One of the first warmly welcomed new features included with the next release of Microsoft Office Outlook, being 2010,  is the ability to open up multiple mailboxes (up to 3 by default, and up to 15 using a registry entry) and the fact that when you send a message using one of the accounts the mail will be saved in the Sent Items folder of the sender’s mailbox.  When opening a shared mailbox in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, it required you to create at least a rule to have the message moved from the primary mailbox its Sent Items folder, to the shared mailbox its Sent Items…

But…it seems that ever since June 2009, 30, this isn’t necessary anymore!

Time to investigate :-)

Situation

Running Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Service Pack 2, and opening two mailboxes. Primary mailbox is the one belonging to the Administrator, and the profile is configured to open one additional mailbox, being the mailbox of Ilse Van Criekinge.

Outlook looks like:

When I click New, to send new mail, I can change the From Address to Ilse, and a message to someone else.

After clicking Send, I can see the mail will be delivered to Robin, as sent by Ilse, but the message is stored in the Sent Items folder of the Administrator!

Solution

Included with Microsoft Office Outlook 2010, it is possible to configure Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to act the same :-)

Looking at the following Knowledge Base Article:

You need Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Sp1 + HotFix from June 2009,30

Or Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Sp 2, and you need to add a DWORD_Value called DelegateSentItemsStyle, and set its value to 1 in the registry!

When sending a mail from Ilse after restarting Outlook, you will notice the mail is stored immediately in the Sent Items folder of the secondary mailbox!

Ilse

Last year I blogged about uploading a picture in Outlook 2010 using the power of the Exchange Management Shell in Exchange 2010 (http://blogs.technet.com/ilvancri/archive/2009/11/17/upload-picture-in-outlook-2010-using-the-exchange-management-shell-exchange-2010.aspx)

The following question came back to me:

Is it possible to add the pictures to an Ex2007 Sp1/Outlook 2007 system?

So here’s a follow-up to the first article, time to investigate if pictures can be uploaded in other versions of Exchange / Outlook / Active Directory…

Server environment =  Exchange 2003 sp2 (migex2k3) + Exchange 2007 sp2 (migex2k7) + Exchange 2010 (mailex2k10) + Active Directory 2008

Client environment = Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, and Outlook 2010

Mailboxes on all three servers

Running the below cmdlets on my Exchange 2010 server, shows that it is possible to use the shell to update this attribute for a mailbox located on Exchange 2010, ánd Exchange 2007,  but (sadly, yet expected) not for one located on Exchange 2003.

The picture itself is ONLY visible using Outlook 2010!

Outlook 2003 =

Outlook 2007 =

Outlook 2010 =

However, it is possible to populate the field in AD, and have a picture shown in Outlook 2010 for a mailbox-enabled user located on Exchange 2003 J

Using Outlook 2010, the picture is there :-)

One might wonder if it isn’t possible to use the address template editor in Exchange 2003, and/or  Exchange 2007  (more information here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232094(EXCHG.80).aspx)  to include the field thumbnailPhoto, but no it’s not.

-Ilse

Exchange 2010 enables you as an Exchange administrator, to give your users an archive. A lot has been said already about this feature, and I just want to take note of some facts and a persistent rumor concerning the online archive.

FACT 1 =  Accessible ONLINE using Microsoft Office Outlook 2010 and/or Outlook Web App (OWA)

If you have configured your mail profile to use cached mode, your will notice that your primary mailbox shows a connection status of Connected, where-as the online archive shows you Online.

When connection to the Exchange Mailbox Server is lost, the Online Archive will not be accessible:

FACT 2 =  Archive Mailbox resides in the same mailbox database as its primary mailbox

When moving a mailbox from one database to another database, you will always move the primary mailbox and the archive mailbox together.

Given the new online move, your mailbox-enabled users won’t be disconnected during the move from their mailbox or online archive!

FACT 3 = A mailbox-enabled user requires an Exchange Enterprise Client Access  License when giving the user an online archive

Here’s an overview from the additional features you gain when having an Enterprise Client Access License, as taken from http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/Licensing.aspx, dd January 29th 2010.

One rumor to end… You can only manage the archive using the Exchange Management Shell

This is not entirely true :-)

You can use the Exchange Management Console to:

• Enable/Disable an archive for a mailbox-enabled user

• Set an archive quota (warning level only)

• Change the name of the Online Archive

• Reconnect a disconnected archive mailbox to its primary mailbox

• To Schedule the Managed Folder Assistant, who will apply message retention settings configured in retention policies or managed folder mailbox policies.

You do need to use the power of the Exchange Management Shell in order to:

• Set a  size at which the archive mailbox will no longer accept messages

• To set a mailbox on retention hold to prevent execution of retention policies on the mailbox, including the ability to set a comment & URL

• To create a new retentionpolicy, and apply this to a user

First you need to create a retentionpolicytag, which will enable you to define which settings you want to apply to which items &/or folders in a mailbox.

Possible types for a retentionpolicytag are:

• Folder Names = Calendar, Contacts, DeletedItems, Drafts, Inbox, JunkEmail, Journal, Notes, Outbox, SentItems, Tasks, ManagedCustomFolder, RssSubscriptions, SyncIssues, ConversationHistory, RecoverableItems
• All
• Personal

Possible types for MessageClass, to define the message type to which the tag applies, like Voicemail, AllMailboxContent

The RetentionAction parameter specifies one of the following actions:

• MarkAsPastRetentionLimit 
• MoveToDeletedItems
• DeleteAndAllowRecovery 
• PermanentlyDelete
• MoveToArchive 

It might be useful to include the parameter Comment, to add a comment for the tag. You can even define localized comments, using LocalizedComment, and you can prevent users from hiding the comment by including MustDisplayCommentEnabled. If you want to, you can even define a localed name for the tag itself, using LocalizedRetentionPolicyTagName!

In the example below, I have created a new retention policy tag, which will be available to users to mark an item as Business Critical. I’ve created a policy that includes the default built-in retention tags and the Business Critical-one , and applied it to my mailbox.

For more information about tags and policies, head over to Ian’s blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/ianhamer/archive/2009/12/04/curious-about-exchange-2010-retention-policies.aspx

Ilse

While talking to one of our customers, it became clear that there was no doubt about the possibilities offered to a company by deploying Microsoft Office Communications Server, and configuring its Instant Messaging, Conferencing, and Voice features. He did however wanted to know if there was any way it would be possible to show a kind of warning message when someone would use his/her communicator to start a conversation with on of his/her colleagues. Just to make sure the power of the system wouldn't be abused for non-work related time spendings. And that's one I remembered that during one of the training I delivered on OCS in one of my previous roles, there was a nice registry tweak that enabled just that. Here are the details…

IMWarning

If you want to include a message that is shown every time you start a conversation using Communicator you can, by adding the following value in your registry.

Location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator

or

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator

The value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE takes precedence however!

Name: IMWarning

Type: REG_SZ

Data: “Text to show”

This tweak allows you to customize this message for example to display your company chat policy.

You will need to relaunch Communicator to see the result of this setting!

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Client Group Policy

If you don’t feel like changing settings in the registry for every single user in your organization…there is a group policy template for you, which includes IMWarning :-)

February 5th, 2009, Microsoft released for download a new administrative template  that contains registry settings for changing the behavior of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Clients, like Communicator, Communicator Attendant, and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Client.

The download package contains the Communicator.adm file and a spreadsheet that documents the Group Policy settings for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 clients, including Office Communicator 2007, Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Attendant, and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat.

For download, here’s the link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5d6f4b90-6980-430b-9f97-ffadbc07b7a9&displaylang=en

-Ilse

Learn Exchange 2010 in Depth

The second Pre-conference for IT Pro’s will be one covering Exchange 2010. During this full day of training you will learn everything you want to know on how to deploy and manage an Exchange 2010 infrastructure. This session will be delivered by me and I’m very happy to be joined by Scott Schnoll who is a well-known speaker and spoken at many events all over the world!

Register today to benefit from the early bird pricing and save 15%

Exchange 2010 Client Side: What’s new talking about Client Access? In this session you will be introduced to the Client Access server role, which is one of five distinct server roles for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. You will see how it enables support for Outlook Web App and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync client applications, and the Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) and Internet Message Access Protocol version 4rev1 (IMAP4) protocols, in addition to how it provides access to free/busy data by using the Availability service and enables certain clients to download automatic configuration settings from the Autodiscover service. After attending this session you will understand the Client Access server role, know how to manage and secure the Client Access server role, provide high availability, and use the power of Exchange Web Services.

Exchange High Availability
This session includes an overview of mailbox resiliency in Exchange 2010, and a deep dive into the inner workings of new features such as database availability groups, mailbox database copies, continuous replication, active manager, and more. It also covers several design examples for in-datacenter high availability and site resilience.

Managing Exchange 2010
Exchange Server 2010 includes new capabilities that make the operation of your Exchange environment more efficient. Come and learn how we've made the Exchange Management Console more powerful, extended the reach of PowerShell, made it easier to delegate management tasks, and built Web-based tools to make the job of managing Exchange easier than ever.

Exchange Performance/Scalability
Selecting the right server hardware for an Exchange 2010 deployment becomes much easier when you know the product team's scalability and performance guidelines. This session provides a look at the product team's guidance for the processor and memory requirements of each server role in Exchange 2010. A number of key performance enhancements from this release are discussed, and you also learn about how to use related tools like the Exchange Mailbox Server Requirements Calculator, Exchange Profile Analyzer, Loadgen, and Jetstress to take the guesswork out of server sizing.

Exchange Information Protection & Control (including RBAC)
Worried about employees accidentally leaking valuable corporate e-mail? This session introduces new methods of information protection and control powered by Exchange Server 2010, including new transport rule for moderation, dynamic signatures and application of rights management. A discussion of the use of Active Directory Rights Management Service in parallel with Exchange is included, as well as an introduction to how these new features can be applied to real-world messaging control scenarios.

Call for Input

Don’t hesitate to let me know which content concerning Exchange 2010 you would like to see during this pre-conference!

Ilse