Micrsoft’s excellent SBS (Small Business Server) 2003 is due to be retired on the 14th July 2015.  This means that the server won’t receive any more updates from Microsoft after this time.  It will also mean that the server becomes more and more vulnerable to security flaws over time.

If you own a Small Business Server 2003 edition it is definitely time to think about upgrading to a newer solution and/or moving to cloud services.  Why not give us a call and find out how we can help with the transition.

Just so you are up to speed with this topic check out Karl Palachuk’s blog entry here and I agree wholeheartedly with his sentiment and disappointment. There’s a little more here on the ChannelWeb site as well.

Well I’ve just been on the phone to MS financing and they have confirmed that the requirement for 35% of the financing deal to be Microsoft products.

Vista SP2 is available for direct download from the Microsoft website. You have the option on this page to download an .iso file (for making your own CD), or the .exe files for both 32 and 64-bit Vista. It will also be arriving shortly as an option through Windows updates.

It’s a biggie (around 350MB) but addresses nearly 700 bugs and security updates. Among the highlights of new features is the support for Blu-ray discs, updated support for Bluetooth v2.1 and support for the exFAT file system providing handling of larger file sizes. There are improvements to the efficiency of the power management features which could help reduce overall power consumption. SP2 also fixes Wi-Fi issues when Vista awakes from sleep mode, and boosts performance of the Vista desktop sidebar gadget.

As ever with our patch management process we will be testing it in-house first before even considering deploying it to our managed service clients. Watch this space for gotcha’s!