Turn off Windows Security alert pop ups

Turning off Automatic Updates can cause Windows Security Alert pop-up balloons to appear in the taskbar tray every time you log on.
1. Turning off Automatic Updates causes error balloons featuring a red shield. Windows XP allows you to suppress any warnings that relate to Automatic Updates. You can also do this in Vista but, unfortunately, the newer OS forces you to turn off all security alerts just to suppress the Automatic Updates warnings.
 
To eliminate the warning balloons about Automatic Updates in both XP and Vista, take these steps:
 
Step 1. Double-click the red shield icon in the taskbar, or open the Control Panel and launch the Security Center.
 
Step 2. In the left pane or box, click Change the way Security Center alerts me.
 
Step 3. In XP, uncheck Automatic Updates and click OK. In Vista, select the second or third option.

Windows updates refusing to install most patches

If you find that Windows Update refuses to install most patches, you can register its missing DLLs yourself. This can be accomplished by manually entering seven commands (shown in Step 2, below) at a command prompt.
 
the /s switch runs the commands silently, freeing you from having to press Enter after each line
 
regsvr32 /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng1.dll
regsvr32 /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32 /s wucltui.dll
regsvr32 /s wups2.dll
regsvr32 /s wups.dll
regsvr32 /s wuweb.dll

Exception of type System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException

See this error when attempting to install Sharepoint V3.0 on Small Business Server 2003?
 
The config wizard gets to stage 5, but says:

Configuration Failed
Failed to Register SharePoint Services
An exception of type System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException was thrown. Additional exception information: Could not access the Search services configuration database.

If so try :

In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following subkey, and then delete it:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS\Services\Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Administration.SPSearchService

-Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard again.”

which seems to do the trick.

What a difference one less number can make

We have been usin gthe Microsoft Intelligence Mail Filter that is incorporated in Exchange Service Pack 2 for a while now. Previous we had the gateway set at 8/10 and the store set at 3/10. Basically, this means that if an inbound email scores 8 or above (on the spam scale) then the gateway action takes effect. In our case this was set to reject.
 
Now over the years because our CIAOPS web site had our email address on the front page we attracted lots and lots and lots of spam. This is why it is never a good idea to put plain text email addresses on web sites. admittedly most of the spam that did get through was getting caught by the junk mail filter and ending up in the junk mail folder in Outlook, but there was just so much. So rather than try and sort through it all the best bet was to crank down the gateway setting.
 
So we changed our gateway setting on the IMF from 8 to 7 ( just a single point ) and we went from > 1,000 spam emails a day to less than 10! Amazing eh? Just goes to show you gotta keep on top of these settings overtime. The other good thing is that it does prove how well the Microsoft Intelligent Mail Filter (IMF) does work.

Personal Identity Provider

We recently picked up a Paypal security key to allow multi factor authentication on Paypal and Ebay. Wouldn’t be nice if a security like this worked with all two factor autenication sites? Well, the closest thing is something called Openid which is an open source solution that provides a digital identity.
 
Now the great thing is that Verisign is now supporting Openid. If you go to http://pip.verisignlabs.com and sign up for a free account you can then use the account on any site that uses Openid (which is growing fast) but the really great thing is that is this Verisign service allows you to link the Paypal security key. This means when you use an Openid site you can can also use your Paypal security key to provide addition security via a one way password that is generated by the Paypal security key.
 
Why is this so good? because now you only need one security dongle! If the Openid standard begins to catch on, which it looks like it will, then the standard web security option would be Openid and a Paypal security key. Wouldn’t that be cool?

VSS Hotfixes

From the Diva’s blog.

A new Volume Shadow Copy Service update is now available that fixes various Volume Shadow Copy Service problems in Windows Server 2003:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/913648/en-us
Availability of a Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) hotfix rollup package for Windows Server 2003 to resolve some VSS snapshot issues:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940349/en-us
are needed for the server and an update is available to optimize the way that the Shadow Copy Client accesses shadow copies in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903234/en-us
is needed for the workstation

But if you have Windows Server SP2 installed, you have KB913648 already installed. 

Office 2003 Service Pack 3 released

Microsoft has release Service Pack 3 for Office 2003. Click here to go directly to the download. Click here for the Knowledge Base article on the Service Pack.
 
As yet we haven’t tested it on our internal machines so we can’t provide any feedback. Rest assured we will be applying soon and will provide some experiences then.
 
Ok, typically there are some issues after installing this service pack. See here or here for more information.