IT Team

The Catapult IT team is responsible for providing end-user and network/server infrastructure support across Catapult’s six offices. Their blog contains insights and lessons learned from supporting the IT needs of a world-class consulting company.
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Feb24

Configuring OWA 2010 for OCS IM Integration

Outlook Web App (Formerly Outlook Web Access) enables the integration of OWA and Instant Messaging, utilizing Office Communications Server (OCS) R2. This requires manual configuration on the Client Access Server and the OCS Front-end. This is documented in Technet here. Step 1: Download and Install the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Web Service Provider on the Exchange 2010 CAS...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Wednesday, 24 Feb 2010 06:07.
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Feb17

Exchange 2010 (Part 3 of 4) – Installing the first Exchange 2010 server in an existing 2007 organization

Before proceeding with this step, it is assumed that proper planning has been performed (take advantage of the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant.). One of the most significant changes in Exchange 2010 is increased I/O efficiency. Just how much has I/O improved over previous versions of exchange? Over 90% more efficient than 2003 and more than 70% more efficient than Exchange 2007. According...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Wednesday, 17 Feb 2010 05:08.
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Feb17

Exchange 2010 (Part 2 of 4) – Understanding the new UC SAN Certificate requirement

This is the second part of a multi-part blog series on transitioning from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. Our transition assumes a short period of co-existence and therefore requires a new Unified Communications (UC) Subject Alternative Name (SAN) Certificate for backwards compatibility with the Exchange 2007 CAS Role. This is new requirement for all Exchange Administrators to plan for because...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Wednesday, 17 Feb 2010 04:50.
2 Comments | Categories: Joe Stocker

 
Feb17

Preparing for the transition from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 (Part 1 of 4)

One of the requirements for Exchange 2010 is to have your Exchange 2007 servers upgraded to SP2 first. Download the update http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4C4BD2A3-5E50-42B0-8BBB-2CC9AFE3216A&displayLang=en Update rollup 2 for Exchange 2007 SP2 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=FA83BE11-9D5E-47BC-9A51-A10986F22928&displaylang=en or chec...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Wednesday, 17 Feb 2010 04:43.
1 Comment | Categories: Joe Stocker

 
Feb14

MSFT February Security Update KB 977165 Can cause Blue Screen (BSOD)

Microsoft has confirmed that KB 977165 (Security Bulletin MS10-015 released on February 9th, 2010) can cause blue screens (STOP: 0x00000050) on mostly XP systems (but some Vista and Win7 too)  that have been previously compromised by the  Tdss rootkit that started spreading last November. What makes this particularly painful is the computer is incapable of booting, not even in Safe Mode. Micr...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Sunday, 14 Feb 2010 12:38.
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Feb4

Recording VoIP phone calls in OCS

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 automatically encrypts all peer to peer VoIP traffic within an organization using Transport Layer Security (TLS). This is default behavior and does not need to be enabled by an administrator. The one exception to this rule is when the VoIP call leaves OCS and travels through a 3rd party gateway. These gateways do not have TLS enabled by default and allow fo...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Thursday, 4 Feb 2010 08:37.
2 Comments | Categories: Joe Stocker

 
Feb3

Feedback on Windows 7 taskbar

I love Windows 7. There are very few things I would change. One of those very few things is the network icon in the taskbar. It needs to be changed to something that doesn’t resemble the power plug icon. In the picture below you can see how similar the plug on the left looks to the network cable on the right. Even though I have been using Windows 7 since it was in beta 13 months ago, I still fe...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Wednesday, 3 Feb 2010 03:07.
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Jan28

Video Conferencing with an on-premise Live Meeting Server

  Video Conferencing is one of the coolest features built-in to Office Communications Server 2007 R2. It is extremely simple to use from an end-user perspective. Just plug-in any off the shelf webcam, and both Communicator and Live Meeting immediately recognize it. Here is a screen shot of John Santiago (Catapult) and me talking over an internet connection. John was at a customer site and we...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Thursday, 28 Jan 2010 03:49.
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Jan27

How to export mailboxes to PST with Exchange 2007

Exchange 2007 Sp1 included a feature that allows mailboxes to be exported to .PST files. This is handy because users can natively open and interact with a PST file in Outlook. We recently had a need to export 40 mailboxes to PST file and here is what it takes: What you need 32-Bit Exchange 2007 (SP1) admin tools. Outlook 2007 or higher Permission on the mailboxes Additional storage to c...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Wednesday, 27 Jan 2010 05:30.
1 Comment | Categories: Joe Stocker

 
Jan14

Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP2 Gotcha

What’s new in WSUS Sp2? Support for patching 2008 R2, Windows 7 and BranchCache. However, there is one new feature that you should pay very close attention to. The Auto-approval rules now include the ability to specify an approval deadline date and time. If you set this, you will override any settings in group policy. For example, if you have group policy set to download the updates but not i...
Posted by Joe Stocker on Thursday, 14 Jan 2010 10:59.
0 Comments | Categories: Joe Stocker