In OCS 2007 R2 it is fairly easy to block certain clients from connecting to OCS, just like in OCS 2007 R1. But the nice thing included in R2 is that you can configure your OCS environment to automatically update clients that connect using a wrong version to an allowed one, using the built-in AutoUpdate feature provided by the OCS Front-End server.

Goal = allow users to connect to OCS using a Communicator client version 3.5.6907.0, but offer them the ability to upgrade to the latest release available now (at the time of writing, ie 3.5.6907.34).

Here's a step-by-step to get this done in a Standard Edition environment.

Step 1. Download the latest update from the Microsoft site

The latest release was the one of May, for which you can find more information here: Communicator 2007 R2 hotfix rollup package: May 2009, and to download the update, click here.

Step 2. Configure the Client Version Filter

Open your Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Management Console, right-click your pool and select Filtering Tools, Client Version Filter

Click Add to add a new Client Application Version Control. 

Define the User Agent Header, in our case this is OC (Communicator),  Major version number 3, Minor version number 5, Build number 6907, and Qfe number 0.

Select the comparison operation to perform, and choose one the available actions to apply to this version:

 Define a directory where the update can be downloaded from, in my case I used OC.

Click OK to close the filter settings.

Step 3. Upload the update to the correct folder, so it can be downloaded by your clients

Microsoft provides you with a resource kit tool to help you doing so, called CVCMSIUploader.exe

In my environment, I ran the following line cscmsiupload.exe

/Mode: Upload: to upload the update

/folder: to the folder OC

/SE: ocsr2.proexchange.global: to enable updates defined in Standard Edition pool ocsr2.proexchange.global

/Build:fre to define it's a fre file and not chk

/lang:1033 to define it's an update for the US English Communicator client

/arch:x32 to define it's an update for the 32bit version of Communicator

c:\ocupdates\communicator.msp to define the location where the update is stored on my server

Before running this resource kit tool, the update directory does not containg any files:

And after running the tool, you will notice that the file has been uploaded.

Step 4. Test

After restarting the Front End Service, I was able to test the update immediately. When logging in using a Communicator, built 3.5.6907.0, I soon got a prompt that there was an update available.

In case you close that pop-up, you can still select to update the client, in Communicator itself

After selecting to update the client, you will notice that both outlook and communicator will close and restart after the update!

After updating, the version of Communicator is corrected :-) as can be seen on your OCS server, and in communicator itself.

Thanks to Tom and Aaron for providing  the following two links to get this done:

http://www.confusedamused.com/notebook/the-ocs-2007-r2-client-auto-update-feature/

http://blog.tiensivu.com/aaron/archives/1865-Demystifying-the-Office-Communicator-2007-R2-Client-Auto-Update-feature-and-how-to-setup-it-up.html

-Ilse