Well, I finally took the plunge out of necessity and am now a user of Microsoft Windows Vista. I had planned to wait a while longer but I had no choice. I update my Tablet PC's every three months or so and put my current model out to my client base and on E-Bay as demos to keep the latest technology in hand. It's not usually a big deal. I can reformat a system in no time. However, with Vista that was not the case for the first time through. I thought about just taking an existing XP license and plopping that on the system but with a ThinkPad Tablet that didn't look like a great idea.
It took about a day of fooling around with the system to get comfortable enough with Vista to find all the stuff I needed to get my data put back and to rejoin to my MS 2003 Small Business Server. There were two major issues during the whole ordeal. The first was figuring out how to create and manage a VPN connection. I had some trouble getting the IP from my SBS VPN connection. I found that I needed to fully patch my SBS Server. There were several patches that are required on SBS 2003 when you want to attach a Vista client. That was the easier of the two main problems.
The second problem was that like many users, I use a self-signed certificate for all the remote connectivity. In Vista, even when logged on as an administrator you can not install self-signed certificates to the "trusted root certification authority". There are a couple of new steps that differ from XP and IE 7. The first is that you have to start IE 7 in an admin mode that runs with "Protected Mode" turned off. The trick is to right click on the IE 7 icon and there will be an option to "Run As Administrator". Of course this will only appear if you actually have admin rights. Once you have started the browser in admin mode you will notice that "Protected Mode" is now off as indicated in the bottom status bar. Now to get your cert installed browse to a secure site from your SBS server like Outlook Web Access or Remote Web Workplace. Click through the certificate error and at the top of the browser next to the address bar will be a certificate error shield. Click the shield and in the dialog box select the "View Certificate" button. A wizard will start and there is an option to install the certificate. Like before in XP you will want to install the certificate in the "Trusted Root Certification Authorities". The difference in Vista is that you must check the box "Show physical stores", expand "Trusted Root Certification Authorities", and select "Local Computer". If you do not take these extra actions you will swear you have lost your mind. The certificate looks like it has installed but it just goes into digital oblivion. Close the browser to close the admin session and re-open IE 7. Browse to the same site on your SBS Server and you should now get to your site with no certificate errors. A padlock should now appear where the error shield was before.
I am still learning Vista and will likely post more soon. These items are pretty crucial for SBS so I am glad to share them with all you other SBS'ers out there. See you all out in Seattle again this year at the end of September at SMB Nation.
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