is going to attend Tech-Ed USA, taking place in Boston, MA, on June 11-16. "Technical training. Community resources. A chance to connect with Microsoft partners, industry gurus, and Microsoft experts. That’s Tech-Ed. Learn how to build, deploy, secure, and manage solutions using the full range of current and soon-to-be-released Microsoft products". is one of 6 Exchange MVPs selected to staff the Ask The Experts sessions of the Messaging areas, and will answer your Exchange-related (and other) quetions. If you've registered for the event, please do come in and say hi.

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I was reasonably familiar with Microsoft Proxy 2.0 and I had installed ISA 2000 once about 3 years ago, although due to it’s location it was only used as a Caching Server. So, what could be different in ISA 2004? As we are about to find out, LOTS!! David Davis simplifies this complex and versatile application with easy to understand explanations and comprehensive videos.

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Want to host your own web site or even multiple sites on one server, then Train Signal’s Lab 3 - Web Server tutorial is the ultimate guide for you. We start with the Concepts video where the advantages and disadvantages of various web servers are discussed:

• IIS 4, IIS5 & IIS6 and Apache (Apache being the dominant server at this point in time)

• Difference between Web Site and Web Server.  Site = software. Server = hardware

• Host yourself or use a dedicated hosting company

• Expense involved

• Domain Names – top level and different suffix like .net, .org as opposed to .com

• Sockets (IP & Port Number) in a simple graphical presentation (great analogy)

• SSL – type of encryption to secure sensitive info transferred over the net

• FrontPage Server Extensions – again a simple explanation of how it is used to manage your website using you guessed it, FrontPage.  HTML knowledge not needed

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Local GPOs are used to allow the administrator of a Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista computer to configure security and registry settings for the computer. LGPOs allow the administrator to do so in absence of an Active Directory-based GPO infrastructure.

Windows Vista has the ability to create multiple local group policies (GPOs). Wow! This means that whenever you want to configure different settings for different users you can do so easily without the need to mess with NTFS permissions (this was one of the methods used by Pre-Vista administrators to bypass the single LGPO limit in Windows 2000/XP/2003).

Read more about this topic:

• Configure Multiple Local GPOs in Windows Vista

• Disable Local GPOs in Windows Vista

• Understanding Multiple Local GPOs in Windows Vista

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It's finally here! The Microsoft Device Emulator 1.0 is a standalone version of the same ARM based Device Emulator that ships as part of Visual Studio 2005. The standalone emulator is intended for situations when you want to demonstrate or test your application on a computer that does not have Visual Studio 2005 installed. In addition, we are offering the Windows Mobile 5.0 MSFP operating system images that you can use with the Device Emulator.

Needless to say, this emulator can help us IT personnel when testing the deployment of new PPC-based applications in our network environment, plus allows us to perform live synchronizations with our Exchange Server 2003 SP2 servers (and future Exchange Server 2007 servers).

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When you use Telnet to connect to the a Windows 2000/2003-based server a banner is displayed. You can change your Telnet server to display a banner and run programs upon logon for all users by modifying the Login.cmd file. You can modify this file to run other programs (such as a different shell). The commands in the Login.cmd file are run for all users.

You might also be interested in reading these related articles:

• Change the IMAP4 Banner

• Change the POP3 Banner

• Change the SMTP Banner

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is going to be one of the speakers in the i edition of the Microsoft Tech-Ed event, scheduled to take place in Eilat, , May 9th through May 11th. is going to talk about the key features of the new Group Policy settings of the upcoming Windows Vista client and the Windows "Longhorn" server. will also be a part of the Ask The Experts sessions during the second day of the event. You can download the Power Point presentation right HERE (English).

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USB removable disks (also known as flash drives or "Disk on Key" and other variations) are quickly becoming an integral part of our electronic life, and now nearly everybody owns one device or another, in forms of small disks, external hard drives that come enclosed in cases, card readers, cameras, mobile phones, portable media players and more. Portable USB flash drives are indeed very handy, but they can also be used to upload malicious code to your computer (either deliberately or by accident), or to copy confidential information from your computer and take it away.

I've uploaded some nice download pages related to disabling USB flash drives. Check them out:

• Disable USB Disks
• Disable USB Disks with GPO
• Disable Writing to USB Disks in XP SP2
• Disable Writing to USB Disks with GPO

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Notepad is one of the few tools that have always been a part of Windows, but in the process of updating and improving the OS, were left behind and have not evolved at all. Notepad has some disadvantages that are clear to any person using it on a daily basis. That's why many programmers and 3rd-party software developers looked into developing better tools that will still be as simple to use as Notepad, yet offer additional features and capabilities that were left out of the original Notepad.

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Windows Vista has the built-in ability to automatically reduce the potential of security breeches in the system. It does that by automatically enabling a feature called User Account Control (or UAC for short). The UAC forces users that are part of the local administrators group to run like they were regular users with no administrative privileges.

Whenever a user that is a member of the local administrators group (or even a member of the Domain Admins group if the computer is part of an Active Directory domain) tries to perform a task that requires administrative privileges, the operating system halts the operation and prompts the user to acknowledge it prior to running the task.

You can also Disable User Account Control in Windows Vista.

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• Download Group Policy ADM Files for All Microsoft Operating Systems
• Download Group Policy Settings Reference
• Download Office System 2003 SP2 ADMs and Explain Text Update

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The Virtual Additions are a set of features that improve integration of the host and guest operating systems, as well as the performance of the guest operating system. For example, without the VM Additions to any VM, whenever you'll want to perform any mouse-click operation within the VM and then release the mouse control from the VM to the real host operating system, you will need to do so by pressing the Right ALT key. Installing VM Additions will allow the mouse movement to be dynamic. Windows Vista, running as a virtual machine, benefits greatly from these additions. Without them performance is sluggish at best, and it might take ages to do basic tasks.

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I often see question on the MSExchange.org message boards (and other places) from people asking how they fix a damaged OWA 2003 installation by resetting the OWA virtual directories back to their defaults. I therefore thought it would be a good idea with an article providing step by step instructions on how to do so.

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If you may recall, Windows Server 2003 has added quite a few good GPO settings, some of which only work on Windows XP and above, and some require XP SP2 and above. One of the nicest security settings is the ability to create a wireless settings GPO that will require your client computers to connect only to a predefined set of wireless networks, and to require various security settings such as the type of wireless network access, level of encryption, method of authentication and more. Here are 2 articles that discuss some of these settings:

• Creating Wireless GPO Setting

• Working with Wireless GPO Settings from XP SP2

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Windows Vista (and 2000/2003/XP) has the built-in ability to display Hebrew fonts on your system without the need to install language packs or special localized versions of the OS. Unlike in previous operating systems, the installation of Hebrew support is much simpler and does not require a reboot. You can choose to install Hebrew language support during the setup phase of Windows Vista, or at any time after the installation is complete.

Note: You might also want to read the following articles:

• Install Hebrew on Windows 2000

• Install Hebrew on Windows Server 2003

• Install Hebrew on Windows XP

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Train Signal just released a new training product – Cisco CCNP Video Training - that is perfect for those of you who are looking to master Cisco routing and/or pass the Cisco CCNP BSCI exam. This course is taught by Chris Bryant, a top-notch CCIE instructor who does an excellent job of covering important details without boring you to tears (or leaving you more confused than when you started!). 

In the beginning, Chris walks you through important details like equipment setup, IP configuration and static routing. From there you will take off into more advanced topics like On-Demand routing, Distance Vector routing, BGP, Route Redistribution and lots more! (see ALL of the details).

Overall, this package includes over 18 hours of instructor-led video training, a 50+ page lab book and over a 150 Cisco CCNP BSCI Practice Questions. Once you finish this course you will have a solid understanding of Cisco Routing and will be well prepared to pass the Cisco CCNP BSCI exam. Read more about the Cisco CCNP BSCI Video Training Course.  

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Now it's free!

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 is an ideal, production-quality tool for consolidating multiple workloads onto a physical server, allowing organizations to make more efficient use of their hardware resources. Built upon Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 SP1 and bolstered with new functionality, Virtual Server 2005 R2 enables IT organizations to enhance their administrative productivity and rapidly deploy new servers to address changing business needs through automated deployment and configuration of connected virtual machines that are easily administered with standard server management tools. Virtual Server 2005 R2 is an extensively tested and well supported virtualization solution that is supported both by the broader ISV community and by Microsoft in conjunction with its server operating systems and applications.

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Old, used, boring, but still a nice tip. This article explains how to easily create a text file from the Command Prompt (CMD) in Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista.

Last night when I installed the latest build of Windows Vista on a Virtual Machine I had to enter the CD Key during the installation process. Typing this CD Key wasn't hard to do, but I kept missing a letter or entering an "8" instead of a "B" and so I found myself typing the CD Key of the machine over and over again.

One of the things I usually do with my own machines is to burn a file called SN.txt on the root of the installation CD, with the right CD Key inside. Then, whenever I need to install Windows from that CD I have the CD Key readily available.

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On the 30th of March 2006 will be switching to Daylight Savings Time (aka "Summer clock"). For those of you who don't know, because of various political reasons, the i government keeps shifting the DST entry and exit points each year, which causes a great pain in the back-end for i IT people.

That's right ! is rather special when it comes to summer clock - the actual dates of summer clock's beginning and ending are decided every year in Knesset, so we, the sysadmins, every year have to update our environment with the new settings.

The following article describes the best method of performing the change, and offers a freeware utility to help you manage the DST change in large networks.

You might also be interested in reading Pocket PC Summer clock in for 2006 and Pocket PC Summer clock in for 2006 - Hebrew.

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One of the coolest tricks I saw lately came from one of my Students - Shay Levy.

Many tips published on various websites, including articles found on the site, heavily use registry modifications and additions. These articles and tips usually tell you that in order to perform this or that, you need to open Regedit.exe (the registry editing tool), navigate to this or that registry path, and create, delete or modify registry keys and values.

In order to make your life easier, Shay has created this cool Internet Explorer add-in, that allows you to easily open Regedit and point it to the exact registry path, without the need to manually open Regedit.exe and begin to look for the relevant entry.

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The following article deals with solving error c1030af1 when trying to view or modify Public Folder properties in Exchange System Manager.

In some cases, when you open ESM (Exchange System Manager) and try to view or modify any Public Folder's properties you might get this error.

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The following article deals with an issue that Hebrew speakers have when sending messages by using Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2003.

This issue causes certain machines using OWA to send email messages that have Hebrew text in their subject line in a wrong encoding method, thus causing the recipients to receive these messages with subject lines showing as question marks (???????).

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One of the new features of Outlook Web Access in Exchange Server 2003 is the ability to encrypt and digitally sign messages when using OWA. In order to do so, you will need to install the S/MIME Control in OWA by downloading it to the computer that you are using.

And here is the problem: When you use Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel to remove the S/MIME Control you will get the following error message:

Another version of this product is already installed. Installation of this version cannot continue. To configure or remove the existing version of this product, use Add/Remove Programs on the Control Panel.

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In previous articles we discussed tools that create users and their mailboxes in Active Directory. LDIFDE has been mentioned and also VBScripts. However, the most powerful and flexible tool in my opinion is Excel. Excel can read information from various formats and can serve as a handy intermediary. You can manipulate the information in Excel as you find necessary before exporting it to Active Directory. A lot of data originates from Excel which is a common place for large tables. You can also combine data from a few sources into Excel.

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Outlook Web Access (OWA) in Exchange 2003 is now even more customizable then ever before. Provisioning OWA will allow you to remove certain features for security and performance reasons, or if you are providing hosted Exchange mailboxes, resell certain features as value added features.

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Totally unrelated to any IT topic (unless you're a German engineer working on BMW's latest motorrad...), yet still a nice thing to watch especially if you're into sports bikes. Oh, and Hebrew-speaking readers will probably enjoy my BMW K1200 R - Hebrew page.

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After being Digged last week, here is a good opportunity to update one of my most wanted tips pages:

When installing a brand new Windows XP Pro computer (read my Install Windows XP Pro page) I end up making many changes to it's interface and some of it's interior settings.

Some of these changes are for made for performance reasons while others are purely visual and made only for my convenience.

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Microsoft Windows Defender (Beta 2) is the final name for Microsoft’s AntiSpyware solution (formerly known as Giant AntiSpyware)

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Microsoft Exchange Intelligent Message Filter is a product developed by Microsoft to help companies reduce the amount of unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE), or spam, received by users.

Intelligent Message Filter version 2 feature that is included with Exchange Server 2003 SP2 can be configured to auto-update itself, thus keeping it current and effective, and up-to-date with the latest updates released twice par month by Microsoft. Although Intelligent Message Filter feature is installed when you install Exchange Server 2003 SP2, you must manually enable it to obtain the benefits of this new message filtering technology. After you enable the Intelligent Message Filter feature, the .dat file and the .dll file must be updated regularly to keep the filter current and effective.

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Before the arrival of Exchange 2003 SP2, IMF used to be a stand-alone tool downloadable from Microsoft. Although one can still download and install it separately (here, if you insist), IMF is now an integral part of Exchange Service Pack 2 (SP2).

As usual, one should read the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 Release Notes before installing SP2. This is more important in regards to the installation and configuration of the Intelligent Message Filter in SP2.

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The Outlook Web Access (OWA) administration tool provides web-based UI for all administrator tunable OWA settings. It provides a list of all servers in the domain and allows administration of OWA settings on all Front-end and Back-end servers. The tool ensures that settings are correctly written to the server’s registry and provides inline documentation for all configurable features.

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The Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync Web Administration tool enables administrators to manage the process of remotely erasing lost, stolen, or otherwise compromised mobile devices.

The Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync Web Administration Tool is designed for use With Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 and compatible mobile devices.

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Kernel memory resource bottlenecks can drastically limit Exchange 2003 scalability. Kernel resource usage may vary greatly from one Exchange server to another. A hardware platform that can support 4000 heavy users in one organization may be limited to half that number in a different organization because of kernel memory exhaustion.

The first flash provides technical background about the demands Exchange makes on kernel resources.

The second flash discusses hardware configurations that can restrict the kernel memory available for applications.

The third flash explains the effect of large user security tokens on Exchange's kernel memory usage and mentions the script that can be used to count and generate statistics about the number of security groups to which an Exchange user belongs.

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The Information Store is the heart and soul of Exchange Server 2000 and 2003.  Understanding the fundamentals of the Information Store is important for anyone managing an Exchange server.

The Information Store is the heart and soul of Exchange 2000 and 2003.  Understanding the fundamentals of the Information Store is important for anyone managing an Exchange server.  If you don’t believe me, stop the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service and count the seconds before your phone starts ringing!

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In this article we’ll take an in-depth look at the new Public Folder improvements included in Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2).

The biggest as well as most notable improvement in Exchange 2003 SP2 is without discussion the new Public Folder Settings Wizard, which specifically was made in order to make administration of Public Folders more efficient. The primary reason here fore was to eliminate the high number of support calls Microsoft Support Services received on Public Folder issues.

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DHCP, simple eh!  Set it up, add an IP range and exclusions, put in some scope options and that’s it. WRONG!!  DHCP is a very simple utility to use but it is also a very powerful and probably under-rated tool in Windows 2003 Server’s arsenal.  Train Signal’s lab certainly expanded my limited knowledge of DHCP and what it can do and I shall now be using it to reduce my workload and increase network efficiency from now on.

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Tar pitting is the practice of deliberately inserting a delay into certain SMTP communications that are associated with spam or with other unwanted traffic. The tar pit feature works by slowing all responses that contain SMTP protocol 5.x.x error codes. By slowing an SMTP conversation, you can reduce the rate at which automated spam can be sent or at which a dictionary attack can be conducted. On the downside, legitimate traffic may also be slowed by tar pitting.

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Train Signal just released a new training product - ISA Server 2004 Video Training - that is perfect for those of you who are looking to learn about Microsoft’s latest Firewall offering.  This course is all about showing you the details! You will learn different ways to deploy your Firewall, how to Install and Configure ISA Server 2004, VPN setup, Server Publishing (FTP, Web, Exchange) and that is just the beginning. 

This package includes over 10 hours of instructor-led video training and a 175+ page lab book. Once you finish this course you will have a solid understanding of ISA Server 2004 and will be able to set it up and manage it on your own network. Read more about the ISA Server 2004 Video Training Course.

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I had always used WINS because it was easy to install and configure. It was a no brainer. Static Mappings was the extent of my configuration attempts with WINS. Didn’t think there was really much to it until I ran through Train Signal’s training video.

As with all of the Train Signal videos I have viewed they start at the very beginning and show you how to install and most importantly where to find it as it is hidden away in Windows 2003 Server.

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Seattle, Washington - November 21, 2005 – Acunetix, a leading security software company focused exclusively on helping enterprises secure their web applications and web sites, today announced the next-generation version of  Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner, which provides a comprehensive solution to detecting system vulnerabilities that are frequently exploited by hackers.

Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner provides a complete solution by automatically auditing website security. The software crawls an entire website, launches popular web attacks (SQL Injection, Cross Site scripting, Google hacking, etc.) and identifies vulnerabilities that need to be fixed.

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(Shameless plug)

Here is an off-topic page dedicated to my young daughter - Michal. She is 2 and a half years old and wanted her picture to be on the Internet. So here you go, a small and nice picture gallery of this young and beautiful girl.

Oh, and if you're at it, why not pay a visit to my oldest daughter - Meet Adi .

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