Gerod Serafin's WebLog

Mr. Proactive and Miss T. Proactive

GerodS — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:28:27 GMT

I have been quiet on this blog for a number of reasons.

Check out the new site for all PFEs who want to blog at www.MrProactive.com. This is a site that's has 4 main purposes:

Tell more about what a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) is what we do
Share with the community Proactive items and "Tips and Tricks"
Announce new offerings
Let the world know that we are hiring

There is another site where individual PFEs can blog at www.opsvault.com as well. It has many of the same goals and has a different approach.

Variety is a good thing.

Update: Direct Booking using Outlook 2010

GerodS — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:51:35 GMT

There is now a KB article that is available regarding this. It answers questions about how to make the change with a Group Policy or using the Office Customization Tool.

982774 Direct Booking does not successfully book a resource in Outlook 2010

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;982774

Direct Booking using Outlook 2010 against Exchange 2003 Servers

GerodS — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:47:41 GMT

Now that Office 2010 has RTM’ed, we’ve started to see a number of issues pop up where customers are finding that they are having problems reserving a conference room using it. The reason is that Outlook 2010 by default has Direct Booking disabled. This is by design since Direct Booking is the old Exchange 2003 way of doing things and Exchange 2007 and 2010 has automatic processing of resource mailboxes.

If you are still on Exchange 2003, however, you may have the need to enable Direct Booking for your clients. In order to enable it in Outlook 2010 you will need to add the following DWord in the registry for the organizers client:

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar

DWORD: EnableDirectBooking

Value: 1

Hope that helps some people out.

Our new phones –Kin

GerodS — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:22:26 GMT

Looks like we can now get to http://www.kin.com/. Looks nice. First phone to ship with Zune… Very cool.

Unboxing my Zune Originals Zune HD

GerodS — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:08:18 GMT

It finally is here!

Sweet…

How I install Exchange 2010 RC on Windows 2008 R2

GerodS — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:42:19 GMT

I have been messing around with the installation of Exchange 2010 RC on Windows 2008 R2. I chose to go with Windows 2008 RC since it already has more of the things needed to install Exchange like the right version of PowerShell and the .NET framework. To make my lab installs go faster I have been creating PowerShell scripts to automatic everything from the installation of the required roles and features to the installation of Exchange 2010 as well. Below you will find some snippets from some of the scripts. Of course the standard disclaimer applies.

The header:

# -----
#
# Script by Gerod Serafin - gerod dot serafin at microsoft dot com
# To run this script you will need to set the your execution policy to
# unrestricted using:
# Set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted
# After the reboot of the server it will be set back to RemoteSigned.
#
# You may want to download and run the 2007 Office System Converter:
# Microsoft Filter Pack
# http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=123380
# -----

The installation of the link above is so that the indexer can index certain files.

The following is needed for all Exchange installs since we are not using the old way (Windows 2008) of adding roles and features and are using PowerShell instead.

#Since we are not going to use ServerManagerCmd for this
#install we will need to add the Server Manager Module first on all installs.

Import-module servermanager

If this is the first time you have run Exchange 2010 setup, you will need to prepare the AD. Before you can do that you will need to install the AD tools. After running that a reboot may be necessary. I have commented it out as I may want to see the results of the install.

#-----------START PREPARE AD NEEDS------------------------------------

#For a server that you have not done any Exchange 2010 prep
#you will need to do a /preparead. Before you do that you
#will need to install the AD remote management tools.
#Uncomment below for that

add-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS

#Since this will probably require a reboot, you would need to run the #following:
#restart-computer

#-----------END PREPARE AD NEEDS------------------------------------

The next part does the AD preparation.

#-----------START PREPARE AD------------------------------------

#After the reboot you can run the following if you have a single
#domain and have permissions necessary to do it. The /preparead
#switch will do everything needed. Since I have an ISO of the
#Exchange 2010 RC on the D drive I change to the that drive first

d:
.\setup.com /preparead

#-----------END PREPARE AD------------------------------------

If your forest and domain is all prepared then you are ready to install the Hub and CAS role. Since I wanted to get a DAG up and running I put these two roles on their own machine and put the mailbox role on two other machines. The following will install the Features and Roles needed.

#------------START HUB and CAS INSTALL NEEDS--------------------------

#To install a Hub Transport Role on a CAS server, we would need to install #the following components:
#Net-Framework
#Web-Server
#WEB-ISAPI-Ext
#Web-Metabase
#Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console
#Web-Basic-Auth
#Web-Digest-Auth
#Web-Windows-Auth
#Web-Dyn-Compression
#NET-HTTP-Activation
#RPC-over-HTTP-Proxy
#Uncomment below for that (If not all on one line, make it so it is…)

add-WindowsFeature Net-Framework,Web-Server,WEB-ISAPI-Ext,Web-Metabase,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Dyn-Compression,NET-HTTP-Activation,RPC-over-HTTP-Proxy

#The following service must be set to automatic
set-service NetTcpPortSharing -StartupType automatic

#------------------END HUB and CAS INSTALL NEEDS-----------------------------

Now that the server has what it needs, let’s install the Exchange portion for the Hub and CAS.

#------------START HUB and CAS INSTALL --------------------------

#Since I have an ISO of the
#Exchange 2010 RC on the D drive I change to the that drive first

d:
.\setup.com /m:install /r:H,C

#A restart will be required. Uncomment below if you want this to happen #automatically.
#restart-computer

#------------END HUB and CAS INSTALL --------------------------

Now that we have a Hub and CAS role installed, let’s get some mailbox server installed on a different server.

#------------START MAILBOX ONLY INSTALL NEEDS--------------------------

#To install a Mailbox server, we would need to install the following #components:
#Net-Framework
#Web-Server
#Web-Metabase
#Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console
#Web-Basic-Auth
#Web-Windows-Auth
#Uncomment below for that. (If not all on one line, make it so it is…)

#add-WindowsFeature Net-Framework,Web-Server,Web-Metabase,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth

#------------END MAILBOX ONLY INSTALL NEEDS--------------------------

Now we are ready to install the Exchange portion of the mailbox role install.

#------------START MAILBOX ONLY INSTALL --------------------------

#Since I have an ISO of the
#Exchange 2010 RC on the D drive I change to the that drive first

d:
.\setup.com /m:install /r:mailbox

#A restart will be required. Uncomment below if you want this to happen #automatically.
#restart-computer

#------------END MAILBOX ONLY INSTALL --------------------------

Hopefully this is useful to you.

Exchange 2010 RC to RTM Upgrade… Can I Install into Production?

GerodS — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:34:40 GMT

I mentioned in my last post that customers will be able to upgrade from the Release Candidate (RC) of Exchange Server 2010 to the final Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version. This was taken from the Exchange team’s mention of this here. Since then there has been some questions about what this means. Does it mean that you can install the RC version in production and still be supported?

To answer that you need to look at the EULA included in the RC. This is a legal document and I am not a lawyer. Because of that I will only paste some of the key points that I found in it so that you can see the answer. The English version of the EULA can be found at setup\serverroles\common\eula\en\license.htm. There you will find the following in part:

1. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS.

· You may install and use any number of copies of the software on your premises to test how it runs with your programs.

· You may not test the software in a live operating environment unless Microsoft permits you to do so under another agreement.

4. PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE. This software is a pre-release version…

8. SUPPORT SERVICES. Because this software is “as is,” we may not provide support services for it.

So… In short, please don’t run the RC in your production environment. If you were to have any issues and needed support from Microsoft, you would be in a tough situation that you may not like. We have programs such as the Technology Adoption Program (TAP) program where we support customers who run non-final code in their production environment, but those customers are early-adopters who have another agreement that permits the support of their environment.

Hopefully that answers your questions. Now get back to playing with Exchange 2010 (in your lab)!

Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate Available

GerodS — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:49:00 GMT

Today we announced that Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate (RC) is available for download at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c6d27da1-ba2c-4570-a491-c0d7b39ede8b&displaylang=en

(This link works...)

Some things to note:

· This version will coexist with Exchange 2003 and 2007. In order to coexist with Exchange 2007 you will need the Exchange 2007 SP2 which will be released soon (later this month).

· You can do an in place upgrade from the RC version to the final (RTM) version.

· To see what is new in Exchange 2010 you can go here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd298136(EXCHG.140).aspx

· Exchange 2010 can be installed on Windows 2008 SP2 or Windows 2008 R2.

Exchange 2010 Beta is here!

GerodS — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:53:11 GMT

Finally. Exchange 14 is now officially Exchange 2010. Learn more at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/2010/default.aspx.

Part 21 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 06:24:34 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Transport

POP3 and IMAP4

In Exchange 2003, POP3 and IMAP4 were both receive-only protocols that enabled a client to receive e-mail. To send e-mail, these clients had to relay SMTP traffic through the Exchange organization.

Below you can see that the IMAP Virtual Server is disabled.

The default properties of the IMAP4 Virtual Server…

To enable the protocol on the users you would use the Exchange Task Wizard.

In Exchange 2007, every Hub Transport server has a default client Receive connector that allows authenticated POP3 and IMAP4 users to relay SMTP e-mail through the Hub Transport server. You must specifically enable POP3 or IMAP4 access for clients.

The protocols are listed on the CAS servers.

Here are some of the default properties on IMAP4.

You can enable IMAP4 and POP3 on the mailboxes from within the Exchange Messaging Console.

More information on configuration can be found at the links below:

How to Set Connection Limits for IMAP4

How to Configure Authentication for IMAP4

How to Set Connection Limits for POP3

How to Configure Authentication for POP3

Securing message transmission by using Transport Layer Security (TLS)

In Exchange 2003, if you required TLS for inbound connections you configured the authentication settings on a virtual server. You accessed the virtual server properties, and then selected a check box to require SSL/TLS on the Access and Authentication settings page.

In Exchange 2007, you configure TLS on a Receive connector by specifying TLS as an available authentication mechanism. However, you need to have an X.509 certificate installed on the Exchange server. For more information see Receive Connectors.

You could also set this using :

Set-ReceiveConnector -Identity ReceiveConnectorId -AuthMechanism Tls

Next: I think that is it. Hopefully you found this useful. It took so long to do this, I could start on Exchange 14. Hmmm.

Part 20 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 06:02:30 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Transport

Outbound SMTP connections to other messaging servers

In Exchange 2003, the routing group represented a communication boundary between Exchange servers that were part of the same organization. All Exchange servers that were in the same routing group were able to communicate directly with each other.

To create connections to the Internet you created a SMTP connector.

In Exchange 2007, Send Connectors control outbound SMTP traffic to remote domains. By default, a Send Connector is available to the entire organization. However, a Send Connector can be scoped so that it is available only to other Hub Transport servers in its local Active Directory site. For more information see Send Connectors.

When the Edge Subscription is created you will see the following:

As you can see, with the EdgeSync set up the properties allow all mail to flow out the new Send Connector.

And the source sever is the Edge server.

Journaling

In Exchange 2003, you configured journaling on the mailbox store that contained the mailboxes that you wanted to journal.

In Exchange 2007, if you have an Exchange Enterprise Client Access License for the mailboxes you want to journal then you can use journal rules that are configured organization wide on Hub Transport servers. The journal rules enable you to specify per-recipient journaling. For more information see: Managing Journal Rules.

The following types of journaling are available in Exchange 2007:

Standard journaling - Standard journaling enables the Journaling agent in Exchange 2007 to journal all messages sent to and from recipients and senders that are located on a specific mailbox database on a computer running the Mailbox server role. Standard journaling is also called per-mailbox database journaling.

Premium journaling - Premium journaling enables the Journaling agent in Exchange 2007 to use rules that you can configure to match the specific needs of your organization. You can create journal rules for a single mailbox recipient or for entire groups within your organization. Premium journaling is also called per-recipient journaling.
Important: You must have an Exchange Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) to use premium journaling.

Lets look through how the wizard for per-recipient journaling:

Here I have set up a journaling rule for my mailbox only.

And here you can see the the cmdlet used is New-JournalRule.

I didn’t create this rule with it enabled, so to enable it you can right-click on it in the GUI.

Next: Part 21 – Transport: POP3, IMAP4, and Transport Layer Security (TLS)

Part 19 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:06:44 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Transport

Disclaimer messages

In Exchange 2003, you needed to create a custom event sink to apply disclaimers to messages or purchase a third part application that would do this for you.

In Exchange 2007, disclaimers are defined by Transport Rules (or you can use Exchange Hosted Services also). You can create transport rules that will add disclaimers to messages if those messages meet conditions that you have specified. Overview of Disclaimers.

To use the Exchange Management Console to configure a disclaimer on a Hub Transport server open the Exchange Management Console on the Hub Transport server. In the console tree, click Organization Configuration, and then click Hub Transport.

In the result pane, click the Transport Rules tab, and then, in the action pane, click New Transport Rule… .

In the “Name” field, enter the name of the disclaimer. If you have notes for this disclaimer, enter them in the “Comment” field. If you want the disclaimer to be created in a disabled state, clear the Enabled check box. Otherwise, leave the Enabled check box selected. Click Next.

In the “Select Condition(s)” box, select all the conditions that you want to apply to this disclaimer. If you want this disclaimer to be applied to all e-mail messages, do not select any conditions in this step.

If you selected conditions in the previous step, “Edit the rule description by click an underlined value” box, click each blue underlined word.

When you click a blue underlined word, a new window opens to prompt you for the values to apply to the condition. Select the values that you want to apply, or type the values manually. If the window requires that you manually add values to a list, type a value. Then click Add. Repeat this process until you have entered all the values, and then click OK to close the window.

Repeat the previous step for each condition that you selected. After you configure all the conditions, click Next.

In the “Select Action(s”) box, click “append disclaimer text using font, size, color,…” and “wrap messages if unable to comply”.

In the “Edit the rule description by clicking an underlined value” box, click each blue underlined word. Each word, except disclaimer text, is the default value for each field. For more information about these action properties, see "Disclaimer Action Properties" in Transport Rule Actions. The fields are Location, Disclaimer Text, Font, Font Size, Font Color, Separator, and Fallback Action.

When you click a blue underlined word, a new window opens to prompt you to select the items that you want to add or to type values manually. When you are finished, click OK to close the window.

Repeat the previous step for each action that you selected. After you configure all the actions, click Next.

In the “Select exception(s) box”, select all the exceptions that you want to apply to this rule. You are not required to select any exceptions.

Note: If you don't apply an exception to this transport rule and all the transport rule conditions are met, a disclaimer is added to every message. This includes messages to which this disclaimer has already been added. To avoid having disclaimer text added repeatedly to messages that meet the conditions of this transport rule, add the except when the text specific words appears in the subject or body of the message transport rule exception with a value that is unique to the disclaimer text in this transport rule.

If you selected exceptions in the previous step, in the “Edit the rule description by clicking an underlined value” box, click each blue underlined word.

When you click a blue underlined word, a new window opens to prompt you to select the items that you want to add or to type the values manually. When you are finished, click OK to close the window.

Repeat the previous step for each exception that you selected. After you configure all the exceptions, click Next.

Review the Configuration Summary. If you are happy with the configuration of the new rule, click New, and then click Finish.

And there is part of the PowerShell Command. The cmdlet used is New-TransportRule.

Inbound SMTP connections from other messaging servers

In Exchange 2003, SMTP virtual servers controlled the inbound mail settings.

The default SMTP virtual server accepted anonymous connections. If you required a particular authentication method or message size restriction for a specific remote domain, you would create additional virtual servers. To do that in Exchange 2003, you would often need to have another IP address on the server for the new virtual server.

Then you would select the scope of the servers that could connect to the new virtual server.

In this case we only have one IP address. This could be a case where we had a smart host forwarding email to this server.

In Exchange 2007, Receive Connectors control how mail is received. The Receive connector listens for SMTP connections. Every Hub Transport server has two default Receive connectors. One connector is configured to receive authenticated SMTP connections, the second connector is configured to receive SMTP connections from clients such as POP3 and IMAP4.

We already discussed earlier how to create an anonymous Receive Connector so lets talk about how to create an Edge subscription.

On the Edge Transport server, run the following command:

New-EdgeSubscription -FileName "C:\<EdgeSubscriptionInfo>.xml"

For detailed information about this step, see How to Export an Edge Subscription File.

Copy the resulting XML file to the Hub Transport server. On the Hub Transport server, run the following command:

New-EdgeSubscription -filename "C:\EdgeSubscriptionInfo.xml" -CreateInternetSendConnector $true -CreateInboundSendConnector $true -site "Default-First-Site-Name"

Note: By default, the value of the CreateInternetSendConnector parameter and CreateInboundSendConnector parameter is $True. You do not have to provide these parameters if you want to use the default configuration. They are shown here for illustration only.

For detailed information about this step, see How to Import the Edge Subscription File.

On the Hub Transport server, run the following command:

Start-EdgeSynchronization

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see EdgeSync Cmdlets.

You don't have to create Receive connectors for this scenario. The default Receive connector on the Edge Transport server is the only Receive connector that is required. However, you may want to modify the configuration of the default Receive connector to bind it to only the external network address. Then, you can create an additional Receive connector that is bound to only the internal network address and configure it to receive connections from the Exchange organization. For more information, see Configuring Edge Transport Server Connectors and EdgeSync and Send Connectors.

To test the success of the synchronization, run Test-EdgeSynchronization.

Next: Part 20 – Transport: Outbound SMTP connections to other messaging servers and Journaling

Part 18 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:59:44 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Transport

Allowing anonymous relay

To enable anonymous relay in Exchange 2003 this was done in the properties of the Virtual server.

You went to the access tab and clicked on “Relay…”

Then you would click on “Add”.

And added the IP address of the computer or computers you wanted.

In 2007 since the transport is moved to the Hub role you would do this there or on the edge server. You create a new SMTP receive connector. Lets walk through the wizard. Choose Custom for the intended use.

This page is where you select the IP address of the local machine that this will apply to.

Click on Add… And put in the local IP address (in this case).

For the Remote Network, You choose the ip address of the server that can send to this server anonymously.

The configuration summary.

And here is the PowerShell command that completed..

There it is.

Here are the properties.

Make sure that the permissions are set right.

So far, we have a receive connector that allows anonymous submission from a particular IP, but not able to relay to any recipient. So in order to fix this we have to give it an ad permission.

We do that with the following:

Get-ReceiveConnector "Receive Connector Name" | Add-ADPermission -User "NT AUTHORITY\ANONYMOUS LOGON" -ExtendedRights "Ms-Exch-SMTP-Accept-Any-Recipient"

Creating or managing Routing Group Connectors

In Exchange 2003, routing group connectors enabled message transfer between two routing groups. Routing groups represented a routing boundary for Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2000.

Exchange 2007 uses Active Directory site-based routing. You cannot use the Exchange 2003 Exchange System Manager to create or manage any routing group connector that specifies an Exchange 2007 server as a source or target server. You must use the New-RoutingGroupConnector and Set-RoutingGroupConnector cmdlets in the Exchange Management Shell.

Understanding Active Directory Site-Based Routing

How to Create Routing Group Connectors from Exchange 2007 to Exchange Server 2003

You will need to create a RGC in order for the Exchange 2007 environment to talk to the 2003 environment. But, you can’t do this via the 2003 ESM.

So we can create one using New-RoutingGroupConnector.

New-RoutingGroupConnector -Name "Interop RGC" -SourceTransportServers "Ex2007Hub1.contoso.com" -TargetTransportServers "Ex2003BH1.contoso.com" -Cost 100 -Bidirectional $true -PublicFolderReferralsEnabled $true

Next: Part 19 – Transport: Disclaimer messages and Inbound SMTP connections from other messaging servers

Windows Live Writer with Windows 7

GerodS — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 22:48:50 GMT

I recently upgraded my main machine to Windows 7[1,2] and I tried opening up Windows Live Writer to update my blog and found that it seemed to be in a constant hung state. I then right clicked on the shortcut for the program and chose the “Troubleshoot compatibility” option. It then gave me the following screen.

It now works. YAY!

[1] I am not telling what build.
[2] I’m trying these square brackets. I saw that KC Lemson was doing it. I tend to use lots of Parentheses and I think that this might be better?

Microspotting

GerodS — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:30:38 GMT

Every so often I like to head over to http://www.microspotting.com/ to see some of the stories about some of my co-workers. And yes, I want an “I am the empire” t-shirt!

Part 17 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:24:29 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Managing Client Access

Always Up to Date \ Direct Push

In Exchange 2003, Exchange ActiveSync would be configured to synchronize your mobile device with your Exchange server mailbox at intervals as frequent as every five minutes.

You set the settings in ADU&C or in the ESM.

By default, in Exchange 2007, Direct Push is enabled, and it is designed to keep a mobile device up to date over a cellular network connection. Setting this is also found in the Console or you can use PowerShell.

Front End / CAS

Front End access in Exchange 2003 was enabled on the server properties with a check box.

In Exchange 2007, the Client Access server role handles all of the processing for client access and provides access to mailbox data for all external clients.

You can create multiple Exchange ActiveSync policies using New-ActiveSyncMailboxPolicy or by using the “New Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policy Wizard” found at Organization Configuration / Client Access.

For OWA, you don’t connect to the /exchange virtual directory any more. You use /owa (https://FQDN/owa).

To look at the settings you can use Get-OwaVirtualDirectory.

Get-OwaVirtualDirectory –id “ServerNAME\owa (Default Web Site)” |fl would give you a lot of information. If you would like to see how many you can go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123515.aspx to see how to set them using Set-OwaVirtualDirectory.

The good news is that a lot of those are available in the console as well.

Client Configuration

In Exchange 2003 there was no Auto-configuration service, so you had to usually manually create profiles. When you created a profile, as long as you know the name of a server that was up you were good to go. However this was part of the problem. This was a high support call generator since very few knew the server name. Move mailboxes updated the profile usually as well.

Now with AutoDiscover, the client can get configured correctly automatically in Exchange 2007.

Use Set-AutodiscoverVirtualDirectory to configure it.

RPC over HTTP / Outlook Anywhere

With Exchange 2003 we had to enable RPC over HTTP(S) on both the front end and back end servers and make sure that your firewalls allowed port 443 traffic to your Front End servers.

In Exchange 2007 you enable Outlook Anywhere on the CAS server using Enable-OutlookAnywhere, Set-OutlookAnywhere, and Get-OutlookAnywhere.

Or you can use the EMC for some of this.

Next: Part 18 – Transport: Allowing Anonymous Relay and Creating \ Managing Routing Group Connectors

Part 16 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:12:18 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Administrative Tasks: Resource Scheduling

Resource Scheduling in Exchange 2003

In Exchange 2003, setting up a resource involved many steps:

Create a mailbox using ADU&C
Give permissions to the mailbox
Setup Auto Accept Agent or use Outlook Direct Booking for mailboxes

We will not go into who this done in Exchange 2003, but will instead focus on the changes in Exchange 2007.

Resource Scheduling in Exchange 2007

In Exchange 2007, the management of resource scheduling is much easier and includes creating and managing your conference room and equipment, and scheduling resources.

You can now create mailboxes specifically for rooms or equipment like AV equipment
You can specify custom properties like TV, Whiteboards, as well as room capacity
You can convert former Exchange 2003 Resource mailboxes to a different type
You can upgrade former Auto Accept Agent based Resource mailboxes as well

Lets walk through this.

We will create a Room Mailbox.

Filling out the information.

Choose the database

And there is the shell command.

Now that it is created, we can look at the properties. He we can put the capacity as well.

But you can also create custom configurations as well. Here we added to the Room schema 16 seats and 8 seats, and added to Equipment Projectors and Whiteboards.

Now when I click Add, you see custom properties. I choose one.

Now we have a room with a capacity of 20 and only 16 seats. I guess 4 people are standing or sitting on the floor.

Here are the properties of some Equipment. So I added the custom Property – Projector.

Converting mailboxes in Exchange 2007

To convert a mailbox from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007:

Move the mailbox from Exchange 2003 to 2007
Run the cmdlet Set-Mailbox Alias –Type Room

Other options for types are Regular, Equipment, or Shared.

Enabling Automatic Booking on a Resource Mailbox

If the mailbox was a former Auto Accept Agent Mailbox you must uninstall the agent from the server and then move the mailbox to 2007. After that you use Set-MailboxCalendarSettings to choose how you want the processing of meeting requests to be handled.

Set-MailboxCalendarSettings <Identity> -AutomateProcessing:AutoAccept

There are a lot of different settings here. Here is a good starting place to get a better idea of the options: (Taken from here)

To control who can schedule a resource, use the following parameters with the Set-MailboxCalendarSettings command:

AllBookInPolicy
AllRequestInPolicy
AllRequestOutOfPolicy
BookInPolicy
RequestInPolicy
RequestOutOfPolicy
ForwardRequestsToDelegates
TentativePendingApproval
ResourceDelegates

To control when a resource can be scheduled, use the following parameters with the Set-MailboxCalendarSettings command:

AllowConflicts
BookingWindowInDays
EnforceSchedulingHorizon
MaximumDurationInMinutes
AllowRecurringMeetings
ScheduleOnlyDuringWorkingHours
ConflictPercentageAllowed
MaximumConflictInstances

To control what meeting information will be visible on the resource's calendar, use the following parameters with the Set-MailboxCalendarSettings command:

DeleteAttachments
DeleteComments
RemovePrivateProperty
DeleteSubject
DisableReminders
AddOrganizerToSubject
DeleteNonCalendarItems
OrganizerInfo

To customize the response message that meeting organizers will receive, use the following parameters in the Set-MailboxCalendarSettings command:

AddAdditionalResponse
AdditionalResponse

Next: Part 17 – Managing Client Access

Part 15 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:19:05 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Administrative Tasks: Mailbox Permissions and Query-Based \ Dynamic Distribution Groups

Mailbox Permissions

In Exchange 2003, you used Active Directory Users and Computers to manage mailbox permissions for users.

In Exchange 2007, you use the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange Management Shell to configure mailbox permissions. Using the MEC we just right click on the mailbox and choose “Manage Full Access Permission”.

Add…

I’ll give Carl Sagan access to my mailbox.

And there is the cmdlet you would run from the shell

But, what if I didn’t want to give full mailbox permissions. What if I just wanted to give Send As permissions? In that case you would just click on “Manage Send As Permission”.

As you can see by default, only I (Self) have the right to send as myself. I click on “Add”.

I choose Carl again.

Now Carl can send as me.

And there is the cmdlet you would run from the shell.

Query-Based \ Dynamic Distribution Groups

In Exchange 2003, you created Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) queries to filter recipients using the Active Directory Users and Computers (ADU&C).

When finished creating a QBDG you can see the LDAP query.

The name has changed in Exchange 2007 as well as the tool that you use to create it. It is now called a Dynamic Distribution Group and you create it using the Exchange Management Console at the Recipient Configuration level.

Lets walk through the wizard… Here we put in the standard details.

You have the option to set the scope to an OU here if you would like.

Here you can set more conditions like Company name.

Here is the summary.

And the final part of the wizard shows the cmdlet to run again.

But, what if the wizard doesn’t have all of the options that you want to filter on? In that case you would need to us OPATH syntax for a custom filter. What is OPATH? It is the basis for the filtering syntax used by PowerShell. It has been around for some time and was actually used before Exchange 2007, but it looks like we are the heaviest users of it now. You can find more about it at http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/10/432143.aspx.

OPATH allows you to use –and, –or, –not, –eq (Equals), –ne (Not Equals), –lt (Less Than), –gt (Greater Than), like, and –notlike in your filters. In some cases you can also use wildcards.

If you have an LDAP filter that you would like to try to convert to an OPATH filter for Exchange 2007, you may find that the script found at this blog may be helpful.

Next: Part 16 – Administrative Tasks: Resource Scheduling

Part 14 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:26:22 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Administrative Tasks: Creating Mailboxes and Exmerge

Creating Mailboxes

In Exchange 2003, you created a mailbox for a user by using Active Directory Users and Computers.

In Exchange 2007, you can use the Exchange Management Shell or the Exchange Management Console to create a mailbox for an existing user.

As you can see there are a number of different type of mailboxes that can be created.

Here are some example cmdlets to create mailboxes. The first is the way to do it when you want to create a mailbox with a new user account.

New-Mailbox -Alias chris -Database "Storage Group 1\Mailbox Database 1" -Name ChrisAshton -OrganizationalUnit Users -FirstName Chris -LastName Ashton -DisplayName "Chris Ashton" -UserPrincipalName ChrisAshton@contoso.com

If you want to just mailbox enable an account then, you would use the enable-mailbox cmdlet.

Enable-Mailbox john@contoso.com -Database "MyServer\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database"

Exmerge (or Merging Mailboxes)

In Exchange 2003, you used Mailbox Merge to extract data from mailboxes on an Exchange server, and then merged this data into mailboxes on another Exchange server.

In Exchange 2007, you cannot use ExMerge.exe to export mailboxes. You must use the Export-Mailbox cmdlet to export all message types, including messages, calendar items, contacts, distribution lists, journal entries, tasks, notes, and documents.

If you want to export files to a .pst that means that you will need to install the 32 bit Exchange Tools and also install an Outlook client. You will also need to use Add-MailboxPermission to grant access to the account that you are doing this with.

Let’s walk through this whole process of exporting the data of a mailbox to a pst.

It is very simple to run: Export-Mailbox, the ID (in this case I used the alias), and the folder path to the filename.pst. This is what you get when you just run the command from a machine that has the Exchange 32 bit tools installed but no Outlook.

I then installed Outlook.

Ok, this went further, but then gave me this <Sarcastic> “Very descriptive” </Sarcastic> error. ID no: all zeros… Nice. Turns out that means that I don’t have permissions to do this.

So I added the necessary permissions using Add-MailboxPermission and it runs successfully after that.

Next: Part 15 – Administrative Tasks: Mailbox Permissions and Query-Based \ Dynamic Distribution Groups

Part 13 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:23:30 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Administrative Tasks: Recovery Storage Groups

In Exchange 2003, you had the option of mounting a second copy of a database in a Recovery Storage Group to extract data from one or more mailboxes.

In Exchange 2007, you do not create recovery storage groups the same way. You use the Database Recovery Management tool, which is found in the Toolbox. The screenshots are included below for you to peruse…

Next: Part 14 – Administrative Tasks: Creating Mailboxes and Exmerge

Part 12 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:22:01 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Administrative Tasks – Public Folder Management and Public Folder Permissions

Public Folder Management

Here is how you managed public folders in 2003. I’m sure you are all very aware of how to do this.

In Exchange 2007, public folders are optional if you only have Outlook 2007 clients. Exchange does not require you to use public folders to distribute OAB downloads and free and busy data. OABs can now be distributed by a Web-based method. Free and busy data is now provided by the Availability service.

In SP1 on Exchange 2007 we added the Public Folder Management Console which is found in the toolbox.

If I view the properties of Public Folders here, it looks very similar to what we saw in Exchange 2003.

Public Folder Permissions

To change client permissions on public folders in Exchange 2003 you could use Outlook or ESM.

In addition, public folder administrative rights were administered in both the Exchange System Manager and Active Directory.

In Exchange 2007, public folder client permissions can be administered by using Outlook and the Exchange Management Shell.

Here a public folder was created using New-PublicFolder and then owner client permissions were added using the Add-PublicFolderClientPermission. To add Administrator permissions, you can use Add-PublicFolderAdministratorPermission.

Next: Part 13 – Administrative Tasks: Recovery Storage Groups

Part 11 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:04:21 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Administrative Tasks – MBConn.exe and Offline Address Books

MBConn.exe

In Exchange 2003, Mbconn.exe was used in a disaster recovery scenario to connect mailboxes to the Active Directory directory service accounts.

If you remember in Exchange 5.5 when you restored a Store database to a new server that had a blank directory, you could run DS/IS consistency adjuster and it would look at the Store for details and then create what it could in the directory. Since we didn’t have that in 2000/3, we introduced MBConn which would do the same thing – look into the store for details and create a LDF file that you could then import in to the AD.

It also would connect those mailboxes as well.

MBConn won’t work against Exchange 2007 so there is a script available that will create an LDF file for you as well. You can find that script here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb430758(EXCHG.80).aspx

Once you have run that script and imported the .LDF file, you connect the mailbox by going to the disconnected mailbox and right clicking on it and choosing “Connect”.

Choose the type of mailbox it is.

Find the “Matching user” by browsing…

And “Connect” it.

And below is the command you could run. You may want to use the console in this case. :)

Offline Address Books / Lists

In Exchange 2003, you created an OAB by using the Exchange System Manager. The OAB was distributed to client applications, such as Outlook by using the public folder distribution method.

In Exchange 2007, you do not need public folders to distribute OABs. You can use the new Web-based distribution method.

Understanding Offline Address Books

Here is what you will see from the Shell using the Get-OfflineAddressBook CMDLet.

Next: Part 12 – Administrative Tasks: Public Folder Management and Public Folder Permissions

Part 10 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:06:52 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Administrative Tasks – Mailbox Manager vs. Messaging Records Management

Mailbox Manager was a feature in Exchange 2003 and in Exchange 2000 Server that ran as part of the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service. Exchange Mailbox Manager policies were set using the age and size limits for message folders.

In Exchange 2007, Messaging records management (MRM) is the service that helps organizations to reduce the legal risks that are associated with e-mail and other communications.

1. You can select a managed default folder like the Inbox, calendar, or the entire mailbox. And/or you can create a managed custom folder that will get added to mailboxes.

2.T hen you create content settings on the folders

3. Then you create a managed folder policy

4. Apply the policies to the mailboxes

5. Schedule the folder assistant.

6. And let it run

Let walk through each of these.

Creating a Custom Managed Folder

Lets say I wanted to move all mail that is older than 90 days out of the mailbox and into another folder in the mailbox. First I would create a custom managed folder that would keep that mail over 90 days.
From the EMC, I would do it this way.

A wizard pops up with these settings

And there is the folder. Notice the Shell command is populated there as well.

Applying managed content settings to Default Folders

Now to create content setting for the Entire mailbox

Here are the settings. Notice that I am moving the content to the Custom folder that I just created.

There also is an option to journal the messages as well.

Configuration summary

And the shell command as well.

Creating a New Managed Folder Mailbox Policy

Now to create a policy.

Adding the managed folders

And the shell command.

Applying the Managed Mailbox Policy

Now I just need to apply the policy to the mailboxes that I want to do this on.

Under mailbox settings, click the properties of MRM.

And choose the policy to set.

You can also set the policy on the mailbox using Set-Mailbox cmdlet:

Set-Mailbox -Identity <MailboxIdParameter> -ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy "My Managed Folder Mailbox Policy"

Scheduling the Managed Folder Assistant

The schedule of the Managed folder assistant can be found on the properties of the mailbox server.

The schedule page looks like pretty much every other one in Exchange.

Of course this also can be done from the Set-MailboxServer cmdlet:

Set-MailboxServer -Identity MyMailboxServer -ManagedFolderAssistantSchedule "Sun.14:00-Sun.13:00"

Next: Part 11 – Administrative Tasks: MBConn.exe and Offline Address Books

Part 9 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:00:26 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Administrative Tasks - Address Lists

In Exchange 2003, you created and edited address lists by using the Exchange System Manager.

In Exchange 2007, you manage address lists by using the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange Management Shell.

A couple of things about doing this either way:

If you use the Exchange Management Console for this task, the New Address List wizard will guide you through the process of creating and applying the new address list. When you create an address list, you are essentially creating a blank container with settings. The container is not populated with recipients until the address list has been applied.

If you use the Exchange Management Shell, you will use the New-AddressList cmdlet to create the address list and the Update-AddressList cmdlet to apply it.

In Exchange 2007, you can view the members of an address list in the Exchange Management Console by using the New Address List or the Edit Address List wizards. However, if you used the Exchange Management Shell to create the address list, you cannot use the Exchange Management Console to view the members of the list. Instead, you must use the Get-Recipient cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell. An example of this would be

Get-Recipient –Filter {AddressListMembership –q ‘<DistinguishedName of Address list>’}

If you just want to modify an existing address list, you would use Set-AddressList.

Administrative Tasks - Diagnostic Logging

In Exchange 2003, you would change the diagnostic logging level by using the EMS or the Registry Editor.

At the time of this writing, in Exchange 2007, there was no way to modify diagnostic logging via the Exchanger Management Console. However… You *may* find this useful if you really, really need to have a GUI. Your results may vary.

In Exchange 2007, you can determine the logging level by running the Get-EventLogLevel cmdlet, and then configure it by using the Set-EventLogLevel cmdlet.

How to Change Logging Levels for Exchange Processes.

The possible logging levels that you can set are: 0 (Lowest), 1 (Low), 3 (Medium), 5 (High), and 7 (Expert). The default logging level is 0 (Lowest). You should always return the logging level to the default setting after completing your troubleshooting activities.

Next: Part 10 – Administrative Tasks: Mailbox Manager vs. Messaging Records Management

Part 8 - I used to do it this way… Now how do I do it? Administering Exchange 2003 vs. Exchange 2007

GerodS — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:47:24 GMT

To return to part 1 click here

Setting Recipient Policies in Exchange 2003

In Exchange 2003, the recipient policy object defined the proxy addresses that are stamped onto the recipient objects as you can see below:

It also set the domains for which e-mail is accepted into the organization for an authoritative domain. That is what the check box is saying: “We not only accept this domain, but we are also authoritative for this domain.”

Doing the same thing in Exchange 2007

In Exchange 2007, recipient policies are separated into e-mail address policies and accepted domains. They are completely separate settings in Exchange 2007; however, any accepted domains will be available to the e-mail address policy. In addition, there are three new concepts regarding the types of accepted domains that you can have in Exchange 2007:

Authoritative Domain - E-mail is delivered to a recipient in this Exchange organization. This type of accepted domain replaces the Exchange 2003 check box: “This Exchange organization is responsible for all mail delivery to this address”.
Internal Relay Domain - E-mail is relayed to an e-mail server in another Active Directory forest in the organization. This type of accepted domain is the equivalent of clearing the “This Exchange organization is responsible for all mail delivery to this address” check box in Exchange 2003 and also configuring a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) connector with the Relay to these address spaces setting.
External Relay Domain - E-mail is relayed to an e-mail server outside the organization by the Edge Transport server. There isn't an Exchange 2003 equivalent for the external relay domain.

Policies from Exchange 2003 that you want to update in Exchange 2007 will need to upgraded using the cmdlet Set-EmailAddressPolicy with –ForceUpgrade. Until then you will see the warning below.

Now do you need to do this as soon as you have Exchange in your environment? No, you will only need to upgrade these if they need to be modified.

Once these are upgraded you can modify these via the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) using the cmdlet Set-EmailAddressPolicy. After modified you can use the cmdlet Update-EmailAddressPolicy to apply the policy to all recipients.

To create accepted domains use the cmdlet New-AcceptedDomain with –DomainType parameter. The domain type options are Authoritative, Internal Relay, or External Relay.

Next: Part 9 – Administrative Tasks: Address Lists and Diagnostic Logging