Do you have a lot of links listed in the Links web part on your main Companyweb SharePoint page in SBS?  Are you frustrated by the fact that only 20 of them appear at a time and you have to click on the "More links..." option to see the remaining ones?  If so, there's an easy fix that will allow you to display as many on the main page as you'd like.  The trick is finding the right location to make the change.

It took a bit of digging, but I finally found that right location.  First, I went to where I thought the change should be made.  I went to the Links page and clicked on the "Modify settings and columns" option.  There, I clicked on the "All Links" option under Views to edit it.  Scrolling to the bottom of that page you'll find an entry labeled "Item Limit".  Seeing that it was set to 20 I changed it to 100, OK'd my way back out and to my surprise find nothing's different!

After some detective work I finally found the place to change it and it seems rather simple now.  From the main page click on the down arrow on the Links title bar and select "Modify Shared Web Part".  On the screen that comes up on the right hand side will be a column labeled "Links".  The second entry is labeled "Selected View" and by default the selection will be on "Current View"  immediately below the drop-down list is a link labeled "Edit the current view". Click on it and you'll be taken to what appears to be the same page I found above when I attempted to modify the settings by going directly to the Links page.  Scrolling down you'll find that same "Item Limit"  option and it to will show the default of 20.  Modify it to the number of links you'd like displayed at one time and then decide whether you want that amount displayed in batches (i.e. still offer the 'more links...' option) or if you want to impose a hard limit as to how many links will be displayed on the main page.

That's it.  Once you OK your way back out you'll now see the number of links you specified in the "Item Limit" option on your main page.

I was at a client site recently troubleshooting an RDP issue.  The problem, we were unable to RDP into the SBS server either locally or via the Remote Web Workplace (RWW).  During the course of the troubleshooting I received an E-mail from a fellow SBSCer, and member of the local SBS users group, Bill.  He was helping a client get setup with Office Live and recalled my comments at our previous users group meeting mentioning that I'd taken advantage of the SBSC Office Live Premium site benefit.  I was glad to take a moment to answer his E-mail as I was stumped by my RDP issue and felt a small break would refresh me and get me back on track.  We swapped a few messages back and forth and I received a thank you for my help as I'd got him pointed in the right direction.  Now this probably would have been the end of the story if I hadn't responded to his thank you.

In sending my "You're Welcome" I mentioned I was glad I could help him out and wished I was able to figure out my RDP issue as easily.  Next thing I know, my cell phone is ringing and it's Bill.  He asks me if ISA is installed, to which I say yes.  He then asks if I've made any changes recently, and at first I say no and then realize in troubleshooting a remote access issue for the client earlier that week I made a policy change to allow direct access to the Terminal Server temporarily.  So I pull up the changes and he recommends I either move it below the Server RDP policy or remove it altogether.  I take the latter approach and next thing I know my issue is resolved!

During the course of my initial troubleshooting, I didn't take ISA into account as I was unable to RDP either remotely (RWW) or locally (RDP).  I had forgotten that unlike a typical hardware firewall that is concerned about External access, ISA also can affect internal access, especially with regards to itself.

So, being a Small Business Specialist, having taken advantage of one of it's many benefits, and participating in my local SBS Users Group helped me out immensely that day.  If you've been on the fence about going for your SBSC, take a moment to think about it again.  Also take some time to check and see if there's an SBS Users Group in your area, and if not, use the SBS Partner locater tool and contact someone close by and meet for coffee or lunch.  Next thing you know you may have the beginnings of your own local group.  If you're in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, check out the group I belong to, DFW-SBS.

If you have a tape stuck in a drive and it won't eject here's a quick fix that will work with most drives.  First, power down the drive.  Now press and hold the eject button and power up the drive, continuing to hold the eject button in until the tape ejects.  Obviously if your drive is an internal one you will have to power down the system it's connected to.  In most cases, if this works you'll be able to use the drive again without issue.  I don't have a technical explanation for what happens so I'll just say that the drive apparently got its "eyeballs crossed" and needed to be reset to release the tape.

I was at a client site today setting up a new laptop for them to use for client presentations.  During the course of the process they asked that I reset the password on the account they used for these demos.  Pretty straightforward request right?  Well, I went through the process from the Users screen within Server Management and through Active Computers and Users directly and regardless what I tried I could not reset the password.  After a little detective work digging through all the various options on the account I finally found the culprit.  I had forgotten (and didn't document) that when we setup this account a few years ago that we had restricted it to only being able to logon to the original demo laptop that this new one was replacing.  The client wanted a little extra insurance that someone using that account wouldn't be able to logon to another system.  So what was happening is the password reset was working correctly.  However, when I attempted to use it on the new laptop to run the Connect Computer Wizard (or via OWA when trying to test the password that way) it would return an incorrect password error.  It never gave me an error stating I wasn't allowed to access the computer I was attempting to logon to.

In summary I've learned several valuable lessons.  First, when setting something out of the ordinary don't forget to document it.  Second, don't forget to look at the big picture.  I was so focused on trying to determine why, as a domain admin, I couldn't reset a password I never considered that the password reset had actually worked and something else was amiss.

I spent yesterday getting my last SBS client up to SP1.  Yeah, I know SP2 is now out, and I doubt I'll wait as long to roll it out, but right now I'm taking a wait and see approach and let my peers work out the kinks ;-)

So getting back on topic, the upgrade went smoothly and everything looked really good.  I had a few hardware changes to implement, BIOS, Firmware, etc., but all in all pretty straightforward.  All of the patches had been applied and then I took that last pass through Microsoft Update.  Waiting for me was the aforementioned SP2 and IE7.  Well, I normally don't surf the 'net from a server, except to go to Microsoft Update, pull down a hardware patch from a vendor site, etc.  Even so, I felt it made sense to load IE7 because of it's additional security features, phishing checks etc.  So I kick off the download and everything goes smoothly.  At the end it's time for a reboot.  After the server comes back up, I log in and get the expected little "pop-up" that says it's setting up my personalizations.  Problem is it stayed that way for the next 20 minutes (When I saw it pop up I went off to complete an update on one of the desktops and came back to wrap up the server).  So when it was still there after 20 minutes I knew something was wrong. I started digging around with Task Manager (Since it was "stuck" I had no desktop, explorer, etc.).  When nothing obvious showed up, I decided to log off and back on, on the off chance it was a one time glitch.

So logging back in, I'm right back where I left off.  So in digging around logs after I killed the process (and still had no desktop) I saw a reference to Java.  That brought back a memory of one of the things I did at the start.  I had uninstalled the really old version of Java that was on the server during my cleanup process prior to kicking off the SP1 install.  Well guess what!  IE7 doesn't like the lack of Java support, hence the "hang".  So I figured no big deal, I'll grab the latest Java and install it.

Now comes the "fun" part of the story.  Without a desktop and IE7 hanging, there's no way to get out to Sun's Java site.  So I figure I'll go to it from one of the desktops and then drop it on the server.  From there I could use the "New Task" feature of Task Manager to execute the java installation app, The problem is that if java is already installed on the machine you're using then you can't get there from here as it takes you to the "verify installation" page. So I do a Live Search for "Sun Java download" and on the list of 'hits" is the manual download page, located here, http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp. I download the version for Windows and head back to the server. I bring up Task Manager, click on File-->New Task and browse to the Java download.  I execute the application and as soon as it finishes the IE7 personalization finishes and I'm at my desktop. Whew!

So what did I learn from all of this?  That I shouldn't throw things in at the last minute.  That I should review my plan before starting and then see if there's anything I want to add.  If so, then add it at that time and put it on the checklist.  So you can bet from now on, I'll make sure Java is on the system prior to trying to install IE7 and that if I remove an old version of an app that I make sure I either have an updated version or I know that I won't need it again.

How often have you connected in to a site remotely for a support issue and the first thing you have to do is wait for the system vendor's bitmap logo to slowly crawl down the screen.  Well, there's a simple fix for this as long as you don't mind hopping into the Registry.  The logo you're seeing is setup for the default user as wallpaper.  To eliminate it, it's a simple matter of clearing the value in the following Registry key:

HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Desktop\Wallpaper

Just set the value to nothing and no more logo during login!  It makes a big difference even when you're connecting via a high speed line.

Like always, make sure you have a good backup of your Registry before making any changes.  One mistake in there and you could render your system unuseable.

Today I was helping a colleague with an SBS 2003 server recovery.  During the infamous "Sliding Blue Bar" time we decided to get his new Motorola Q SmartPhone setup to sync with his own SBS server.  With Windows Mobile 5 there's a nice built-in wizard that walks you through the basic configuration to sync with Exchange.  The tricky part comes when you go to install your certificate on the phone.

With my older Motorola Mpx220 on Cingular's network you can just copy the certificate to the phone and click on it to install.  His phone is on Verizon's network.  As a result we had to create a folder on the phone called STORAGE, copy the certificate to that folder and then copy a program called VZW_spaddcert.exe to the phone and execute it.  If the certificate isn't in the STORAGE folder and that folder isn't in the Root directory of the phone you'll get an error.  Otherwise, you'll get a series of prompts showing you the contents of the certificate you're about to install and asking you to confirm you really want to do this.  Once this process is complete you can bring up ActiveSync on the phone, hit the Sync button and you'll be receiving data momentarily.

The above steps are listed on Motorola's support site and can be found here, http://motorola.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/motorola.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=12932&p_topview=1.

Now the above procedures may work with other Verizon SmartPhones as well, but so far the Q is the only phone I've had experience with.  If you're still running Windows Mobile 2003 or 2002 and you're on the Sprint or Verizon networks this Microsoft Knowledgebase article will help you, http://support.microsoft.com/?ID=841060.

Good luck and have fun syncing!