@Dashrender said:

Can you disable the firewall on the SQL server temporarily and try it? You might fine that it needs more configuration.

Yep...got in that way...I knew it was a "duh" moment...but now to find out what else to allow in the Firewall.

I almost feel like noob for posting this but poking around and searching for an answer hasn't solved my problem.

It's been about 3 years or more since I set up a new SQL server. I've done that now and it works fine but I cannot remote to it via another application that wants to set up a DB to it or via SQL Management Studio.

I've opened suggested ports of 1433 and 1434. The named instances is set to allow remote connections and it is set for SQL and Windows Authentication. I've looked at over 10 website with suggestions and I still can't get that remote connection open.

No anti-virus or third party firewall on the SQL server either.

Almost hate to press Submit because I know it may be a "duh" answer but can't for the life of me remember how to get this going.

Thanks...

@scottalanmiller said:

A good, simple policy is something like "all email is deleted after two years." Legally you are only required to keep emails as long as your retention policy states. So a key legal protection is to have that length of time be short. This also keeps people from using their email as a storage system and keeps things cleaned up. The longer you retain email, the more risk you have.

There are just two key things that you need to do:

• Set a retention policy that works for your business
• Stick to it and don't make exceptions, once you do you are liable for more

So the general rule is, make it as short as you can and make it auto-delete so that you have no responsibility for old emails legally.

I am poking around out Office 365 E-Mail settings to see what options I have there...there are a lot.

@scottalanmiller said:

A good, simple policy is something like "all email is deleted after two years." Legally you are only required to keep emails as long as your retention policy states. So a key legal protection is to have that length of time be short. This also keeps people from using their email as a storage system and keeps things cleaned up. The longer you retain email, the more risk you have.

There are just two key things that you need to do:

• Set a retention policy that works for your business
• Stick to it and don't make exceptions, once you do you are liable for more

So the general rule is, make it as short as you can and make it auto-delete so that you have no responsibility for old emails legally.

Do you still recommend local Archive PST's if they want to keep them longer? The emails for this legal case went back about 4-5 years.

We recently had a legal issue at work where the owner needed to provide email communication to and from a client who is trying to sue our company.

They needed emails that went back to when we were still on POP3 and local PST files and needed emails from an employee who is no longer here and PST files were deleted long ago.

So flash-forward to now. We are all on Office 365 Enterprise E1 plan and the inboxes all have 50GB of space and even with people with 20,000+ emails or more, they aren't even close to filling them up. Some still auto archive to a local PST but I want to get a uniform policy.

SO, looking for some tips on a simple email retention policy. We know any job related communication with a customer should be kept. Enforcing a user to keep job related emails may be tough.

And should we still auto archive to a PST considering we have so much online storage and may not run out for many years?

Thanks...

Direct links for now...Skype For Business For Office 2016

32-bit, English: https://c2rsetup.officeapps.live.com/c2r/download.aspx?productReleaseID=SkypeforbusinessEntryRetail&...

64-bit, English: https://c2rsetup.officeapps.live.com/c2r/download.aspx?productReleaseID=SkypeforbusinessEntryRetail&...

@DustinB3403 said:

Skype for Business 2016 Service Degraded

Current Status: Engineers are developing a solution to ensure that the affected Skype for Business installation URLs route affected users to the newest version of the Skype for Business client. Once development phase completes, engineers will perform tests to ensure the fix is a valid solution and deploy it throughout the affected environment. 

  User Experience: Affected users who have upgraded to Office 2016 are unable to install Skype for Business 2016. The Skype for Business 2016 installation URL located on the Office 365 homepage is not routing affected users to the newest version of Skype for Business. As a result, some users may receive the error message: “We have detected that you have a newer version of Office installed on your device. If you want to install an older version of Office, please remove these newer products and try again.” 

 Customer Impact: Impact is isolated to customers who have purchased the Office 365 business Premium subscription. Analysis indicates that the scope of customers experiencing impact appears to be very limited with only a few customers reporting the issue.

 Incident Start Time: Tuesday, September 22, 2015, at 7:30 AM UTC

 Next Update by: Tuesday, September 22, 2015, at 7:00 PM UTC

Interesting...thanks!

As a long suffering Windows Phone fan and user, I am starting wonder if Microsoft will ever roll things out correctly.

@scottalanmiller said:

@garak0410 said:

Microsoft Office team just stated this: "We are actively working on this and will circle back soon. Stay tuned."

More outages! Skype, Office 365, downloads, Azure. What a week for them.

That's it! I'm going Mac!

Just kidding...just doing the normal reaction when we get frustrated with Microsoft...

Microsoft Office team just stated this: "We are actively working on this and will circle back soon. Stay tuned."

@Dashrender said:

Has Office 2016 gone live yet? I thought that was next week?

Yessir...purchased it via the Microsoft Store and my Office 365 Home accounts all got it today. I just need the latest Skype for Business client.

Funny story and long story made short...I had to use Chrome to get the Office 2016 Professional (standalone) on my work PC today. Kept giving errors with Edge. LOL

We have the Office 365 Enterprise E1 so we get Exchange Online and Skype For Business. We buy the Office Suite individually.

I upgraded my PC with Office 2016 Professional today and the older Skype for Business (via our Office 365 portal) is the old version and will not install with Office 2016 installed.

Is there a direct link to download Skype for Business 2016? I've tried searching for it and nothing has turned up.

Thanks...

@creayt

@creayt said:

@garak0410 said:

I am not anti-Apple and have no bone to pick with them. I am just heavily invested in a Microsoft world both at work and home and just prefer their ecosystem...BUT.........

Not that Apples announcements were earth shattering but as always, they make it look new and cool. I've been a patient Microsoft fan since the day I finally let go of my Amiga in 1992 as my full time PC. I even embraced Pocket PC through Windows Mobile 6.5, Zune and I actually own a Kin.

But is it me or does everything they seem to do feel half-baked or abandoned? Serious...what is Microsoft doing in all they do? Why is Outlook (Windows 10 app) so buggy? What is the status of Kinect (some of us actually like it as a gaming device)? Why is Skype still not integrated and still showing LIVE ID's? Where are the tools to convert iOS and Android apps to Windows? Why has HoloLens been pushed way back? Where is our touch version of Windows Movie Maker? Where is a Microsoft equal to iLife? Why is waiting another 1-3 months for a flagship so painful? Where is the COHESION????? Why does everything and every idea seem so half-baked????

I totally love my XBOX One as a media center...I like Windows 10 despite it having a lot of half-baked features...I actually do use a third party app for my media, PLEX, since Microsoft Dropped Windows Media Center and it works quite well.

I think I have a legitimate vent here...LOL

I'ma say they are terribly misguided and could take their OS to new heights w/ a few simple steps, but compared to OS X they offer one distinct, deal-making advantage: Performance. Everything is much much more responsive in Windows than OS X. It's why I can't work on OS X and have been disappointed w/ every mac I've ever owned.

Hopefully they'll ditch the metroey looks and get an actual designer to redo windowing and icons, but still... Windows is just fast. That's why I use it, and that's why, with one eye closed, I love Microsoft. I don't want to imagine a world where I'd have to get work done w/ OS X or Ubuntu. Shiver. I just don't want to even imagine that.

P.S. Zunes were awesome!!!!! The Kin software looked sweet but I never played w/ one.

P.S.S. Image uploads still don't work in Chrome, 3 weeks later.

Kin Studio was ahead of its time:

I can agree from experience that working with a Mac for a few months, I was not impressed. At least it wasn't this religious experience that Apple fans make it out to be. I do a lot of video editing and I knew iMovie wasn't a top notch editor but with it being on par with what I use often on Windows (Adobe Premiere Elements), I sure expected better performance...in fact, it crashed a lot!

I loved my Zune and finally sold it when I saw no future...and I've battled 2-3 years of SLOW, SLOW progress in what is now Groove Music (devolving to XBOX Music and then slowly improving into Groove Music).

This is a good article from Daniel Rubino that addresses the frustrations of Microsoft fans: http://www.windowscentral.com/editors-desk-windows-phone-community-imploding

@scottalanmiller said:

There are goods and bads in every platform. Getting religious about any kind of sucks. All do some things well (MS with AD, video games, etc.), Mac with platform integration and power management, Linux with user interface and options....

I'm glad to see GOG.COM covering Linux and Mac...that makes it easier to move should I choose to one day...I've got to have my "Good Old Games"

@scottalanmiller said:

@garak0410 said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@garak0410 said:

Serious...what is Microsoft doing in all they do? Why is Outlook (Windows 10 app) so buggy?

Because OWA is the focus. The Mac email app is bad too.

I used a Mac recently for a short while and didn't test the Mail app much. iMovie wasn't as good as I was expecting either...

None of it is very good that I've found. The apps that they include seem pretty weak in general. I don't find the whole system very polished. Things are not well thought out and not intuitive and often obvious features are lacking or hard to find, which nearly amounts to the same thing.

One thing that is tough is that third party products seem to be really flaky on it. Not exactly Apple's fault, but something causes products that are solid on Windows to not work on OSX. Might be a lack of user base and testing and therefore care from the third party vendors, but the lack of third party stability is a huge issue.

Guess it is time to embrace multi-platform! No more eggs in one basket. PLEX as taught me that...I just love it...

I've been waiting on the new Lumia's but the wait has been so painful...using Windows 10 Mobile on my Lumia ICON now and I do like it but batter life is horrid. The iPhone 6s+ may be in my future since my work pays for it...

@scottalanmiller said:

I think a big piece here is that Apple has ONLY the consumer market. Their whole business is that. Everything they do is around that. They have to rock it. Microsoft is all about business and consumer is just "extra". They don't focus on it and it languishes. They care, but they don't focus.

That might be the "quote of the post"..."They Care But They Don't Focus"...bingo...that sums up Joe Belfiore!

@scottalanmiller said:

@garak0410 said:

Serious...what is Microsoft doing in all they do? Why is Outlook (Windows 10 app) so buggy?

Because OWA is the focus. The Mac email app is bad too.

I used a Mac recently for a short while and didn't test the Mail app much. iMovie wasn't as good as I was expecting either...

I am not anti-Apple and have no bone to pick with them. I am just heavily invested in a Microsoft world both at work and home and just prefer their ecosystem...BUT.........

Not that Apples announcements were earth shattering but as always, they make it look new and cool. I've been a patient Microsoft fan since the day I finally let go of my Amiga in 1992 as my full time PC. I even embraced Pocket PC through Windows Mobile 6.5, Zune and I actually own a Kin.

But is it me or does everything they seem to do feel half-baked or abandoned? Serious...what is Microsoft doing in all they do? Why is Outlook (Windows 10 app) so buggy? What is the status of Kinect (some of us actually like it as a gaming device)? Why is Skype still not integrated and still showing LIVE ID's? Where are the tools to convert iOS and Android apps to Windows? Why has HoloLens been pushed way back? Where is our touch version of Windows Movie Maker? Where is a Microsoft equal to iLife? Why is waiting another 1-3 months for a flagship so painful? Where is the COHESION????? Why does everything and every idea seem so half-baked????

I totally love my XBOX One as a media center...I like Windows 10 despite it having a lot of half-baked features...I actually do use a third party app for my media, PLEX, since Microsoft Dropped Windows Media Center and it works quite well.

I think I have a legitimate vent here...LOL

@garak0410 said:

@MattSpeller said:

@garak0410 I'm expecting very cute kitten pics, you better not disappoint the internet!

Well, we are getting a 2 year old adult...all we could afford...the kittens are very expensive...we did our research and they said he is a great cat...yes, pictures will come...our little girl is going to be so surprised...

Postponed until the 29th...cat breeder is going to an auction this weekend...better anyway...extra paycheck that weekend...