration took me 1 day and the file data replicated overnight easily, bringing all the NTFS security information with it.

Honestly, as much as I think Microsoft gets a lot wrong, so far I would say the did something right with server 2008.

Keep watching as my test server finally came in and I am going to be doing a review of SBS2008, installing from scratch soon.