download readme It’s been a long road, but the initial release of the Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator is here. No, that isn’t a mistake, the calculator has been rebranded.  Yes, this is no longer a Mailbox server role calculator; this calculator includes recommendations on sizing...

Since the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Exchange 2013, you have been waiting for our sizing and capacity planning guidance. This is the first official release of our guidance in this area, and updates to our TechNet content will follow in a future milestone. As we continue to learn more from our...

“You mean… this is really happening?” Last November we gave you a teaser about public folders in the new Exchange. We explained how public folders were given a lot of attention to bring their architecture up-to-date, and as a result of this work they would take advantage of the...

Download Frequently in support, we encounter several backup related calls for Exchange 2010 databases. A sample of common issues we hear from our customers are: “My backup software is not able to take a successful snapshot of the databases” “My backups have been failing...

These days, some customers are deploying Exchange databases and log files on advanced format (4K) drives. Although these drives support a physical sector size of 4096, many vendors are emulating 512 byte sectors in order to maintain backwards compatibility with application and operating systems. This...

A few years back, a very detailed blog post was released on Troubleshooting Exchange 2007 Store Log/Database growth issues . We wanted to revisit this topic with Exchange 2010 in mind. While the troubleshooting steps needed are virtually the same, we thought it would be useful to condense the steps a...

In Exchange 2010, when a database availability group (DAG) member needs service, it can be placed into maintenance mode. Exchange 2010 includes scripts the StartDagServerMaintenance.ps1 and StopDagServerMaintenace.ps1 scripts to place/remove a DAG member from maintenance mode. For a summary of what these...

As a Microsoft Premier Field Engineer (PFE), I assist companies with Lotus Notes and GroupWise migrations to Exchange/Outlook environments and have found that different applications act differently. One of the common questions is: Can Outlook/Exchange send canned responses from a common mailbox? The...

I'm a support enginer in CSS . I was working with a customer who reported a mail loop error for a specific domain like contoso.com . This error was only observed in large emails. Yeah that’s really mysterious until you figure out that the mail loop is due to size restriction on the Send connector...

Back in November 2012, we announced our MCA Beta client. We have been very busy working to improve the testing options that are available from the MCA client. Here’s what we’ve built for the 1.0 release:   Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer Tool 1.0 We are excited to announce the 1.0 release of the...

We’re excited to announce the availability of the Exchange Server 2013 Deployment Assistant at http://technet.microsoft.com/exdeploy2013 . The Exchange Deployment Assistant is a web-based tool that helps you deploy Exchange 2013 in your on-premises organization, configure a hybrid deployment between...

For about as many years as you’ve used Outlook, you’ve likely used the guidance in the older Outlook meeting requests: Essential do’s and don’ts article. However, if you read the older document, you almost certainly noticed that the document only generally applies to newer Outlook versions. Over the...

Exchange 2010 had many new enhancements and improvements over prior versions of Exchange. One really cool feature was the introduction of the Calendar Repair Assistant (CRA). The CRA is a mailbox assistant that is configurable through the Exchange Management Shell and runs within the MS Exchange Mailbox...

Recently, Windows Update began offering the Windows Management Framework 3.0 as an Optional update. This includes all forms of update distribution, such as Microsoft Update, WSUS , System Center Configuration Manager and other mechanisms. The key bit here is that the Windows Management Framework 3.0...

Many organizations have chosen to configure a hybrid deployment with Exchange Online to take advantage of different features such as rich mailbox moves and cross-premises calendar free/busy sharing. This includes Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 organizations that require a long-term hybrid...

Have you ever gotten a call from someone you know whose Outlook client is having trouble connecting to their email server? Don’t you just wish you had a tool that you could send to them that would walk them through a connectivity test and provide a simple way for them to send the results back to you...

Recently, we have released a Guided Walk Through (GWT) for troubleshooting public Folder replication issues in Microsoft Exchange 2003.  There are a couple of ways to access the troubleshooter.  You can use the link here to access it directly.  As well, it will be embedded in various related...

A brief history of hybrid management The release of Exchange Server 2010 brought with it a revolutionary new Cloud based service which we all know today as Exchange Online for Office 365. In the early days of the Cloud lots of time and energy was devoted to rapid migration of user and organizational...

With Exchange Server 2013 and Exchange Online in Office 365 for Enterprises, customers continue to have the flexibility of moving to the cloud on their terms – whether switching fully to the cloud via a cut-over migration, migrating over time with a staged migration, or managing mailboxes both on-premises...

A question that has come up several times in recent months is: How do I create RBAC roles that present only very limited ActiveSync management functionality? Before we dive into the answer let us do a quick review of what RBAC (Role Based Access Control) is. Prior to Exchange 2010 permissions were defined...

The Microsoft Outlook team has released updates for Outlook 2010 and 2007 that provide Office 365 users with password expiration notifications. The advance password expiry notification will be displayed in a pop-up message (near the system clock) within a certain time period before their password actually...

Last week, we announced The New Exchange . Today, we are excited to share its new, refreshed management experience. For folks familiar with Exchange 2010 , there are 3 ways to manage Exchange: the Exchange Management Console (EMC), the Exchange Control Panel (ECP), and the Exchange Management Shell ...

In Part 1 of this series, I explained the E2K7_IndexRebuildAnalyzer.ps1 script and in Part 2 , I discussed the Search Rebuild Framework that Anatoly Girko and I developed. Before concluding this series I did want to provide a series of graphs as well as an “observed averages” table that illustrate the...

Update 07/03/2012 : Expanded the Workaround section to include more details. We wanted to bring to your attention an issue that we have been seeing recently in CSS where many mailboxes on the same mailbox database become quarantined seemingly for no reason. Upon inspecting the Application log, you will...

In Part 1 of this series, I explained the E2K7_IndexRebuildAnalyzer.ps1 script (also please go here for Part 3 ). In this article, I will discuss the Search Rebuild Framework that Anatoly Girko and I developed. This framework was originally designed to provide our internal operations staff with a set...