With the recent releases of Exchange Server 2013 RTM CU1 , Exchange 2013 sizing guidance , Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator , and the updated Exchange 2013 Deployment Asistant , on-premises customers now have the tools you need to begin designing and performing migrations to Exchange...

Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer is a web-based tool that provides administrators and end users with the ability to run connectivity diagnostics for our servers to test common issues with Microsoft Exchange, Lync and Office 365. The tool started as Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Connectivity...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Exchange 2010 includes a feature called Datacenter Activation Coordination (DAC) mode that is designed to prevent split brain at the database level during switchback procedures that are being performed after a datacenter switchover has occurred. One of the side benefits of enabling DAC mode is that it...

We are happy to announce improvements to the Remote Connectivity Analyzer CAPTCHA experience.  Several of you told us how frustrating the previous experience was to use.  And we agree… it was very annoying to have both password fields get blanked out if you got the challenge incorrect. ...

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...

OCAT download Documentation download As the original blog post about OCAT release was quite popular, we wanted to let you know that we have just released the version 2.0 of the tool, with many features that you have been asking for! If you have OCAT v1 installed, the installation of OCAT...

Download Anyone who regularly uses Log Parser 2.2 knows just how useful and powerful it can be for obtaining valuable information from IIS (Internet Information Server) and other logs. In addition, adding the power of SQL allows explicit searching of gigabytes of logs returning only the data that is...

OCAT Documentation Last month we released the Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool (OCAT) on the Microsoft Download Center site. OCAT was developed by two Microsoft support engineers with over 30 years of combined experience in Outlook, Exchange and Office support. Based on their support experience, they...

Over the past year or so I have been working on this tool - adding functionality and checks based off my experience as an Outlook engineer, and from suggestions given by other engineers. Well, this February the tool has been released so that all our customers can download and use it to check for potential...

ActiveSyncReport script Download The Exchange support team relatively frequently receives cases where mobile devices using Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) protocol send too many requests to Exchange server resulting in a situation where server runs out of resources, effectively causing a ‘denial...

Update 1/3/2012 : We have had a few reports of customers re-enabling SNP features and running into problems because hardware drivers on systems were very old. Please make sure to update your network-related drivers before re-enabling (or enabling) those features ! Over the years, there has been a...

Exchange Message Tracking Logs hold a wealth of information about email messages during transport. Utilities that can parse message tracking logs and analyze them for administrators have historically been important tools when troubleshooting certain mail flow problems. With Exchange 2010, the message...

Update 12/13/2011 : Please note that starting with today, you do not need to call Microsoft Support to get the fix to resolve this issue. All that is required now is installation of December 13, 2011 IE security update, KB 2618444 . The below blog post has been updated accordingly. We are happy to...

By now, you have probably read the two previous blogs written by Nagesh Mahadev and Sushil Sharma on this subject. If you haven’t read them lately (or bookmarked them), I urge you to do so now. This blog is going to discuss alternative methods for collecting data for Exchange Server 2007 and how to setup...

Within Exchange, any Distribution Group(s) or E-mail enabled Security Group(s) which contain Lingering Links will impact the OAB (Offline Address Book) generation process causing it to not replicate correctly. While this issue has been around since AD started with Windows 2000, it is a fairly unknown...

We are excited to announce that the Remote Connectivity Analyzer tool has been updated! In addition to the standard set of connectivity tests, we’ve added an Office 365 tab and a Single Sign-On test . The new Single Sign-On test will validate users' ability to log on to Office 365 with their on-premises...

There are a number of ways an end-user may learn that they have new voice mail, such as from client software like Microsoft Outlook, OWA , Lync, Communicator, or different types of indicators on IP , smart and traditional phones. The term Message Waiting Indicator (MWI) is usually applied to notifications...