Archive for September, 2006

09.21.06

Freeware pdf document creation

Posted in OS at 8:31 am by webmaster

A nice free utility that has the ability to create a pdf document from any document that you can print is called cutepdf.

  1. Download and install Ghostscript
    1. http://www.cutepdf.com/download/converter.exe
  2. Download and install cute pdf
    1. http://www.cutepdf.com/download/CuteWriter.exe 

09.17.06

Microsoft Action Pack (September 14, 2006)

Posted in OS at 1:20 am by webmaster

As a new Microsoft Action Pack subscriber as of September 14, 2006 (In Canada) here is what you get:

Sept06Contents.pdf

Note that this does not include the beta software and materials in the Action Pack Subscription Toolkit.

09.16.06

Using OWAAdmin on Windows XP SP2 (Enable change password in OWA)

Posted in OS, win2003, SBS2003 at 5:05 pm by webmaster

There are times where you want to enable users to change their passwords remotely.  (You will have to decide if this is a worthwhile security risk for yourself)  This can be done using Exchange Outlook Web Access using SSL. First it is important to understand that the easiest way to manipulate the registry settings for the so-callled OWA hidden features is by installing the OWAadmin utility from Microsoft.  Although this utiliity performs one step in the process of enabled remote password changes you may want to use it for something else.  See Petri’s great article on how to perform this task without installing this software. Please note that some of the documentation I have run accross for doing this is a bit dated so I will attempt to summarize what you need to do assumming a standard install of Windows Server 2003 with Exchange Service Pack 2 or Small Business Server 2003 SP1 (Exchange Service Pack 2).

  1. Windows 2003 Server 2003 SP1 Only Preparation (Not SBS 2003 SP1)
    1. Install IIS (requires Server 2003 media)
    2. Install SMTP
    3. Install NNTP
    4. Install a Certificate Authoity (See Petri’s excellent article on this) 
    5. Ensure OWA is setup to correctly use SSL  (Again See Petri’s excellent article on this) 
  2. Obtain dedicated Windows XP Professional SP2 workstation attached to the domain to use for administrating the OWA settings.  (For example you can’t have outlook installed - apparently there is a conflict)
  3. Install IIS on XP (requires XP media)
  4. Install .net 2.0 framework on XP (Older documentation stated asp.net was required however I did not require it.  I beleive that is because it is part of .net 2 now)
  5. Install adminpak on XP (Note there is a different version for Windows Server 2003 R2 now as well)
  6. Install ESM Admin tools only,  on XP (requires Exchange Media)
  7. Add a virtual directory to Add a virtual directory to IIS not installed by default.
  8. From XP, log on to https://winxpmachine/OWAAdmin/ and look under the security settings for the change password option and set it to yes.

Note that you can set the domain administrator password as well? Look for the new password change setting under OWA –> Options