LCSKid

Important Lync for Mac 2011 update for meeting join issues

Tom Laciano — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:30:01 GMT

This week we see a really important update for companies using Lync for Mac 2011. A big thanks goes to 2 customers in our Lync Online Dedicated environment that persevered and pressed through the analysis as the behavior had an odd pattern. Customers would comment they could join 1 or 2 meetings and then by the 3rd meeting there would be a problem connecting with all modalities. Customers would workaround by dialing in to the Lync bridge number, join via the Lync Web App, even use a Windows virtual machine on the Mac and sometimes a hard reboot. None of these are desired over the long term.

Microsoft Lync for Mac 2011 14.0.4 Hotfix 1 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=2836517&wa=wsignin1.0

This fixes two issues

2837047 Error message when you try to join an online meeting on a Lync for Mac 2011-based device

2837048 Desktop sharing or video sharing session disconnects when you use Lync for Mac 2011

Here's to these fixes making substantial improvement to your end user experience with your Mac user base.

TomL LCSKid

LUMT - Lync User Management Tool from Stefan Plizga

Tom Laciano — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:52:50 GMT

Are you an IT manager or a partner working with a company needing additional flexibility around user management with Lync?

Stefan Plizga has a tool http://lumt.codeplex.com/ described as: Lync User Management Tool (LUMT) enables administrators to manage contacts, ACEs and Privacy settings on behalf of Lync Server 2013 users.

Watching our MVP community discuss this tool, the ACE (Access Control Entries) and Privacy settings are key draw for this tool.

TomL LCSKid

Disclaimer - I have not installed and used the tool in my lab at this time.

Lync for Mac 2011 Meeting Join Failure, update 14.0.4

Tom Laciano — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 01:54:00 GMT

February 6 Update: (Happy Birthday Sophia!) After writing this post, we posted the 14.0.4 update for the Lync for Mac client - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2778095. The customer and I are still monitoring his situation but initially it looks positive. The true big bang with this update is support for more devices. Justin Morris also blogged (http://www.justin-morris.net/update-14-0-for-lync-for-mac-2011-released-now-makes-all-usb-audio-devices-work/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=update-14-0-for-lync-for-mac-2011-released-now-makes-all-usb-audio-devices-work) on this topic and links to the download article

Original Post

I had a customer issue where Lync for Mac 2011 was failing to join meetings in our Lync Online Dedicated topology. They shared logs and I felt it was likely a keychain issue but then I was able to reproduce the problem at home on my MacBook Pro. The local repro allowed me to review my network settings and log file closer and after searching I used the following 2 articles. The customer followed these article also and was able to login, we will monitor over the coming days to be sure. Both the customer and I had taken the Keychain troubleshooting tasks before with no success so he and I are thinking the DNS FlushCache is the likely solution.

1. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2629861

I flushed the DNS Cache and removed the Keychain entry. Of note I also went through every entry and removed any certificate showing with red X’s.

2. http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/lyncdeploy/item/b4b71856-a7a5-467e-8425-238b3eaaa993?category=8cd683fd-c4a6-4520-a360-ac81632dadcb

I skipped step 3 which was the uninstall part of the article and simply deleted all the various file references. An interesting item I would say is that I tried to delete this keychain entry (OC__KeyContainer__<e-mail>) above and it prompted for credentials never deleting it, somehow during this step it worked. I can only think that I did this in another manner or possibly Lync was still running the first time.

I am following up with our content teams to try and combine all the information along with my notes in order that we have 1 all encompassing list of options. As well the customer and I will be testing and if possible do our best to track it down to what we think is the minimal steps to take to resolve.

TomL LCSKid

Interesting learning for process determining voice supported countries with Office365 Lync Dedicated

Tom Laciano — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:02:55 GMT

When you see, hear or read about Office 365 the dialog is almost always about the broad offering we refer to as Multitenant or Shared, however there is a small group of customers deployed in our Dedicated environment. The regions currently providing voice services (PSTN Conferencing and PSTN dial-in/dial-out) are in North America (NOAM or NA) and Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA).

We just completed an exercise reviewing the list of supported countries in these regions as well as the Asia Pacific (APAC) region which we anticipate being available in the future. Going through this exercise I learned that there are 3 variables to consider and an interesting overlap between them.

1. We first start with a legal review of whether the voice services are even allowed in a region.

2. We calculate the distance of a country to the regional datacenter

3. We apply any United States program sanctions

The piece I found interesting was that a country could be allowed voice services legally but then removed due to U.S. sanctions.

TomL LCSKid

Service Descriptions for Dedicated Subscription Plans - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=18128

OT: Mouse wheel Macro for Windows8

Tom Laciano — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 15:46:34 GMT

Thanks to my teammate Andre for sharing this great switching method using the wheel button on the mouse.

Download the Mouse and Keyboard Center 2.0 (formerly IntelliPoint and IntelliType Pro) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35379 Note this will require a reboot.
Open Control Panel and Mouse. I went to the top right corner which brings up the menu and I pick settings and then control panel. You can also select the All Apps option on the Windows 8 tile screen and scroll to find Control Panel.
The Mouse and Keyboard Center tab should open with a url to change the mouse settings.
In this new Microsoft and Mouse and Keyboard Center app, select the Wheel Button and Macros
For the new macro press the CTRL key and then ESC. While the keystroke itself is pressing the buttons at the same time, the macro fails to get created this way. I also found that after pressing CTRL and then ESC the macro assumed and inserted a 10ms delay which I selected and deleted.
The new apps don't have an active save button, you simply make your change and close it.

Now you press the wheel button and switch between the Windows 8 default Tile screen and your desktop view. A great efficient method of navigating.

TomL LCSKid

NextHop post on Z-Hire tool for How to Automate the New Account Creation Process

Tom Laciano — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 21:26:11 GMT

We have a recent post for Lync Server 2010 on NextHop http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2012/09/10/how-to-automate-your-new-account-creation-process.aspx and I was looking for input as I reviewed the article and tool and thought it to be a solid solution but I don't have to admin a topology every day. If you try the tool and have feedback, you need to let the tool author know but I would value hearing what you say as well.

Hoping we helped you find a useful tool for your day job,

TomL LCSKid

Lync 2013 Persistent Chat - Group Chat done right

Tom Laciano — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 20:12:57 GMT

I have worked with Group Chat for some time and it was always a love/hate affair. What the product offered was well understood and when used right helped reduce the need for email. The downside was the solution was difficult to install and manage (this is being polite <grin>). The release of Lync 2013 is pending and Group Chat gets a real upgrade becoming Persistent Chat in name. This time around I played more with the client experience as it is now part of the Lync 2013 client but have not worked on the admin side of the feature.

See this post on Next Hop to read more on the new feature - http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2012/08/28/lync-server-13-preview-what-s-new-in-persistent-chat-server.aspx

TomL LCSKid

How does Lync QOE determine the connection as a VPN?

Tom Laciano — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:31:00 GMT

October 19 update due to a follow up question from a peer

This article speaks to a known issue under Vista http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928906
You can check the network properties of the connection and see if Windows displays this as a VPN. The Windows OS is checking this same flag so if set correctly, Windows will show the VPN specific property tab.
The VPN vendor could write code to check the flags per http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365941(v=VS.85).aspx

Please remember I am not a developer so if you require more assistance I would need to suggest the TechNet and MSDN forums or open a support ticket to investigate the VPN solution.

Original Article

When you find yourself reviewing the Quality of Experience (QOE) data for calls there will be calls noted as VPN as seen in this image (I blacked out the IP address details):

The question many customers have is how is a call identified as VPN? The answer below comes courtesy of William, one of our Voice Program Managers.

The VPN flag in QoE is set based on the a property exposed (IfType) to the OS by the VPN network driver. If this value is set incorrectly, it is possible that the VPN flag will not be set correctly. Specifically I think we are looking for IF_TYPE_TUNNEL (131)

Here is link to MSDN site about the IfType: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366058(v=vs.85).aspx

If a customer has commented that the QoE flag is not set correctly, what type of VPN are they using?

When they connect, does Windows identify that it is a VPN connection?

TomL LCSKid

PowerShell script to export #Lync tbxml to Visio and Excel

Tom Laciano — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:59:00 GMT

Update June 28 - Want to see what happens when your personal blog recieves professional editing? See this post on Next Hop - http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2012/06/28/how-to-create-visio-and-excel-output-from-a-tbxml-file.aspx

I encountered a customer deployment in Office365 Dedicated where I needed to gain clarity on their deployed Lync topology. It was rather easy to ask the team for the Topology Builder output – tbxml but reading that in raw text is not preferred and while I installed the Topology Builder and could view it, that too is not what I wanted to see.

I did a quick search and found a blog that read as exactly what I wanted: Making sense of a TBXML

To resolve the unsigned script I recalled I needed to change a “permission” and ultimately found the syntax here Be mindful to Start PowerShell using ‘Run as Administrator’

Set-Executionpolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Trying to run the script immediately resulted in lots of errors and no exported content. I grabbed Office 2010, Visio 2010 and the Visio Templates as required and found success.

Here are screen shots of the Excel

Lync Sites and Servers tab, more content exists than what is shown

Management Info tab

Services tab, more content exists than what is shown

Visio Screen Shot

This was a great hour or two diversion from my normal project management duties and glad the script delivered what it promised.

TomL LCSKid

Certificate Authorities and PKI: It’s like the mafia

Tom Laciano — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:42:36 GMT

I visited Redmond at the end of March and while there we were discussing certificates and PKI. Nick a recent Lync Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) was sharing how he explained how certificate authorities worked and he gave me permission to post on his behalf.

Here is Nick sharing his wisdom

Think of PKI like the mafia, its a big bunch of old-boys who know each other. One vouches for another... "this guy is a friend of ours". In this case, the guy being vouched for was being vouched for by some unknown capo from some other family.

TomL LCSKid – Nick trusts me, so can you