TechNet UK Exchange Tour Unplugged

Grande Finale of 2005 Exchange Tour Unplugged

2005-12-14T18:32:00Z

Phew! Today marks the end of our 2005 Exchange Tour Unplugged! We (the speakers) have all been on an epic journey around the UK, met hundreds of great people and been overwhelmed by your kind comments and feedback. Thanks to everyone who joined any of our sessions. We hope the information we shared is helpful for you, however you choose to use it. We had several requests for repeat performances in 2006 and will wait until we all return rested after the Christmas break before formulating our next plan. Let us know if you'd like to know more about migrating your organisation from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange Server 2003. You can contact the speakers by clicking the Contact link over there on the left. Or simply by clicking here.

Best wishes for 2006! Over and out for now.

</Allister>

Email Security 360 - free webcast

2005-12-14T14:22:00Z

[Allister]

This looks interesting... Mike Nash, Microsoft's Corporate VP for the Security Business and Technology Unit (SBTU) is giving some live webcasts as part of a new programme called Security 360. The next webcast is all about email security and runs on December 20th at 5pm UK time. Find out more at http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/mikenash.mspx.

[/Allister]

Changing OL Profile

2005-12-12T13:43:00Z

...Brett

During the tour I had numerous questions around updating OL profiles, if the move mailbox method does not update the attributes in AD.

Mailbox servers can refer Outlook to the correct server after mailboxes have been moved within an administrative group, but this process does not work correctly for mailboxes that are moved across an administrative group. Security settings for e-mail mesages, calendaring, free and busy information, public folder moderation, and delegation may not work. You must update the profile for 100 percent functionality after such a move. A profile redirector tool has been created to address this situation. This tool is named the Exchange Profile Update tool (ExProfRe).

You can run the ExProfRe tool by using logon scripts or by using Group Policy. Or, you can run the ExProfRe tool at a command prompt to make the needed changes to an Outlook profile. The ExProfRe tool is a part of the Exchange Server 2003 Web Release. To obtain this tool, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=56F45AC3-448F-4CCC-9BD5-B6B52C13B29C&displaylang=en

Live in Edinburgh

2005-12-09T17:14:00Z

[Allister]

Ah! We've had a fun three weeks! We've finally arrived at the last gig of our roadshow in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. We've been to nine great venues, spoken to hundreds of IT Professionals, stayed in a very diverse range of hotels and taken the mickey out of each other incessantly! We hope you had a chance to join us at one of our events. If you didn't, do get in touch. If there's enough demand we'll go back on the road in 2006 and may be able to come to a town near you. Next week we'll be on Microsoft Campus in Thames Valley Park. Hope to see you there. Have a good weekend!

[/Allister]

Preventing Directory Harvesting using Tarpitting

2005-12-09T15:55:00Z

Eileen....

Tarpitting seems to stump most of us when searching through the knowledge base for how to reduce the prevalence of Directory Harvesting attacks. Tarpitting is the practice of deliberately inserting a delay into certain SMTP communications that are associated with spam or with other unwanted traffic. To be effective, these kinds of communications typically rely on generating a high volume of traffic. By slowing an SMTP conversation, you can dramatically reduce the rate at which automated spam can be sent or at which a dictionary attack can be conducted.

To enable tarpitting
The tar pit feature can be enabled and configured by setting a registry key. To do this, follow these steps.
Note: If the TarpitTime registry entry does not exist, Exchange behaves as if the value of this registry entry were set to 0. When the registry entry has a value of 0, there is no delay when the SMTP address verification responses are sent.

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click to select the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SMTPSVC\Parameters
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type TarpitTime as the registry entry name, and then press ENTER.
5. On the Edit menu, click Modify.
6. Click Decimal.
7. In the Value data box, type the number of seconds that you want to delay SMTP address verification responses for each address that does not exist. Then, click OK. For example, type 5, and then click OK. This delays SMTP address verification responses for 5 seconds.
8. Quit Registry Editor.
9. Restart the Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) service.

There's a good explanation about Tarpitting over on the Exchange team blog, and you can read more about Recipient filtering in the knowledge base article and also at David's blog...

Moving mailboxes using the Migration wizard in Exchange 2003

2005-12-09T15:48:00Z

Eileen...

So I had a question. How do you move mailboxes and data from and Exchange 2000 org to a different Exchange 2003 organsiation?

Well there's a problem as there are 2 organisations so, you can't use the Move Mailbox tool to move mailboxes between different Exchange Organisations. And it's not easy either. The tool that you should use is the Exchange Migration Wizard. You can run the tool in clone mode (run from the command line with the /m option) you may have some success... Follow the following steps;
1. Use ADMT to migrate the user accounts.
2. Identify the mailboxes that have delegates (do an LDIFDE export, or via some
other script - see below).
3. Migrate the delegate mailboxes.
4. Migrate the manager mailboxes.
5. Import the publicDelegates info into the manager mailboxes using LDIFDE.
6. Import the publicDelegatesBL info into the delegate mailboxes using LDIFDE.
Key is to migrate the mailboxes in the right order, delegates before managers. Also check to make sure the users old X500 DN is migrated as a proxy address onto their new user object.
I suggest you take a look at the following excellent reference to accessing permissions programmatically - http://gsexdev.blogspot.com/
Also check out http://msmvps.com/ehlo/articles/52855.aspx for a great way to help you migrate DL's.
And finally, the Inter-Org migration section in the Deployment Guide is a must-read = http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/Ex2k3DepGuide/37de2d3a-d42c-4a8f-af0e-c447db96dc71.mspx

Much easier to use the same organisation and use the Move Mailbox wizard...

ADMT

2005-12-08T18:42:00Z

...Brettjo

The latest version of ADMT V2 (Migration Tool) is here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=788975B1-5849-4707-9817-8C9773C25C6C&displaylang=en

Also take a look at the following articles:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;327928

Newcastle without a wallet

2005-12-08T18:38:00Z

[Allister]

Doh! I lost my wallet in Leeds. I guess it fell out of my pocket somewhere in the hotel. We searched everywhere for it but it was nowhere to be found. So I spent about an hour on the phone cancelling my cash/credit cards and started wondering how I would survive for 3 days without any money. Fortunately Brett was on hand to bail me out. He's been paying for everything since we left Leeds. Lovely fella. He's been like a dad to me this week!

Of course, shortly after we arrived in Newcastle I had a phone call from the Leeds hotel telling me that one of their good citizens had just handed my wallet in at reception. Hurrah! But a wallet in Leeds is not much use when you're in Newcastle.

My top tip: either (1) put your hand in your pocket and pay for one of those card protection schemes so someone else can cancel your cards for you or (2) carry a list of your credit card numbers and the emergency telephone numbers in your (PIN secured!) mobile phone memory. It'll save you a heap of time if your wallet ever gets stolen or lost.

We're off to Edinburgh soon. I hope Daddy Brett will still be happy to buy me drinks after we've crossed the border!

[/Allister]

Exmerge

2005-12-08T18:37:00Z

....Brettjo

In Newcasle today, a few people asked for details about ExMerge. If you go to the following URL you will be able to download the Util and relevant documentation,

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&familyid=429163ec-dcdf-47dc-96da-1c12d67327d5

Extra gig date: Reading, 14th December

2005-12-06T18:40:00Z

[Allister]

Back by popular demand!

We've added an extra gig date to the end of our tour and will be doing it all again next week on Wednesday 14th December at Microsoft Campus, Thames Valley Park, Reading. This gig is intended primarily for customers with a large number of users (>500) but everyone is welcome! To register visit www.microsoft.com/uk/exchangeunplugged and click on the Reading 14th Dec link. Or just go straight to the registration site at http://msevents-eu.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=118765694&Culture=en-GB.

[/Allister]

Week 3: We're in Leeds

2005-12-05T21:10:00Z

[Allister]

The Unplugged gang is starting to arrive in Leeds after our weekend break and a quick dive into the office to catch up with colleagues. We'll be filming tomorrow's Unplugged event and hope to be able to post some of the footage on TechNet's IT's Showtime later this month. So, if you haven't been able to get a seat at one of the gigs, you won't miss out completely. There are literally a handful of seats left for the Newcastle and Edinburgh gigs and you can register your place at www.microsoft.com/uk/exchangeunplugged. Hope to see you at one of the events soon.

[/Allister]

System Center Capacity Planner 2006

2005-12-04T22:05:15Z

[John]

I know a lot of you are currently designing your Exchange implementations, so I thought this tool might be of use to you.

It’s called the System Center Capacity Planner and is currently in Beta – I’ve taken this chunk of information directly from the FAQ on what the benefits are :-

Efficiently plan deployments for Exchange 2003 and Microsoft Operations Manger 2005

Provide guidance for system sizing and architecture

Provide "What-if" analysis capability: hardware, software, topology

Justify infrastructure investments

Increase confidence in purchasing decisions
Justify expenditure to management

Meet performance expectations

Ensure that deployments meet service level agreements
Ensure increased up time and more satisfied end users

Prepare for the future

Ensure that capacity meets future business requirements
Provide sufficient data to make the right trade-offs

Just remember it is in BETA so all the usual caveats with regards to stability, performance and information apply :-)

[/John]

Useful Messaging Hygiene Links

2005-12-02T13:24:00Z

[John]

I just thought I’d do a quick post with some useful links with regards to keeping your Exchange Servers safe from spammers and the like.

The first of these is with regards to tarpitting, so called because it makes the connection “sticky”. You can use this technique to slow down certain communications between you and a potential spammer.

I got asked the question the other day on how you could see the Spam Confidence Level associated with a specific message – Well the Exchange Team have a great article on their blog on how you can create an Outlook form to do just this.

And my final link is to a nice little utility on the gotdotnet site – It’s an IMF Archive Manager which gives you a tree view of the mail archived by the IMF tool and allows you to forward the mail, resubmit it or just delete it

[/John]

Implementing RPC over HTTP

2005-12-01T16:46:00Z

Eileen here.....

I seem to get more questions about using RPC over HTTP than anything else, and here at Chesterfield has been no exception. We use RPC over HTTP at Microsoft, and I hardly ever use VPN just to get my mails. This is simple to implement, providing you follow the setup instructions and works really well.

So here's what you need to do...

1: Read the benefits that you get with RPC over HTTP

2: Read the RPC over HTTP Deployment scenarios document

3: Make sure you comply with the System Requirements documentation

4: Follow the steps in the how to Deploy RPC over HTTP on a front end server document

So if something goes wrong with your deployment, you'll need to do a bit of troubleshooting so that you can identify where you may have had a problem. For this, you need to have a look at one of my previous blog entries where I talked about this very topic...

And this is what you need to deploy RPC over HTTP and get truly mobile..

Eileen Brown

Some helpful web links

2005-12-01T15:01:00Z

[Allister posting...]

Ah! I love the smell of Chesterfield in the morning!

I've had a lot of questions asking for some good pointers to online resources where Exchange 5.5 customers can read up further on the process for upgrading to Exchange Server 2003. I've added some links on the left hand side of this blog called 'Ex5.5 Upgrade Advice', 'Why Upgrade' and 'Features at a Glance'. If you need any more information, just give me a shout by hitting the Contact link.