September 2006 - Posts

• Using Windows Vista with Exchange 2003 Outlook Web Access (OWA)

  If you’re a hoster or IT department running Outlook Web Access with Exchange Server 2003, you’ll need to deploy an update to your Front End Exchange servers in order to support Internet Explorer 7.0 (IE7) that ships with Windows Vista.  Here is the overview of this patch: “In the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 release, the Dynamic HTML Editing ActiveX control is being removed from the Internet Explorer browser. As a result, there is functionality missing that Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access relies on. This update replaces that deprecated functionality on the Microsoft Exchange servers so that Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access continues to function smoothly.” http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5bc06e8a-08eb-4976-bc68-a03ebe3a2552&DisplayLang=en You must deploy this patch on the Exchange Server.  You can't do anything (from what I can tell) on the Client side to work around this issue.  Besides trying a different browser.  I was able to use Firefox on Vista Beta 2 and it worked fine.   Posted Sep 26 2006, 02:06 AM by agramont with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Hosted Exchange, Exchange

• Community Server Video: How to use Ads in Community Server

  [camtasia:CSAds:638:530] [Note: It may take a few seconds for the video to load, but you'll hear some audio right away.  If this happens, wait for the video to show and then drag the "timeline" slider back to the starting point.  Sorry for weirdness]  The purpose of this video is to provide a basic overview of how to leverage the Ads support built into Community Server 2.x. Enabling Ads Using Content Parts Using Skins (Inline)  Using ASP.NET Ad Rotator Control Tracking Ad Links Google Ads Support Here are some other helpful references: HOWTO Display Ads (including Google Ads) in Community Server on Any Page: http://communityserver.org/forums/post/510922.aspx Manage Ads: http://docs.communityserver.org/Administrator_s_Guide/Tools/System_Tools/Manage_Ads.htm Posted Sep 20 2006, 05:11 AM by agramont with 10 comment(s) Filed under: Community Server, Video

• How MPF Stored Credentials are used with the Plans Database Registry Values

  There was a question posted in the MPS Forum (http://forums.asp.net/thread/1235615.aspx) of the asp.net forum that I thought I'd answer here. Issue: our provisioning sample site works fine with an administrator account. when a try to create a customer organisation with reseller rights i receive the following error message : Error: Failed to get the registry value specified. Machine:'.', Rootkey:'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE', Subkey:'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Provisioning\CustomerPlansDb', Item:'Customer Database'./Access is denied./GetRegValue Is there anyone that solved this problem ? Maybe there a problems with the ACE Rights. Response: During a provisioning request that requires some reading/writing to the Plans Database (HECustomerDB), the provisioning system needs to get the connection string information in order to make that call. This information is stored in the registry and thus the call to the "GetPlanDBConnString_" procedure.  The person submitting the request normally doesn't have rights to read that registry key for good reason (e.g. a non Domain Admin person).  So in order for MPS to be able to get that information from the registry, it needs to be elevated to a credential that does.  A feature of MPF is to have "Stored Credentials" (SC).  These SC's are predefined in the Provisioning Manager MMC.  The MPSPrivAcct-xxxx has a fair amount of rights and one of those rights is the ability to read from the local registry (this is a step in the HMC Deployment Walkthrough).  So by setting "GetPlanDBConnString_" procedure "Execute As" property to use the "MPSPrivAcct-xxxx" account, anyone other procedure that calls this method will be able to complete this tasks because it will run with an account with the proper amount of rights to perform that task.  Also, these procedures are marked as "Private", so you can't just call it directly to work around the system. There is a whitepaper that I wrote that does provide more details on this and other security settings and MPS Configurations: http://go-planet.com/community/files/folders/207/download.aspx Hope this helps someone!  Posted Sep 06 2006, 08:42 PM by agramont with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Microsoft Provisioning System, Hosted Exchange, MPS