Exchange 2007

Update Rollup 2 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (KB972076)

Johan Delimon — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:29:00 GMT

Update Rollup 2 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2007 SP2 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2007 SP2 customers.
For a list of changes that are included in this update rollup, see KB972076.
This update rollup does not apply to Exchange Server 2007 Release To Manufacturing (RTM) or Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1). For a list of update rollups applicable to Exchange Server 2007 RTM or Exchange Server 2007 SP1, refer to the Knowledge Base article KB937052.
This is a cumulative update rollup and replaces the following:

KB971534 Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (KB971534)

Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=fa83be11-9d5e-47bc-9a51-a10986f22928

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP2 Installation Tool for Windows SBS 2008

Tonino — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:19:00 GMT

Overview

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP2 Installation Tool for Windows SBS 2008 provides a step-by-step wizard that simplifies the installation of Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 on a computer that is running Windows SBS 2008. The wizard also detects and helps you repair some problems that are common during installation. Without this tool, Windows SBS 2008 administrators must follow a series of manual steps, which are outlined in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article You cannot install Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 on a Windows Small Business Server 2008-based computer.

Download the tool here --> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=ffd2fe61-9278-489e-9b96-3816394c9cb6

Exchange UM AutoAttendant forwarding to OCS fails => hotfix available KB975050

wimbor — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:20:00 GMT

Our organisation has Unified Communications implemented using Exchange 2007 SP1 and OCS 2007 R2. We were using the Exchange AutoAttendants to route calls to OCS endpoints.

Issue

When an external PSTN user, calling from an anonymous phone line (Caller ID disabled), would select an AutoAttendant menu option that forwarded him to an OCS user, the Exchange AA would not make the transfer and announce this to the external PSTN caller: "transfer failed".

Workaround

As a workaround we programmed our gateway to replace all empty caller ID strings by a fake number, e.g. "+32999999". Using the fake number, transfers did succeed.

Solution

We worked with Microsoft support on this, and apparantly it is a bug in Exchange 2007. We just received a hotfix that resolved the issue. The hotfix is identified by KB975050.

Versions

Although our hotfix has been designed for 2007 SP1, the issue probably also occurs in 2007 SP2. Originally we decided with the support engineer to fix it in SP2, but in the end we opted for a hotfix on our currently installed environment.

Should you experience the same issue, you can ask Microsoft support for a hotffix using the KB number. At the moment of writing this post, the fix is not yet announced on the web, but I will post a link when it becomes available.

Exchange 2007 : Notes from the field available on Chopsticks

Johan Delimon — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:18:00 GMT

View the Presentation on Technet Chopsticks: (NL)
http://www.microsoft.com/belux/technet/nl/chopsticks/default.aspx?id=1473

Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2

Johan Delimon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:02:44 GMT

Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2007 SP2 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2007 SP2 customers.

Version:8.2.217.3
Knowledge Base (KB) Articles:KB971534
Date Published:11/19/2009
Language:English
Download Size:38.0 MB - 78.7 MB*

For a list of changes that are included in this update rollup, see KB971534.

Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=de91f994-6263-47ef-89d7-6d344997459d

This update rollup does not apply to Exchange Server 2007 Release To Manufacturing (RTM) or Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1). For a list of update rollups applicable to Exchange Server 2007 RTM or Exchange Server 2007 SP1, refer to the Knowledge Base article KB937052.

Internet Explorer 8 impacts OWA Load Balancing Scenarios

Tonino — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:28:00 GMT

Hi,

This a reposting of a blog posting that Brad Hugh's made on a potential IE8 issue with OWA Load Balancing Scenarios
http://blogs.msdn.com/brad_hughes/archive/2009/10/15/internet-explorer-8-impacts-owa-load-balancing-scenarios.aspx

Within Internet Explorer 8 you have the possibility to open multiple tabs, and it's quite possible due to the new internal architecture (LCIE) a new process is spawned for this "TAB". And certain things are not shared between these processes such as keep-alives and session-ID.

So when you are load balancing CAS servers and are using "SSL Session-ID" to keep persistency to the same CAS server (required for OWA) then you potentially could have the case where a user needs to re-authenticate again. For example a user click on a new mail, which opens up in a new window causing a new process to be created. This new process will have a new session-id and as a result the connection is balanced to a different CAS server. The other CAS server cannot decrypt the presented cookie from the client and will ask for authentication again.

So have a close look at this blog posting of Brad and see his scenarios and possible mitigations.

Sincerely,

Tonino Bruno | ICT Consultant | Pro-Exchange Community

Exchange 2007: Notes from the field event

Tonino — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:37:00 GMT

Hi,

I wanted to thank all the attendees of this Pro-Exchange event for being with us and making it a real community event. I've learned a thing or 2 and I hope I contributed to some learning as well.

I also wanted to thank Microsoft (Arlindo Alves in particular) for hosting our event. I particurlary enjoyed the sandwiches, but then again when it comes to food I tend to enjoy all of it :-)

For those that missed the presentation or wanted to review it again you can download the presentation here --> http://www.proexchange.be/media/p/308.aspx
And shortly the recording of the event (in dutch) will be made available on Microsoft Chopsticks as well...

If you have any questions with regards to the presentation please don't hesitate to use the forums or email me directly.

Hope to see you again next time..

Sincerely,
Tonino Bruno

Performance Benchmarking Blackberry Enterprise Server 5.0 for Exchange 2007

Tonino — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:38:00 GMT

For those that are interested, here is a new performance benchmark for Blackberry Enterprise Server 5.0

http://docs.blackberry.com/en/admin/deliverables/8864/BlackBerry_Enterprise_Server_for_Microsoft_Exchange-5.0-US.pdf

The interesting part is where you can see the impact of adding a BES server to your messaging environment. According to the document you're processor utilization will increase by 300% while your IO utilization will increase with 230%.

So not much performance improvement for Exchange 2007 in BES 5.0 but you get a lot of new features such as

IT Administrators

Advanced Mobile Management through a New administrative console
Built-in High Availability and Reliability
Enhanced Application Deployment and Management
BlackBerry® Enterprise Transporter Tool
And more great features

End-Users

Remote File Access
Email Folder Management
Enhanced Calendar Functionality
Synchronization of public and private contacts
Flag emails for follow up
Listen to Windows Media Audio (WMA) files
And more great features

Sincerely,

Tonino Bruno | ICT Consultant | PRO-Exchange Community

Exchange Server Supportability Matrix

Johan Delimon — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:56:55 GMT

Now that there are so many different versions of Windows/Active Directory you can easily get confused to what Exchange Server version is supported on which OS/Active Directory
Luckily there is a support matrix that explains this very clearly!

This is a screenshot of the Active Directory Support Matrix

On this page there is information for Support Matrix:

Release Model
Supported Operating System Platforms
Supported Active Directory Environments
Web Browsers That Are Supported for Use with the Premium Version of Outlook Web Access
Web Browsers That Are Supported for Use with the Basic Version of Outlook Web Access µ
Web Browsers That Are Supported for the Use of S/MIME with Outlook Web Access
Clients
The Microsoft .NET Framework
Windows PowerShell
Microsoft Management Console
Windows Installer

Exchange Server Supportability Matrix:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee338574.aspx

Deploying Multi-Role Exchange 2007 Servers and Scalability of CAS/HUB

Tonino — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:11:00 GMT

A couple of months ago Microsoft released an interesting whitepaper which changes how we position, or better “scale”, Exchange 2007 server roles. Especially the Client Access Server and Hub Transport Server role are 2 roles that seem to complement each other well as the Client Access Server uses more Memory resources while the Hub Transport uses more Processor and Disk resources. But still in many large scale deployments you will find these roles on dedicated servers because it had been the initial recommendation coming from Microsoft. Obviously this had a big impact because most likely you where considering high availability for your server roles which increased the number of servers dramatically for your deployment.

Today with this whitepaper Microsoft provides you with the testing matrixes and conclusions about combining the Client Access Server and Hub Transport Server role on a single server. In addition you will also get a clue on how many users/connections you can support on a given hardware configuration using of CAS/HUB load. Keep in mind that scaling a CAS server is difficult as it supports so many functions such as Outlook Web Access, Exchange Activesync, Outlook Anywhere & Exchange Web Services. Understanding how many users can be supported on a given CAS server can be tricky and you first need to determine the load distribution among these different services.

The 4 Cores/8GB Memory configuration was processing 24 messages/second at the same time and is also the server configuration used at Microsoft.

For more information read this whitepaper:

White Paper: Determining the Scalability of Combined Client Access and Hub Transport Server Roles in Exchange 2007
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd901772.aspx

Tonino Bruno | ICT Consultant | Pro-Exchange Community

iPhone OS 3.1: 'Policy Requirement' error when adding Microsoft Exchange account

Tonino — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:59:00 GMT

As reported by this article http://www.tuaw.com/2009/09/10/iphone-os-3-1-now-enforces-exchange-encryption-policy-may-block/ you can get yourselves locked out from Exchange if the following conditions are true:

You have an iPhone 3G device
You upgrade to the OS 3.1 release
and your Exchange Admin has enable the "Require Device Encryption" policy for Activesync.

Because the 3G model doesn't support device encryption it will now prevent you from accessing your exchange account and you will receive the message.

Policy Requirement
The account "______________" requires encryption which is not supported on this iPhone.

There are 2 supported options to fix this problem:

Disable the requirement of Device Encryption in the Activesync Policy (but you enabled it for a reason the first time so that's not going to be a real option I'd say)
Upgrade the device to a 3GS which has the built-in hardware to support device encryption.

Although inconvenient from an end-user perspective I still applaud the choice they made to fix that security hole. If the iPhone ever wants to become an enterprise ready device then this is what they need to do. In addition I hope to see that the iPhone will support more of the Activesync policies and perhaps even include an OMA-DM client so that we can manage it through Mobile Device Management solutions such as System Center Mobile Device Manager.

Sincerely,
Tonino Bruno | ICT Consultant | Pro-Exchange User Community

Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging Language Packs

Tonino — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:21:00 GMT

Overview

Use unified messaging language packs to allow the Exchange Server 2007 system to speak additional languages to callers. This download contains pre-recorded prompts, for example "Welcome, you are connected to Microsoft Exchange" in the language specified by this download. It also enables text to speech translation such that content (e-mail, calendar, contact information, etc.) can be read to the caller in the language of the Unified Messaging language pack.

Instructions

Download the file, and use Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 setup to install the Language Pack.

Example: Exsetup /AddUmLanguagePack:de-DE /sourcedir:d:\Downloads\UmLanguagePacks

Additional Information

Make sure that you install this on each Unified Messaging server in the Dial Plan for which you want the language to be available.

x64 --> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=9eb9725a-affc-4051-99c7-1936e8c21031#tm

x86 --> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=735518C5-ACB1-4F9D-A973-80695DD0913E&displaylang=en

Exchange 2007 help updated to SP2 level

Johan Delimon — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:08:25 GMT

The Exchange Server 2007 SP2 Help can help you in the day-to-day administration of Exchange. Use this information to guide you through Exchange Server 2007 SP2 features, tasks, and administration procedures

Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=85c5ef71-6a1f-4eb0-9ff3-3feee6057e96

Exchange 2007 SP2 has just been released

Tonino — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:39:00 GMT

Hi,

Microsoft just released Exchange 2007 SP2 for download...

Keep in mind you must prepare Active Directory and each domain before you perform the first installation of Exchange 2007 SP2 in an organization. As you may recall Exchange 2007 SP2 includes the necessarry schema extensions for Exchange 2010.

In additions here are some other remarks to be aware of:

The order of SP2 deployment is as follows: CAS --> UM --> HUB --> EDGE --> MBX
You need to have Windows Installer 4.5 in order to install Exchange 2007 SP2
You cannot uninstall SP2
You still cannot upgrade an Exchange 2007 server from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008. You'll need to install a fresh copy of Windows 2008 and then deploy Exchange 2007 on top of it.
Uninstall all Interim Updates prior to installing Exchange 2007 SP2
Make sure to verify if your third-party applications are supported with SP2
Make sure to stop the SC Operations Manager Health Service on the Exchange Server before installing SP2.
Once SP2 is installed you'll need to use the SP2 setup to add and remove roles from your Exchange server
Forefront Security for Exchange RTM is not compatible with SP2, first remove it
For Clustered Mailbox Servers follow this procedure --> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676559.aspx

The Exchange 2007 SP2 download for x86 and x64

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=4c4bd2a3-5e50-42b0-8bbb-2cc9afe3216a

The release notes

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ee7829a3-0ae8-44de-822c-908cd1034523&displaylang=en

happy installing,

Tonino Bruno | ICT Consultant | Pro-Exchange Community

Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition is Ready

Johan Delimon — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:57:00 GMT

Thanks to the 3UC Amigo's for announcing this.

Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition uses Exchange Web Services as the primary protocol to communicate with Exchange Server. In addition to several calendaring improvements, this new version of Entourage synchronizes notes, tasks, and categories with Exchange Server. This update also enables logging that can be used for diagnostic purposes. For detailed information about this update, see the IT Pros section of the Microsoft Web site.

Applies to: Office 2008, Entourage 2008, Office 2008 Special Media Edition

Released: Thursday, August 13, 2009

.dmg file size: 64mb

Download
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx

Some highlights:

Enhanced Autodiscover service to easily configure account and automatically keep settings up to date.

Synchronization between Exchange Server and Entourage 2008 Notes, Tasks, and Categories.

Addition of an Enable Logging (troubleshooting) preference, to log all events that can be used as diagnostic information.

Built-in logging with extensive reporting of diagnostic information.

Use of attachments in Entourage for Exchange calendar events.

Resolve names when composing mail and invites while outside of work without requiring VPN and LDAP.