Migrating from Thunderbird to Outlook

Migrating archived email from Thunderbird into Outlook 2010 is not a trivial task. Outlook is not capable of importing from Thunderbird directly, so a little bit of convoluted work is necessary in order to get the mail imported correctly.

Start by downloading a utility like IMAPSize to convert Thunderbird's native MBOX format into EML format. After generating your archive of EML files is a good time to transport them to another machine if necessary.

Following this, you will need to import the EML files into Windows Live Mail as, if I recall correctly, "Windows Mail" files. Once you have successfully imported the files into Windows Live Mail, exporting them as "Exchange Export" should drop them directly into Outlook if you leave the default profile settings.

Good luck.

http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/
http://www.broobles.com/imapsize/

Windows 7 user management and samba (continued)

This might be just the trick for handling those problem applications that like to run as administrator. It allows you to script UAC actions for (i'm assuming) passwordless privilege escalation. Caveat: this may require the creation of a new samba user if the application is accessing files over a network share. The article mentions that the remaining script will run even without the application, so it is reasonable to guess that the scripts might be hot pluggable.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/selectively-disable-uac-for-your-trusted-vista-applications/635

Run/Sit

I bought a pair of running shoes today. As soon as I receive them, I will be running and meditating on alternating days, until I am able to do both every day. Wish me luck.

Windows 7 user management and samba

Some observations I made while doing some recent Windows 7 installs.

• Samba authenticates using the credentials of the logged-in user, so applying the same credentials to a user's samba account will make the mapping of network drives, and auditing their use, much easier.

• Even without Active Directory, it is still possible to setup a more secure group policy in Windows 7 and lock down specific applications.

• You can do this by adding a group in the Management Console, then by setting the EXE's permissions to non-inherited in it's security properties for the 'Users' group, and then changing the 'Users' group permissions set to 'NewGroup's by editing it. Only members of 'NewGroup' or Admin users will then be able to launch the application.

• Windows 7 can be made more multi-user friendly by disabling the user icons on the login screen. You can do this by going to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System' in RegEdit and setting 'dontdisplaylastusername' to "1".

 ActiveDirectory will simplify this process dramatically, but in a pinch (or a small office) these steps will work well.

Systems

Today I was promoted to System Administrator. Looking forward to getting my hands dirty with those servers.

Bedroom Eyes

"I can imagine myself on my death-bed, spent utterly with lust to touch the next world, like a boy asking for his first kiss from a woman." --Aleister Crowley