[Today's post comes to us courtesy of Shawn Sullivan, Gagan Mehra, and Sabir Chandwale from Commercial Technical Support]
SharePoint Services have been an integral part of Small Business product line since SBS 2003. It serves as a secure web based collaboration platform that is easy to deploy, maintain, and protect. Among the standard features that have been available since the 2003 days are:
Historically, SBS 2003 and later has always deployed the latest freely downloadable edition of SharePoint at the time of product release. The benefit that SBS provides is that it automatically installs Sharepoint during initial setup and creates team homepage that is ready for immediate use for internal users. This involves several configuration tasks in IIS, DNS, Active Directory, Sharepoint specific security objects, Exchange configuration, and fax configuration that would otherwise have to be completed manually by a skilled administrator.
Windows SharePoint Foundation 2010 is the version that ships with the new SBS 2011 Standard edition. Below are some changes within the SharePoint product itself that administrators of its predecessor, Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 on SBS 2008, should be aware of:
You can view the list of improvements in this version of Sharepoint at the following “What’s New” link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee518670.aspx
SharePoint 2010 Learning Resources: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=189312
Downloads: http://technet.microsoft.com/hi-in/library/cc288773(en-us).aspx
[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of John Bay from Commercial Technical Support]
Patching SharePoint is a two-step process. The updated binaries are first installed and then psconfig must be run to update the SharePoint databases. SBS 2008 uses Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and updates automatically run PSconfig when installed via Automatic Updates or Windows Server Update Services. SharePoint Foundation 2010 changes the method in which patches are installed. PSconfig no longer runs automatically after an update is installed. The SharePoint binary files are updated with the patch but the databases are not automatically upgraded. SharePoint runs in a compatibility mode that still allows the sites to function with the older version databases. The SharePoint Health Analyzer will scan the databases every night at midnight to determine if an upgrade is required. If the SharePoint Health Analyzer detects an upgrade is required, it will log the following error in the application event log:
Log Name: Application Source: Microsoft-SharePoint Products-SharePoint Foundation Event ID: 2137 Task Category: Health Level: Error User: CONTOSO\spfarm Computer: CONTOSOSERVER.contoso.local
Description: The SharePoint Health Analyzer detected an error. Product / patch installation or server upgrade required. All required products must be installed on all servers in the farm, and all products should have the same patching and upgrade level across the farm.
Upgrade is required on server CONTOSOSERVER. Without the upgrade, the server is not in a supported state.
On server CONTOSOSERVER, once all required products and/or patches are installed, perform an upgrade by either running PSConfigUI.exe or by executing the command "PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures". If a former upgrade attempt has failed, you may need to resolve upgrade specific issues before attempting upgrade again. Refer to the upgrade status page (http://contososerver:19158/_admin/UpgradeStatus.aspx) for information about current and prior upgrade attempts, and to determine issues that may be preventing upgrade from succeeding. For more information about this rule, see "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=142700".
In order to update the SharePoint databases, you must manually run the PSconfig utility. To run the utility:
1. Open an Administrative command prompt. 2. Change directory to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN 3. Run PSConfig.exe -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -force -cmd applicationcontent -install -cmd installfeatures
Note: The Companyweb site will be inaccessible while the command is running. It is best to run the command after business hours. The amount of time the command takes to run will vary on the size of the database and the speed of the machine. On a reference machine with 8 logical processors, 32GB of RAM and a 2GB content database, the command took approximately 5 minutes to execute.
The SharePoint configuration wizard will launch and perform the configuration tasks. When the command is finished, you should see the following message:
Successfully completed the SharePoint Products configuration. Total number of configuration settings run: 6 Total number of successful configuration settings: 6 Total number of unsuccessful configuration settings: 0 Successfully stopped the configuration of SharePoint Products. Configuration of the SharePoint Products has succeeded.
For additional information on SharePoint Foundation 2010 patches see the following TechNet site: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff806326.aspx
[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Michael Leworthy from Windows Server Marketing]
I am happy to announce the launch of 14 SBS 2011 Hands-On-Labs to compliment the many resources we now have available for training. These are available for use 24 hours a day and can be launched through the links below. I have updated some of the previous content information previously released to now include the partnering HOLs and Walkthrough’s. Enjoy!
Access videos, Interactive HOL’s and click-thru demonstrations of the end-end demo’s for SBS 2011 Essentials and SBS 2011 Standard
This technical training course provides you with the knowledge and skills to install, configure, administer and troubleshoot a Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials infrastructure. The course focuses on deployment, configuration and administration using the SBS 2011 Essentials Server, Management Dashboard, and add-in extensions.
Access this entire 6 HOL training today online
Download the partnering Training PowerPoint’s (you can also download the HOL click-thru’s for each of these modules below in the Click Thru section)
This technical training course provides you with the knowledge and skills to install, configure, administer and troubleshoot a Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard infrastructure. The course focuses on deployment, configuration and administration in the SBS 2011 Standard console, and SBS 2011 Premium Add-on.
Download the Training PowerPoint’s, Videos and Click-Thru’s for this training
[Today’s post comes to us courtesy of Gagan Mehra and Wayne Gordon McIntyre from Commercial Technical Support]
There might be instances where an Exchange Administrator will need to export the contents of individual mailboxes to offline files (PST). With Exchange 2010 SP1 we have new set of PowerShell commandlets to export and import mailboxes to and from PST files. Exchange 2010 SP1 makes this much simpler by having its own PST reader and writer. If you recall from SBS 2008 there were a large number of requirements needed to be able to export/import PSTs. You can view the process of exporting/importing PSTS on SBS 2008 from the following blog post.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/01/13/sbs-2008-how-to-export-and-import-mailboxes-to-and-from-pst.aspx
Important: If you use PSTs to migrate mailboxes from one Exchange server to another instead of using a mailbox move request, you will need to read the following blogpost to correct a certain issue with replying to old email: http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/05/21/cannot-reply-to-old-emails-or-modify-old-calendar-items-after-pst-mail-migration.aspx
By default, no user is allowed to Import/Export the mailboxes from Exchange PowerShell. In order to view or run Import/Export Cmdlets in Exchange PowerShell, you need to be given explicit permission.
In order to provide a user with permission to Import and Export, you need to run the following command from Exchange Management Shell. You can also assign this permission to a group if necessary using the -Group option:
New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Role “mailbox import export” –User “Admin”
Once the above command is run, close and reopen the Exchange Shell as administrator. The Import and Export Cmdlets will now be available to the Admin user. You can now Export and Import mailboxes from Exchange Management Shell using the new MailboxExportRequest and MailboxImportRequest cmdlets.
With Exchange 2010 SP1, exporting a mailbox will be done by using “New-MailboxExportRequest” Cmdlet.
In order to Export the entire mailbox content to a PST file we need to run the following command:
New-MailboxExportRequest –Mailbox user –FilePath “\\<servername>\Sharename\user.pst”
Note that the -Mailbox and -FilePath parameters are the only required parameters of the cmdlet. Additionally the -FilePath parameter only accepts a UNC path (\\servername\share).
The “New-MailboxExportRequest” will trigger the export of the mailbox to a PST file and queue the request. In order to confirm the status of the mailbox export request we can run:
Get-MailboxExportRequest
In this case the mailbox export has completed successfully. If you wish to remove the completed mailbox export requests from the queue you can run:
Get-MailboxExportRequest -Status Completed | Remove-MailboxExportRequest
Exchange 2010 SP1 also provides you the granularity of Exporting particular data from a Mailbox by using the –IncludeFolders parameter. For Example, if you want to export only the Inbox of a mailbox then you can use –IncludeFolders parameter specifying the inbox folder..
For exporting only the inbox of a mailbox you have to use following command:
New-MailboxExportRequest –Mailbox “user” –FilePath “\\<servername\sharename\user.pst> -IncludeFolders “#Inbox#”
For exporting the messages that contain the words “company” and “profit” on the body of the message for user admin received before January 1, 2011 use the following command:
New-mailboxexportRequest –Mailbox Admin –ContentFilter {(body –like “*company*”) –and {body –like “*profit*”) –and (Received –lt “01/01/2011”)} –FilePath “\\<Servername>\PSTFileShare\Admin_CompanyProfits.pst”
These and many other examples of using this cmdlet can be found on the following Technet page or by using Get-Help New-MailboxExportRequest -Full
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607299.aspx
In a lot of cases you will probably want to export all the mailboxes at once to PST. In order to do this you can run the following command to export all mailboxes to a pre-created share named "PST":
$Export = get-mailbox; $Export|%{$_|New-MailboxExportRequest -FilePath \\localhost\PST\$($_.alias).pst}
Importing a PST file to a mailbox is very similar to the way you export mailbox to a PST file. You need to use the following command
New-MailboxImportRequest –Mailbox Admin –FilePath \\<Servername>\PSTFileShare\Admin.pst
Note: if you already have some data in the mailbox to which you are importing then the above command will merge the data with it.
To see the whether the Import has been completed you need to run the following command
Get-MailboxImportRequest
If you want to Import the PST file into a specified folder under the mailbox then we can use the following command with a –TargetRootFolder parameter which will create a specific folder and import all the data into it.
New-MailboxImportRequest –Mailbox Admin –FilePath “\\<server name>\PSTFileShare\admin.pst” -TargetRootFolder “RecoveredFiles”
Bulk Import also works very similar to the bulk Export. To import all of the PST files into their respective mailboxes run the following command:
$Import = get-mailbox; $Import|%{$_|New-MailboxImportRequest -FilePath "\\localhost\PST\$($_.alias).pst"}
*note: this also assumes that you originally exported the mailboxes using their alias as the pst file name.
Note: By Default, the import checks for the duplication of items and does not copy the data from the .pst file into the mailbox of matching items exists in the target mailbox.
With large mailboxes, the import and export requests may take a while to complete. If you need to view the status of an import or export request you can use the following commands (Test is the mailbox alias):
Get-MailboxExportRequestStatistics -Identity Test\MailboxExport
Or
Get-MailboxImportRequest -Identity Test\MailboxImport
More examples and detailed information can be found on the technet links below:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607427.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607297.aspx
[Today's post comes to us courtesy of Justin Crosby from Commercial Technical Support]
We have been receiving a few questions on whether or not Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 can be installed on SBS 2011 and wanted to provide the definitive answer on this blog. Yes, it can and should be installed on SBS 2011 Standard. Please note that SBS 2011 Essentials already has SP1 installed out of the box.
A good rule of thumb is that if the patch or service pack is offered to your SBS server on Windows Update, it is supported to be installed on SBS. The SBS SE team reviews patches and service packs before they are offered to SBS servers.
If you download the service pack manually you may notice that it is listed as Windows Small Business Server 2011 Service Pack 1. This is normal. Windows Small Business Server 2011 Service Pack 1 == Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1.
Please be sure to back up your server before installing any update.
[Today's post comes to us courtesy of John Bay and Wayne Gordon McIntyre from Commercial Technical Support]
The installation of Small Business Server 2011 Essentials may hang at the “Please wait while installation continues” screen:
At this point of the installation, setup is attempting to configure the network and acquire an IP address from a DHCP server. If it is unable to acquire an IP address from a DHCP server, the process will appear to hang.
You can press the Shift key in combination with the F10 key on the keyboard to launch a command prompt window. Use the ipconfig command to verify the IP address information of the server.
If the server has a 169.254.x.x address, then the server has not received an address from a DHCP server. You should make sure a DHCP server is properly configured and located on the same network segment as the SBS 2011 Essentials server. Sometimes it is necessary to disconnect the network card of the SBS 2011 Essentials server and reconnect it. Once the server has acquired an IP address, the setup should move automatically to the following screen:
If there is no DHCP server located on the network segment, you can use the following netsh command to assign a static IP address to the SBS 2011 Essentials server:
netsh interface ip set address "interface name" static ipaddr subnetmask gateway metric
Note: The interface name is obtained from the output of ipconfig (see above example).
The following example will configure the “Local Area Connection” interface on the server with a static IP address of 192.168.0.2, a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, and a default gateway of 192.168.0.1
netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" static 192.168.0.2 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.1 1
For additional information on the netsh utility see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc778503(WS.10).aspx
Once you set the IP address using the netsh command, you may need to disconnect the network cable from the network card and reconnect it to force the setup process to continue.