Category — Windows Vista

As I booted up my Windows Vista laptop today, my Automated Updates icon was trying to get my attention. There was one update waiting for me. It turned out to be Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Vista. A version of Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2008 was also released.

As I searched the web for articles on the service pack, one thing became clear. Microsoft had been struggling with a release date for this service pack. Noted Microsoft watcher, Mary-Jo Foley, wondered  in her blog why, as of  May 21, had Microsoft not publicly released the service pack. Microsoft had released SP2 to manufacturing on April 28. In the Microsoft Update Product Team blog, it was announced on May 20 that the update would be available “in the coming weeks.” The service pack was also released to TechNet and MSDN subscribers.

System Administrators need to be aware of this update. If they do not want to deploy SP2 at this time, they will need to use the Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool Kit to prevent their users from installing it.

For more information about Service Pack 2 for Vista and Windows Server 2008, Check out this page on TechNet:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd262148.aspx

For a summary of notable changes in service pack 2, see this link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd335036.aspx

Ok, folks. This is a weird one I encountered.

I recently migrated a client of mine from a computer running Windows XP/Office 2003 to a new computer running Windows Vista/Office 2007. I used the Windows Vista utility, Windows Easy Transfer to migrate the settings from the old XP computer to the new Vista computer. You do NOT want to use the File and Settings Transfer Wizard that comes with XP, as it will only transfer files and not settings.

Windows Easy Transfer worked like a charm. It transferred all of my user’s settings and files. I then installed Outlook 2007. I opened Outlook 2007 for the first time and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Windows Easy Transfer has transferred the Outlook settings. All of the user folders and archives were there. Outlook then went out and successfully downloaded new email. I was amazed at how easy this migration went. Outlook 2007 seemed to be fully functional.

Then came the phone call the next day. Although she was receiving emails (which is what I had checked), my client could not SEND any emails! (which I did not think to check!) When trying to send emails, the following error would occur: “None of the authentication methods supported by this client are supported by your server” I searched the Internet only to find very spotty coverage of this problem. What I did find was odd.

It had to do with authenticating before sending an email. In Outlook 2003, the user account did not need to authenticate to the mail server before sending. So that was the setting transferred to Outlook 2007. You would assume that the same settings that worked in Outlook 2003 would work in Outlook 2007 with the same email account and the same email provider, right? Not in this case (and evidently a few others on the Internet). I have also found variations of this problem on the Internet where the authentication had to be turned OFF in Outlook 2007 when it was ON in Outlook 2003.

Here are the steps to follow:

1. In the Outlook menu, go to TOOLS-ACCOUNT SETTINGS
2. Select the mail Account. Click on Change

3. Choose the More Settings button.

4. On the Outgoing Server tab, check the box for My Outgoing Server (SMTP) requires authentication. Also, select the Log on to incoming main server before sending mail button. Click OK