As an IT admin it will happen to all of us at some point; there will be that problem that seems like you are 10 minutes away from fixing that quickly turns into 10 hours and then 2, 3, even 5+ days.  Before you know it, you have spent a week with nearly zero sleep and a lot of caffeine and then you finally realize that you are not any further along than when you started.  I spent the last week banging my head up against a wall trying to get a clients new Windows Server 2008 and Exchange 2007 SP1 environment up and running, only to find out that Microsoft has a crippling bug in Windows Server 2008 that won’t allow Outlook Anywhere (a.k.a. RPC over HTTP) to run in its default configuration.

The most unfortunate part about this is that Microsoft is still yet to release any information publicly about this problem, which is really sad because they generally do such a great job of at least posting limitations of their products on many of their wonderful blogs.  I had to search the Internet and eventually found articles that led me in the right direction but I was never able to find a blog/article that outlined the exact steps that I used to fix/diagnose Outlook Anywhere which is why I really felt the need to write this post.

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All the videos from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates interview by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the WSJ D5 conference.

“To create a new standard, it takes something that’s not just a little bit different, it takes something that’s really new and really captures people’s imagination and the Macintosh, of all the machines I’ve ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.” –Microsoft founder Bill Gates, 1984

“If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it’s worth–and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.” –Steve Jobs, 1996

Microsoft TechNet is Microsoft’s information technology professional service.  In my experience TechNet has done an excellent job of just “being there” when it comes to most support and testing issues. TechNet is a Microsoft service for IT Professionals that can be purchased at a few different levels. TechNet Plus Direct is the least expensive level, at $350 a year, and with it comes many useful features:

1. Direct download access to all Microsoft products
2. 2 free professional support incidents
3. 24×7 Online Concierge
4. Microsoft TechNet user forum
5. Subscribution to TechNet Magazine
6. Access to e-Learning courses to help prep for MS Certification Exams
7. Access to Beta software

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September 28, 2003 was a great day for the Windows IT world. With the introduction of Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft had released one of their finest and most widely accepted server products to date. Exchange 2003 through its two service packs brought us some amazing features such as the Intelligent Message Filter and Direct Push email that have changed the way the corporate world is able to collaborate and communicate.

December 24, 2006 was an even more exciting day for many IT administrators that had been eagerly awaiting the introduction of Exchange Server 2007. On this special day in December, Microsoft released Exchange 2007 to manufacturing as well as to the IT community through their TechNet program.

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Purchasing a server as a small business can often be a daunting task, and it is one that most business will hopefully be able to view their IT Consultant as a partner and trust their decision. The factors for a Small Business to use when evaluating a server fall into four main categories; labor cost, hardware/software cost, features, and stability.

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