I was glad to see that we have a KB article stating this.  (Very well written, Nino...)  It is a very lo-o-o-ng title:  "Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 performance may be affected when desktop search engine software is running on Outlook or other MAPI client computers"

The article does a good job of explaining under what circumstances you will see the issue.  This is yet another good reason to run Outlook in cached mode in your organization.  Also included is a link to the ExMon tool to identify who are the culprits. 

I use the MSN search tool exclusively now and love it.  But I also know that I am running in cached mode, so I know that I am not causing any issues with my Exchange servers.  Excellent.

Microsoft has for some time given as a general rule of thumb the guideline that you should have 1 Global Catalog processor for every 4 Exchange server processors (1:4).  But that was before we had a 64bit option to run GCs...

We are seeing internally that we can run closer to a ratio of 1 64bit GC processor for every 6 or 7 32bit Exchange 2003 processors when we run our GCs with a 64bit OS instead (1:6/7).  Why?  Since we have more memory that is usable we can load the entire AD in cache if needed.  With a 32bit OS we could only cache at the most 2.6GB of the AD, but with the 64bit OS we can go up to many terabytes if needed.  Our AD is larger than 9 GB so you can see why we would go 64 bit instead.  If your AD is large then you may want to consider the usefulness of upgrading to 64bit as well.

Take a look at the following post for more information:

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2005/03/10/392935.aspx

Recently I got asked (again) about running the Exchange System Manager (ESM) on Windows XP.  It works, but what if you use Outlook on the same machine?  It is officially unsupported.  Or to state it another way, if you have a problem with Outlook or the ESM and don't have the problem on a machine that doesn't have the other product installed, then we won't fix it.  After all, Outlook and Exchange aren't supported on the same machine:

266418 Microsoft does not support installing Exchange Server components and Outlook on the same computer
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=266418

So, what can you do?  Large companies often have helpdesk people that need to make changes to the mail attributes of users and they can't do that unless they have the ESM installed otherwise the tabs don't show up in the Active Directory Users and Computers (ADU&C), right?  Yeah, pretty much.  So what are the options? 

I asked around and here are the replies:

·        Microsoft's official recommendation is that your administrators connect to a Terminal server that has the tools you need installed. 

·        Another option is to run a Virtual PC on the Windows side that has the tools installed. 

·        The Enterprise solution for most companies however seems to be using third-party solutions (like web applications) to make the changes. 

·        Others look at the potential issues and have decided to just got ahead and do the unsupported.  It works for them.

The thing is that even in Exchange 5.5, the Admin.exe wasn’t officially supported on the desktop with Outlook as well, but most people did it.   Where Microsoft doesn't excel, the best solution often is an opportunity for our partners. 

What is your solution?  What are you doing to work around this?  I'm interested in what the majority of you are doing.  Email me or post below.  I'll post the results later.

I was spending some time reading one of my favorite magazines, Redmond Magazine, this morning.  If it doesn't sound familiar to you, it used to be the Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine.  On the last page I'm reading the "Ten Useful Microsoft Blogs" article and I see that at number 7 is "You had me at EHLO", and I'm happy to see that Exchange got represented.  Those guys work hard on their content and they deserve to be mentioned.  I know I read it.  Then I do a quick glance to see if I know any others that are mentioned and I see a few others that I know as well.  Then as I am putting the article down something catches my eye...  Number 4.  Me.  Wow.  "Sporadic"?  Yeah, I'll agree with you there, Mr. Desmond.  I do this when I have "spare time" that isn't better utilized helping my customers who pay specifically for my service.  I'd love to do this full time.  But wow...  I'm just glad someone noticed.  Thanks for the kudos.