In this recent post , I blogged about Scope and the ViewEntireForest property of $AdminSessionADSettings variable. In particular, one thing I said in passing bears a bit more explanation: When you're in Forest scope, the admin session talks to a...

Benp recently posted his "guide to stuff" on the topic of PowerShell manipulation of AD objects , focusing on the use of the [ADSI] wrapper and System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry. This is an area that is quite interesting to understand from an...

Matthew Byrd has been providing some insight into a bunch of specific cmdlets at the Exchange Ninjas wiki over the last few weeks. The cool thing about what he's been doing is that he's identifying cmdlets where their usage may be hard to understand ...

I've had a note in my "blog about me" file for a month or two to call out the way to access Exchange "System Folders" with PowerShell cmdlets. I just went out and looked and there appears to be a couple of websites / posts (and probably others) that have...

Recently I've gotten several questions about the "-ApplyMandatoryProperties" parameter on Set-Mailbox. Here's a quick overview of this parameter - what it does, why it does it, etc. What does ApplyMandatoryProperties parameter do? It applies the...

In the wake of the largest product launch in the company's history (Windows Vista operating system, Office 2007 and -- most importantly ! -- Exchange Server 2007), Microsoft Corp. will host the 2007 MVP Global Summit . The annual event recognizes the...

Since I've posted a number of times about OPATH filters for Exchange 2007 and RecipientFilter parameter for EAP/AL/GAL/DDG objects, it's only fair that I get a lot of email asking me questions about how to use it, how to convert old-style LDAP filters...

Glen recently posted an " Exchange 2007 Mailbox Size PowerShell Form Script ". This is a super-cool walkthrough post for at least two reasons: 1) It shows the power of PowerShell (and you know I just can't get enough of that!) but also 2) it shows...

Jared has previously posted twice on topics that skirt around the issue of "scope" in Exchange 2007: first in October as Tips 1 and 2 of the Exchange 2007 Console Tips and Tricks post and then again in January as Tip 1 of the Tips for Managing the Exchange...

In the Do I Really Need to Upgrade my Filters blog post, Several folks posted a question/comment asking about MemberOf. In Exchange 2003, it was possible to build an EAP/AL/GAL/DDG filter that took into account group membership as a criteria for inclusion...

Continuing from the previous post , in this final part of the demo I explain how I provisioned the environment, and demonstrated a script to "rip out" the environment and then effortlessly "regenerate" it again: [PS] C:\Program Files\Microsoft...

Continuing on from the previous post , in the third part of the demo I talk about using help and "finding things" in PowerShell. as well as introducing the concept of Exchange identity and filters (both traditional PowerShell client-side and Exchange...

Continuing from the previous post , during the second part of the demo I introduced the details on how to interact with other .net objects, along with some of the PowerShell glue that makes manipulating Exchange objects so powerful: [PS] C:\Program...

The first part of the demo I describe in my previous post was to introduce the crowd to the basics of interacting with the Exchange cmdlets in PowerShell: [PS] C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop>Get-ExchangeServer Name Site ServerRole...

I'd previously blogged about Vivek posting the details and a link to the "Scriptacular Demo Pack" . This download can be very useful in preparing/provisioning an environment to use for demos, and then knocking the socks off your audience with the coolness...

I'm very happy to have recently run across Matt Stehle's " CDOs and CDONTS of Messaging Development " blog (and it's a great blog name too, btw -- Bravo Matt!) He's currently running a series of posts called "Introduction to Exchange PowerShell Automation...

Neil posted this morning about how to find your Exchange 2007 server's "installed bits" version using powershell and the "AdminDisplayVersion" property . Great post, and a simple way to determine -- particularly in bulk for many servers -- what version...

I have previously listed the progress we've been making in posting ITPro focused Systems Management blog posts to the EHLO team blog in my " Continuing with SysMgmtBlog Posts " and " Exchange 2007 SysMgmt bloggers want your input " postings. To recap...

After posting the Exchange 2007 OPATH intro and How to Upgrade the Filters posts to EHLO over the past few days, one question that's come up enough to warrant another blog post is "Do I really need to upgrade my filters". And the answer is pretty straight...

Exchange 2007 has some very powerful cmdlets which can be used to generate fairly effective reports, out of the box. However, sometimes they're just a bit TOO powerful, and it leads to some confusion about how to get out the data you want. Example of...

More details about the "True"/"False" vs $true/$false behavior posted to the Powershell team blog ( Boolean Values and Operators ) over the weekend. I'm very relieved (" whew !") to see they reached same conclusion as my Exchange-related blog post ( When...

Finally, I'm able to "scoop" the EHLO team blog on something. And all it took was Nino being OOF to vacation while I am not! :) Last night Vivek posted the much-anticipated "Scriptacular Demo Pack" for Exchange Server 2007 to his blog . This is a great...

Recent customer question: "Why does it treat the boolean as 'true' when I explicitly entered 'false'?". This question is normally followed up by something like "This is obviously a bug since when I tell it 'true' works just fine." Great real world...

Recent question across my mailbox: "How can I get a count of how many mailboxes are on each of my mailbox databases?" The simple answer is to use something like this: Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Group-Object Database | Format-Table Name...

I've arrived safely in Las Vegas for the Fall 2006 Exchange Connections conference. I'll be presenting on Tuesday (Microsoft Day) a session about the new ITPro administration experience in Exchange 2007 -- session EMS301. Here's the abstract: EMS301:...