When we perform network bandwidth planning for Exchange deployments we always ask “what is the size of your OAB?” This is important since if you have a large OAB file it can severely affect the amount of network bandwidth that you require. One of the things that I noticed while creating...

We've made several bug fixes based on community feedback. Please go to our Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator updates tracking page to see what is in this new version! A blog post explaining the calculator is here and or you can download the calculator directly. Comments welcome...

Moving mailboxes is an important part of managing an email service. Check out the latest Geek Out with Perry blog and video to gain some deep insights on our approach to moving mailboxes with Mailbox Replication Service (MRS) and get Perry’s take on this topic and how it works. This technology is also...

PST Capture Download Documentation Ask and ye shall receive, mateys! As we announced in July , we are always looking for new ways to make your work easier - especially when your work involves ending PST proliferation. Today, we are happy to announce that PST Capture is now available as a free download...

Over the last several months there has been significant chatter around what is background database maintenance and why is it important for Exchange 2010 databases. Hopefully this article will answer these questions. What maintenance tasks need to be performed against the database? The following...

A few months Bruce Langworthy wrote an excellent article regarding some new recommendations for setting the Windows Disk Timeout value - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/san/archive/2011/08/15/the-windows-disk-timeout-value-understanding-why-this-should-be-set-to-a-small-value.aspx . This post got me thinking...

The other day I was chatting with one of our Supportability Program Managers, Nino Bilic, and he mentioned something that was rather alarming  - the number one reason why our Premier customers open Exchange 2010 critical situations is because Mailbox databases dismount due to running out of disk...

Today we have released a minor update to the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator that includes enhancements like 3TB disk support and new processor core options.  In addition, there are several bug fixes.  Please go to our Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator...

A user is out of office for some reason – on vacation, sick, on a sabbatical or extended leave of absence, or traveling to a remote location on business, and forgets to set an automatic reply , also known as an Out Of Office message or OOF in Exchange/Outlook lingo. As an Exchange administrator...

In Exchange 2010, you can place a mailbox on retention hold or legal hold. Both holds serve a different purpose. It's important to understand the functionality provided by both. Retention Hold: As the Messaging Records Management page in the EMC suggests (see Figure 1 ), retention hold is used to...

In Exchange 2010, you can use Retention Policies to manage message retention. Retention Policies consist of delete tags , i.e. retention tags with either Delete and Allow Recovery or Permanently Delete actions, or archive tags , i.e. retention tags with the Move To Archive action, which move items to...

Starting with Exchange 2007, installation of the current version of Office Filter Packs is a prerequisite. For Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 RTM , the pre-req was 2007 Office System Converter: Microsoft Filter Pack . In Exchange 2010 SP1, this was updated to Office 2010 Filter Packs . The filters are...

You may have noticed a change in the behavior of the Safe Senders list within Outlook starting in Exchange 2010. Users can no longer add accepted domains to Outlook’s Safe Senders list. Figure 1: Adding an accepted domain to Outlook's Safe Senders list This was done as an anti-spam deterrent as we have...

As we like to say here on EHLO, we’re always listening for feedback on what we're doing well and what we could be doing better for you. As more and more of you evaluate and deploy the email archiving, retention and discovery capabilities of Exchange Server 2010 and Exchange Online , we understand...

Update 7/2/11 : The installation steps have been modified to make it clear the script must be executed on the Mailbox server using elevated credentials. With Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1, you may find that performing a search via Outlook Web App (OWA) results in an error message, “The action couldn’t...

Organizations often need to share availability (aka Free/Busy) information with other Exchange organizations. Depending on the version of Exchange Server you're on, there are different ways to do this. Let's take a look at three common scenarios and go through the exact steps required in order to achieve...

We’ve released the latest version of the Mailbox Role Requirements Calculator which corrects (among other things) the OS locale issue many of you stumbled upon with the first release of the database copy distribution function. You can download the new version of the calculator and let us know...

I’ve recently returned from TechEd North America 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia, where I had a wonderful time seeing old friends and new, and talking with customers and partners about my favorite subject: high availability in Exchange Server 2010. In case you missed TechEd, or were there and missed some...

In Exchange 2010, you can use Multi-Mailbox Search to search mailboxes for e-Discovery or similar purposes. To preserve data in user mailboxes and protect its integrity, you can place a mailbox on Litigation Hold (also known as legal hold ). This prevents mailbox items from being purged from the Store...

In September I released our guidance on how to lay out database copies to ensure symmetrical distribution of the active copies in the event of a failure. This guidance was further expanded and released as a TechNet article in November. Feedback from the community was very clear – you guys wanted a tool...

EDIT 5/24/2011. This survey is now closed. Thank you for incredible amount and quality of feedback you have given us! We wanted to reach out to our customers (you!) to learn a bit more about your public folder topologies and usage scenarios. In order to gather this feedback, we have created an...

One of the goals of Exchange 2010 mailbox resiliency is to minimize data loss. In Exchange 2010 SP1 we added continuous replication block mode to help further reduce data loss when a failover occurs. However, on a very busy mailbox database with a high log generation rate, there is a greater chance for...

Update 10/6/11 : This script has been updated. The new script addresses a minor bug that could cause incorrect users to be added to a DL. It also enables recursive ownership assignment. It will now recursively search thru the owning group and sub groups, to add all mailboxes it finds as owners of the...

Background The Exchange Store Driver is a core transport component which lives both on the Mailbox server role (as the mail submission service) and the Hub server role. It is responsible for: Retrieving messages from the mailbox server that have been submitted by end-users and submitting those to the...

Update 3/31/2011: The updated Exchange 2007 SP3 RU3 has been released. See Announcing the Re-release of Exchange 2007 Service Pack 3 Update Rollup 3 (V2) . 3/30/2011: We posted a status update for this issue. See Exchange 2007/2010 Rollup 3 Status Update . Over the weekend, the Exchange Product Group...