Remote Tech Support for Macs

There are dozens of on-demand remote desktop sharing programs for troubleshooting PCs. I’ve used CoPilot (www.copilot.com) by FogBugz and GoToAssist by Citrix and they are just fine. But there is nothing available like that for the Mac. There are tools for use on the LAN but none of them are available for the ad-hoc, download-and-run-without-changing-the-firewall programs. I don’t get it – am I missing one somewhere that I don’t know about?

Relocate Remote Web Workplace to a different server

If you have a client with Small Business Server 2003, they may have gotten used to using the Remote Web Workplace to access workstations and other network resources. When the client grows and you need to migrate them off one server, Microsoft has a transition pack that breaks most restrictions on SBS. However when you retire the orginal SBS server, there is no built in function to move RWW to a new server.

Note: In order for RWW's built-in OWA link to work, the RWW system needs to be installed on an Exchange server.

The process to move it is:

Install TSWEB on the new Windows 2003 Server

• Open Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel and open the Add/Remove Windows Components
• Double click the Application Server from the list or hightlight the entry and press the Details... button
• Enable ASP.NET (which will install other components)
• Double click the Internet Information Services (IIS) entry or highlight the entry and press the Details... button
• Double click the World Wide Web Service entry or highlight the entry and press the Details... button
• Enable the Remote Desktop Web Connection
• Press OK through the remaining dialog boxes and provide the i386 files as needed

This will install components that are needed and place them in http://servername/tsweb

Copy selected files from SBS Server to new Windows 2003 Server

• Copy the entire contents of C:\Intepub\remote from the old server to the new server
• Copy the entire contents of %programfiles%\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server from the old server to the new server. This is probably over kill but it gets all important files.
  

Copy selected registry keys from the SBS Server to the new Windows 2003 Server

• At the SBS server, open Regedit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SmallBusinessServer
• Select the entire key and export it to a .reg file via the File >> Export command
• Copy the file to the new server
• At the new server, double click the .reg file to merge the contents with the current server's regeistry

IIS Modifications

• Install an SSL certificate on the IIS server. I always encourage clients to purchase commercial SSL certificates but if you install the certificate services on the new server, you can issue a self signed certificate.
• Add a virtual directory called Remote that points to the C:\Inetpub\Remote folder
  
• Right Click the Remote directory under the default website.
• Create an application pool for the folder.
• Set the .NET level for the application pool to 1.1
• Make default.aspx the top priority document

Note: This is not a microsoft supported procedure. I developed this entirely through experimentation. I wouldn't expect to get any offical MS support for these modifications.

DFS is your friend

Distributed File System is a trick that Microsoft borrowed from Unix and incorporated it in Windows 2000. If you read the Microsoft standard blurbs they make it sound like something for the big guys with split offices and big, complicated WAN systems so most small businesses ignore it. Don’t! DFS can make your life easier in the long run.

DFS is painful to setup at the beginning but it can save you a ton of time later. Networks are never static, even in a small office that only has one or two servers. Servers are added, removed, burst into flames, run out of space, and generally come and go from your network over time. So, if you have trained your end users, trained your desktop software, and installed applications from one particular server, you have problems when one server has to take on a new role.

DFS sidesteps that problem by tying applications and data to the domain name. Instead of \\NTServer01\SharedData, you place your data in \\domain.local\SharedData and DFS tells the users where to actually pull data

Here’s the story of one client that had file server called CLIENTS where all of they’re project files lived, alphabetically organized. They were a graphics design firm with PhotoShop and Illustrator as their primary software so their files were huge. They maxed out and then outgrew CLIENTS in a year after purchasing it so they bought a second server and renamed them as CLIENTS-A-L and CLIENTS-M-Z (no, really, those were their actual NetBIOS names). So, everyone had to relearn where their files were, redo the network logon scripts, and redo the linked images inside their PhotoShop projects.

Servers are added, removed, they die, run out of space, and generally come and go from your network over time. By setting up DFS first, you can avoid a lot of work later on.

DOS Based Applications in 2006

I didn’t think I’d have to still mess with these but I have a client with three company-wide DOS based applications that are mission critical shared amongst 30+ users. DOS – in 2006, what the heck? Haven’t any of these products moved to new technologies? The applications I’m stuck with are AMSI for DOS from Geac, HUD2000, and Dash-29. One of them actually dials up a modem number and then transmitting SMTP traffic to a government agency.

The hardest part was dredging out the tricks for managing these beasts. I started out with DOS but that was in stand alone systems. I didn’t get into serious networking and tech support until the Windows 95 era so I’m a bit rusty. Network printing from DOS apps got me all twisted around until I dug through all of the existing logon scripts. I never did find a decent DOS reference site – just had to Google my way through it. Any suggestions - feel free to post a couple?

What is an SMB?

As a Seattle area consultant, I swim in a sea of Microsoft-centric software. Software that is, unfortunately, not really designed for my small business clients. This blog is just my space to moan, complain, and highlight some of the tricks and best practices that I’ve found that work for small companies.

I do have to be a little specific in my description of “small business”. In the Windows 2000 development days, Microsoft defied “small” as less than 200 computers but now the use a better description of up to 50 computers. I view “small business” as less than 25 users, with a manageable size of roughly 10 employees. the vast majority of software is not written for companies of this size. I spend a lot of time forcing things to fit.

For a good description of the small business issues check out The SMB hype cycle: http://www.it-director.com/article.php?articleid=13395

A new blog coming soon - Please be patient...