Thursday, May 10, 2012

One or more users cannot be added to the folder access list. Non-local users cannot be given rights on this server

One or more users cannot be added to the folder access list. Non-local users cannot be given rights on this server
 
Keyword: Public Folder permission sharing, Exchange 2007, public folder permission, Distribution list, security group
 
Once I tried to share a public folder to the DL, I got the following error:
"One or more users cannot be added to the folder access list. Non-local users cannot be given rights on this server"
 
The first reaction is I have to concert the DL to security group and set it as Universal Group type as an MS KB (support.microsoft.com/kb/941318) mentioned. I used ADUC to make the change. However, it still doesn't work.
 
I know since Exchange 2007, you cannot assign a public folder to a shared mailbox and we have to run
 
set-mailbox -id "username" -type regular
 
I checked members of the group, and changed some of shared mailbox to regular, however, I still got the same error.
 
Why this has happened.
 
This has been a known problem since Exchange 2007. Essentially there's an active directory attribute called "msExchRecipientDisplayType" that does not get changed properly when you convert the group using the GUI interface.
 
How to Fix it
Exchange 2007
Run the following Powershell command in the Exchange Management Shell:
 
Set-DistributionGroup -Identity "thegroupname"

Exchange 2010
 
If you run that command on Exchange 2010, you will see the error (shown above)
"Members can't remove themselves from security groups. Please set the group to Closed for requests to leave."
 
You need to run the following Powershell command, in the Exchange Management Shell instead:
 
Set-Distributiongroup–identity {group name} –MemberDepartRestriction Closed
 
After that, update your Global address list, offline address list, restart Exchange file disitribution services on your all CaS servers, and f9 to download update your offline address on your Outlook. Or use online Outlook profile if you are in rush, you should be all set.
 
Summary
 
Issue:
 
You got error: "One or more users cannot be added to the folder access list. Non-local users cannot be given rights on this server" once you try to assign a DL to public folder permission.
 
You tried

1. You converted the DL to security group and changed the group type to Universal Group using ADUC
 
2. You checked member of the group and make sure you changed shared mailbox type to regular using the following cmdlet:
 
set-mailbox -ID username -type regular
 
3. You set the group using the following cmdlet:
 
for Exchange 2007
 
Set-DistributionGroup -Identity "thegroupname"
 
For Exchange 2010,

Set-Distributiongroup–identity "thegroupname" –MemberDepartRestriction Closed

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Troubleshooting Exchange 2010 DAGs Across WANs

After we established Exchange 2010 LAB across three sites, Exchange 2010 Database Availability Groups across multiple sites and WAN connectivity work most of time. However, once our network connectivity experiences issue between sites, I recently found myself troubleshooting an inconsistent issue at one remote site.
 
The issue reported by the following link, however, it seems there is no resolution yet.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/eu/exchange2010/thread/40a37573-d967-41b0-b0d2-8a9f7ae530eb 
 
you can see our network (Exchange 2010) settings via the following link:
 
 
Once this happened, from remote site server EMC, Mailboxes Database Status across WAN is shown as Unknown and from NY and WM (site)  servers, copy status for all database copies on SIXLABMBX-1 as "ServiceDown." Running Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus against the DAG member(s) in the remote data center reflected the same results. Databases in an "Unknown" mount state corresponded to cases where the database was activated in one data center and status was being queried across the WAN from the other data center.
There were several Windows event logged on both SI and NY servers:
 
Event ID 2060
 
The Microsoft Exchange Replication service encountered a transient error while attempting to start a replication instance for NYXLABMBX1DB-1\SIXLABMBX-1. The copy will be set to failed. Error: The NetworkManager has not yet been initialized. Check the event logs to determine the cause.

Event ID 2153
 
The log copier was unable to communicate with server 'NYXLABMBX-1.exlab.randomhouse.com'. The copy of database 'NYXLABMBX1DB-1\SIXLABMBX-1' is in a disconnected state. The communication error was: Communication was terminated by server 'NYXLABMBX-1.exlab.randomhouse.com': Data could not be read because the communication channel was closed. The copier will automatically retry after a short delay.
 
Event ID 2058
 
The Microsoft Exchange Replication service was unable to perform an incremental reseed of database copy 'NYXLABMBX-1DB3\SIXLABMBX-1' due to a network error. The database copy status will be set to Disconnected. Error An error occurred while communicating with server 'NYXLABMBX-1.exlab.randomhouse.com'. Error: Unable to read data from the transport connection: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.
 
This doesn't happen between WM and NY servers.
 
We found out the only solution for this is to reboot the server one by one, then DAG will show healthy after that. That's a big headache.
 
After digging and digging, we have found a link that talking about MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit). By default, Windows NIC is automatically set MTU (1500), and Windows operating system uses MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) determines the maximum size of the largest protocol data packet unit (including the size of the transport header) that can be transmitted over the underlying network layer. MTU parameters usually appear in association with a communications interface (NIC, serial port, etc.), and is configured separately for each network interface. We can test MTU settings across WAN by pinging remote IP with -f -l (packet size) option,
For example, from NY server, we can ping 10.102.52.18 -f -l 1200,  where 1200 is packet size, we want to test…, then try 1300, 1400, 1500 …
By default, router's MTU is set between 1480 to 1500, deducting some packet transport headers, from NY to WM server, we can ping wmxhub-1 –f –l 1470 with no problem, failed 1475. That's normal. However, from NY to SI site, it only allow maximum packet size around  (1365), it failed 1370 (ping 10.102.52.17 -f -l 1365, OK and ping 10.102.52.17 -f -l 1370 failed). We talked with Network team about this, I was told that this is due to fact that we have private circuit between WM and NY, and only VPN connection between SI and NY that offset a bigger packet overhead. Usually server and network equipment will adjust packet size automatically.
We use "netsh interface ipv4 show subinterfaces " command to check default MTU size on the mailbox servers that are member of DAG and found out default NIC MTU is 1500, while Microsoft set Cluster NIC MTU to 1300. Since we don't use dedicated NIC for replication traffic, thus the server will use default NIC to transport replication traffic, and it seems Windows cannot automatically adjust MTU accordingly.
 
Then we use the following command to set default NIC MTU to 1300
 
netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "Local Area Connection 3" mtu=1300 store=persistent
 
and use netsh interface ipv4 show subinterfaces to show MTU to make sure both cluster NIC and default NIC have the same size of MTU (1300)
 
After we did these on all mailbox servers that are member of DAG, then we restarted replication services on all DAG members, the issue has been resolved automatically.
 
 

Monday, April 16, 2012

Use MDSPushvsPull.exe to trace Blackberry Device Data usage for troubleshooting

We had issue with one of our BES users whose data usage was over 2.5 GB per month, our regular users' usage is less than 500 MB per month. We use BES 5.0.3. After we installed resources Kits, we are able to check data usage per device on our BES server and found out one of applications the user installed on the device may have bug that caused consistent data connection to its server.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Research In Motion\BlackBerry Enterprise Server Resource Kit\BlackBerry AMT Tools>MDSPushvsPull.exe -p E -OL D:\test -L "E:\BlackBerry Enterprise Server\20120318"
where "E:\BlackBerry Enterprise Server\20120318" is log file location of BES.
The output is a *.cvs file with following columns:
 
Type Source Destination Date Time Port Size
Pull PIN i.huffpost.com 2/11/2012 11:48:17.176 EST 80 103
Pull PIN i.huffpost.com 2/11/2012 11:48:18.082 EST 80 93
Pull PIN i.huffpost.com 2/11/2012 11:48:19.348 EST 80 83
Pull PIN i.huffpost.com 2/11/2012 11:48:20.317 EST 80
88
 
Where Size in question is Bytes

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Is it possible the following scenario - Physical server 2008 VHD backup file, created by wbadmin.exe to run in Hyper-V server?

Is it possible the following scenario - Physical server 2008 VHD backup file, created by wbadmin.exe to run in Hyper-V server?
 
One of our physical web servers is running Windows Server 2008 Standard x64, and is being backuped daily by default backup utility for server 2008 (wbadmin.exe).
I am curiuous is it possible to restore this VHD backup file into Hyper-V server (said in other way to create new VM using that VHD image).
If it's possible - what are the steps to successfully do this?
Nope, won't work.
But, this will:
- Prepare a fresh VM with the same OS.
- Shut down the VM and mount the VHD file on another VM
- Mount the "backup" VHD you'd like to restore from the same VM
- Use robocopy /purge /b /e /copyall to take all the data from the backup vhd to the new VHD
After this, shut down the VM, and you should be able to create a new VM using the destination VHD file. It will boot - all you have to do is install integration services.
Now for some more "magic":
You can use vshadow.exe to create a VSS snapshot of a running physical OR virtual machine and expose it to a drive letter (yes, boot drive also), and use the robocopy trick above to perform P2Vs or V2Vs. What's good about this method is that you can do a first pass with the machine still servicing requests, then stop all critical services and do another pass to complete the process. Typically takes about 2-3 minutes, depending on how much data has changed. Robocopy will only copy files which are different, and also copies NTFS permissions.
 
Note:
 
1) You may need to use DriverInjection (http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22523&st=0) or something similar if the standard IDE driver is not present on the source.
2) You may have to edit boot.ini to point to partition 1 - some system manufacturers have a utility partition as #1.
Otherwise you should be good to go.
 
References:
 
How to configure WSB with the support for Hyper-V VSS writer.

Windows 2008 Hyper-V and Windows 2008 Backup

Windows 2008 (or R2) comes with Wondows backup application. It uses Microsoft volume snapshot technology to snapshot volume and copy the configuration and Data in *.vhd format, that is used for Microsoft Hyper-V server, to local attached storage or network storage. For quick data volume recovery, you just mount the *.vhd file to any Hyper-V server and you are done. You don't need any restore time you may need for the traditional tape backup to speed up SLA. If you need to recover systems, you will have to install Windows via CD or image and choose system recovery option during setup and specify where is system volume backup file is located, local media, UNC path, etc. since Microsoft doesn't support to make backup image *.vhd bootable.
 
You use wbadmin command to schedule backup job and restore.
 
You can run Wbadmin by following these steps:
1. Click Start, click All Programs, and then click Accessories to open the Accessories menu.
2. Start an elevated command prompt by right-clicking Command Prompt and then selecting Run As Administrator.
3. In the Command Prompt window, enter the necessary command text or run a script that invokes Wbadmin.

Wbadmin has a number of associated commands:
DELETE SYSTEMSTATEBACKUP Deletes the system state backup or backups from a specified location.
DISABLE BACKUP Disables scheduled daily backups so that they no longer run.
ENABLE BACKUP Enables or modifies a scheduled daily backup.
GET DISKS Lists the disks that are currently online for the local computer. Disks are listed by manufacturer name, type, disk number, GUID, total space, used space, and associated volumes. GET ITEMS Lists items contained in a specified backup.
GET STATUS Reports the status of the currently running backup or recovery job.
GET VERSIONS List details about the available backups stored in a specific location, including the backup time and backup destination.
START BACKUP Starts a one-time backup using the specified parameters. If no parameters are passed and scheduled backups are enabled, the backup uses the settings for scheduled backups.
START RECOVERY Initiates a recovery of volumes, applications, or files using the specified parameters.
START SYSTEMSTATEBACKUP Starts a system state backup using the options specified.
START SYSTEMSTATERECOVERY Starts a system state recovery using the specified parameters.
STOP JOB Stops the currently running backup or recovery job. Stopped jobs cannot be restarted from where they were stopped.

When you are working with Wbadmin, you can get help on available commands:
1.To view a list of management commands, type wbadmin /? at the command prompt.
2.To view the syntax for a specific management command, type wbadmin Command /?, where Command is the name of the management command you want to examine, such as wbadmin stop job /?.

When you work with Wbadmin, you'll find that just about every command accepts parameters and specific parameter values that qualify what you want to work with. To see more clearly how this works, consider the following syntax example:
wbadmin get versions [-backupTarget:{VolumeName | NetworkSharePath}] [-machine:BackupMachineName] 
The brackets tell you that –backupTarget and –machine are optional. Thus, you could type the following to get information on recoverable backups on the local computer:
wbadmin get versions 
You could type the following to get information on recoverable backups for C:
wbadmin get versions -backuptarget:f: 
Or you could type the following to get information on recoverable backups for C on Server88:
wbadmin get versions -backuptarget:f: -machine:server88 
Many Wbadmin commands use the –backupTarget and –machine parameters. The backup target is the storage location you want to work with, and can be expressed as a local volume name (such as F:) or as a network share path, such as \\FileServer32\backups\Server85. The –machine parameter identifies the computer you want to work with for backup or recovery operations.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Event ID 4113 Error: Unable to read data from the transport connection: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time

You have Exchange 2010 (up to SP2) DAG setup with multiple sites, remote server cannot see status of another party Database Status. From EMC, it shows Dababase Status unknown and with the following event logged:
 
Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchangeRepl
Date:          2/13/2012 6:04:32 PM
Event ID:      4113
Task Category: Service
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      DREXMBX-1.exlab.mydomain.com
Description:
The Microsoft Exchange Replication service was unable to perform an incremental reseed of database copy 'EXMBX-1\DREXMBX-1' due to a network error. The database copy status will be set to Disconnected. Error An error occurred while communicating with server 'EXMBX-2.exlab.mydomain.com'. Error: Unable to read data from the transport connection: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="MSExchangeRepl" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="49156">2058</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>1</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-02-14T14:02:34.000000000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>13852</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>DREXMBX-1.exlab.mydomain.com</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>EXMBX-1\DREXMBX-1</Data>
    <Data>An error occurred while communicating with server 'EXMBX-2.exlab.mydomain.com'. Error: Unable to read data from the transport connection: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>
 
Resolution:
 
run follow command:
 
netsh int tcp show global
 
and make sure you have disabled all of following three (autotuninglevel, chimney, and rss), if not, please run the following command:
 
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global chimney=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=disabled
 
 
 
 

Thursday, January 26, 2012

How to Remove Failed Server from DAG in Exchange Server 2010

When an Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox server that is a member of a Database Availability Group has failed, part of the recovery process is to remove it from DAG membership.

In some scenarios this process may result in an error "A quorum of cluster nodes was not present to form a cluster". The full error text is below.

[PS] C:\>Remove-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer -Identity DAG -MailboxServer EX2

Confirm
Are you sure you want to perform this action?
Removing Mailbox server "EX2" from database availability group "dag".
[Y] Yes [A] Yes to All [N] No [L] No to All [?] Help (default is "Y"): y
WARNING: The operation wasn't successful because an error was encountered. You may find more details in log file
"C:\ExchangeSetupLogs\DagTasks\dagtask_2010-11-25_03-48-09.814_remove-databaseavailabiltygroupserver.log".
There was a problem changing the quorum model for database availability group dag. Error: An Active Manager operation f
ailed. Error: An error occurred while attempting a cluster operation. Error: Cluster API '"SetClusterQuorumResource() f
ailed with 0x1725. Error: A quorum of cluster nodes was not present to form a cluster"' failed..
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [Remove-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer], DagTaskProblemChangingQuo
rumException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : 80D96894,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.SystemConfigurationTasks.RemoveDatabaseAvailabili
tyGroupServer

To resolve this issue use the -ConfigurationOnly switch instead to remove the failed Mailbox server from the Exchange 2010 DAG. In this example server EX2 is being removed.

[PS] C:\>Remove-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer -Identity DAG -MailboxServer EX2 -ConfigurationOnly

Next, evict the failed node from the Windows Failover Cluster.

Note: you need to import the Failover Cluster module into your Exchange Management Shell session to perform this task.

[PS] C:\>Import-Module FailoverClusters
[PS] C:\>Get-ClusterNode EX2 | Remove-ClusterNode -Force

The failed server has now been removed from the Exchange 2010 DAG and the Windows Failover Cluster.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Get-MailboxDatabase Size list

Exchange 2007

There are a couple methods you can use to get this information in Exchange 2007. Here is a great example posted by Gary Siepser; it's a one-liner that retrieves the database size using WMI, allowing you to run it against clustered mailbox servers:
Get-MailboxDatabase | foreach-object {add-member -inputobject $_ -membertype noteproperty -name mailboxdbsizeinGB -value ([math]::Round(([int64](get-wmiobject cim_datafile -computername $_.server -filter ('name=''' + $_.edbfilepath.pathname.replace("\","\\") + '''')).filesize / 1GB),2)) -passthru} | Sort-Object mailboxdbsizeinGB -Descending | format-table identity,mailboxdbsizeinGB

Exchange 2010

Fortunately, the Get-MailboxDatabase cmdlet in Exchange 2010 provides this information for us out of the box. All you need to do is use the Status parameter and you can access the information using the DatabaseSize property. Here is an example:
Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | select ServerName,Name,DatabaseSize

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Windows 2008 R2 Powershell script error

For security, Windows 2008 R2 won't run PowerShell scripts by default (Disabled). Thus we need to adjust the ExecutionPolicy to allow PowerShell scripts to run. The better method is to issue this instruction at the PowerShell command line:
 
set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Weak and Strong Host Behavior in Windows for multihomed Computer

Weak and Strong Host Behavior in Windows
Windows XP and Windows Server® 2003 use the weak host model for sends and receives for all IPv4 interfaces and the strong host model for sends and receives for all IPv6 interfaces. You cannot configure this behavior. The Next Generation TCP/IP stack in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 supports strong host sends and receives for both IPv4 and IPv6 by default on all interfaces except the Teredo tunneling interface for a Teredo host-specific relay. Figure 4 lists the commands that you can use to configure send and receive behavior for both IPv4 and IPv6 on a per-interface basis. Note that InterfaceNameOrIndex is either the name of the interface from the Network Connections folder or its interface index. You can obtain the interface index of an interface from the display of the command:
 
 Commands to configure strong and weak send and receive behavior
• netsh interface ipv4 set interface [InterfaceNameOrIndex] weakhostsend=enabled|disabled
• netsh interface ipv4 set interface [InterfaceNameOrIndex] weakhostreceive=enabled|disabled
• netsh interface ipv6 set interface [InterfaceNameOrIndex] weakhostsend=enabled|disabled
• netsh interface ipv6 set interface [InterfaceNameOrIndex] weakhostreceive=enabled|disabled
 
netsh interface ipv6 show interface
Reference:
 
 

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

MailboxServer is partially configured – ExBPA


When running ExBPA against an Exchange 2007 mailbox server, the following error text may be noted:
===========================================================

Error: 'MailboxServer' is partially configured
Server: <SERVER>

'MailboxServer' is partially configured on server <SERVER>.contoso.com. Either setup is configuring it right now or setup failed while configuring it. Please rerun setup if it isn't currently running.


Or if you tried to install some third party application that require mailbox role installed, you may get message that you cannot install the the application since there is no mailnox role installed though you know your mailbox server functions very well


Cause: Once you intially ran Exchange Setup, setup might failed and you fixed the error and installed the mailbox server sucessfully.


Resolution: Make sure your mailbox server role works properly and then using regedit


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\MailboxServer]
"Action"="Install"
"Watermark"=REG_SZ:7448a073

"UnpackedVersion"=REG_SZ:8.3.83.6


remove "Watermark"=dword:7448a073


Remove "Action"="Install"


Add


"ConfiguredVersion"=REG_SZ:8.3.83.6


After, we will see


"ConfiguredVersion"=REG_SZ:8.3.83.6

"UnpackedVersion"=REG_SZ:8.3.83.6


your mileage may vary for the version value:


runn ExBPA against the Exchange 2007 mailbox server again, you should be fine.


Reference



Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Event ID 20280 {user@mycompany.com} DoICS() failed: ERR_FAIL

BES 5.0.3 SP3 MR 2, Exchange 2007 SP3 Rollups4
 
Multiple Instance of Each:
 
Event ID 20265
{user@mycompany.com} MAPIMailbox::CheckSelectedFolders - OpenEntry (0x80004005) failed
 
Event ID 20265
{user@mycompany.com} MAPIMailbox::MAPIAttachtoRIMAttach - OpeProperty (0x80004005) failed
 
Event ID 20265
{user@mycompany.com} MAPIMailbox::MAPIAttachtoRIMAttach - GetAttachmentTable (0x80004005) failed
 
Event ID 20265
{user@mycompany.com} MAPIMailbox::IsMAPIMessageSecureEmail - pMessage -> GetAttachmentTable (0x80004005) failed

Event ID 20530
{user@mycompany.com} ConstructPIMFolder - Failed to open the memo folder for user (0x80004005)
 
Event ID 20529
{user@mycompany.com} ConstructPIMFolder - Failed to open the task folder for user (0x80004005)
 
Event ID 20528
{user@mycompany.com} ConstructPIMFolder - Failed to open the contact folder for user (0x80004005)
 
Event ID 20205
(user@mycompany.com} AddRefIDProp(): ERR_FAIL, EntryId=58(xx) (many incrementing)

Event ID 20280
{user@mycompany.com} DoICS() failed: ERR_FAIL
 
Event ID 20043
CallCSAgent::Sych: Could not reload synchronization state for User12345
 
Event ID 20048
CallCSAgent:: - LoadSyncInfo Create BlackBerryHandheldInfo Folder (0x80004005) failed for User12345
 
Event ID 20048
CallCSAgent:: - SaveSyncInfor Create BlackBerryHandheldInfo Folder (0x80004005) failed for User12345
 
Event ID 20455
{user@mycompany.com} MAPIMailbox::CheckUserOriginatedItem - OpenEntry (0x80004005)failed
 
Event ID 20185
{user@mycompany.com} GetRIMMessage() failed: ERR_FAIL
 
 
 
Solution:
 
remove user from BES
Close Outlook on users machine
run Outlook with /resetfolders switch
Add user back to BES
reactivate device
 

Friday, July 29, 2011

The Exchange binary files are not installed but the backup registry key is present. Only build-to-build upgrade mode is available.

First, once you applied SP3, it will start check prerequite, then to remove exchange binarnies files, and to install Exchange 2007 SP3 binaries. If your installation failed with corrupt of installation file, say, Exchangeserver.msi file, etc, installation would fail with error and it cannot roll back to previous Exchange build you ran on the server. Once you try to re-apply Exchange 2007 SP3, or reboot your Exchange server and reapply SP3:
 
You Receive a Message That States That Only the Build-Build Upgrade Mode Is Available When You Install Exchange 2007 Service Pack 3
 
 
This topic provides information about how to troubleshoot an installation error that may occur when you try to install Microsoft Exchange Server 2007  Service Pack 3 (SP3).
 
When you run the Setup program to install Exchange Server 2007 SP3, you receive the following error message:

The Exchange binary files are not installed but the backup registry key is present. Only build-to-build upgrade mode is available.
This issue may occur if the Exchhelp.chm file is missing from the Exchange Server\Bin folder on the Exchange server.
To resolve this issue, follow these steps:
  1. Extract the Exchange 2007 SP3 files from the installation package. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
    2. Change to the directory that contains the E2K7SP1En64.exe file.
    3. Type e2k7sp3en64.exe /x, and then press ENTER.
    4. In the Choose Directory For Extracted Files dialog box, type the path where you want to extract the files, and then click OK. For example, type c:\exchange2007sp3files.
    5. When the Extraction Complete message appears, click OK.
  2. Copy the appropriate language version of the Exchhelp.chm file from the location where you extracted the files to the Exchange Server\Bin directory on the Exchange server. For example, copy the C:\Exchange2007sp3\Setup\Serverroles\Common\mui\0409\Exchhelp.chm file to the %ProgramFiles%\Exchange Server\Bin directory.
  3. Verify that the following services are set to an Automatic startup type and that the services are started:
    • IIS Admin Service (IISADMIN)
    • HTTP SSL (HTTPFilter)
      Note   This service is not present on a Windows Server 2008-based computer.
    • World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3SVC)
  4. Verify that all the Exchange-related services are set to an Automatic startup type and that the services are started.
  5. Start the Exchange 2007 SP3 installation from a command-line, and specify the upgrade option. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
    2. At the command prompt, move to the directory to which you extracted the Exchange 2007 SP3 installation files. For example, move to the C:\Exchange2007sp1files directory.
    3. Type setup.com /mode:upgrade, and then press ENTER. The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unattended Setup program starts.
Note: The above procedures tested OK in LAB even if you remove all Exchange 2007 related services registry keys....
 
 

Send connector Intra-Organization SMTP Send Connector has failed to authenticate with your remote server IP:25. The response from the remote site is 454 4.7.0 Temporary authentication failure

In a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 environment or in a Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 environment, some e-mail messages are stuck in a remote delivery queue that should have been transferred to another Exchange server in the Exchange organization. If you open the Queue Viewer tool from the Toolbox node on the Exchange Management Console, the Last Error field displays an error message that resembles the following:
 
Send connector Intra-Organization SMTP Send Connector has failed to authenticate with 172.18.102.95:25. The response from the remote site is 454 4.7.0 Temporary authentication failure
 
Event ID: 1035 is logged when some e-mail messages are stuck in a remote delivery queue in a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 environment or in a Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 environment.
 
Cause: This issue occurs if the Exchange server cannot authenticate with the remote Exchange server. Exchange servers requires authentication to route internal user messages between servers. The issue can be caused by one of the following reasons:
  • The Exchange server is experiencing Time synchronization issues
  • The Exchange server is experiencing Service Principle Name (SPN) issues
  • The required TCP/UDP ports for the Kerberos protocol are blocked by the firewall.
To resolve this issue, follow these steps:
  1. Check the clock on both servers and domain controllers that might be used to authenticate the servers. All clocks should be synchronized to within 5 minutes of one other.
  2. Verify that the Service Principle Name (SPN) for SMTPSVC is registered correctly on the target server.
    • Make sure that the SMTP and SMTPSVC entries are added correctly to the machine account by using the SetSPN tool. For example:
      SetSPN -L <ExchangeServerName>
      SMTP/<ExchangeServerName>
      SMTP/<ExchangeServerName>.example.com
      SMTPSVC/<ExchangeServerName>
      SMTPSVC/<ExchangeServerName>.example.com
    • Check for duplicate SPNs by using the SetSPN tool. There should only be one entry of each:
      SetSPN -x
      Processing entry 0
      found 0 group of duplicate SPNs.
  3. Verify that the ports required for Kerberos are enabled.
  4. If the previous steps do not work, you can turn on logging for Kerberos on the Server that is registering the Event 1035 message, which may provide additional information. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type Regedit, and then click OK.
    2. Locate the following registry key:
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\Kerberos\Parameters
    3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
    4. In the details pane, input the new value LogLevel, and then press Enter.
    5. Right-click LogLevel, and then click Modify.
    6. In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, under Base, click Decimal.
    7. In the Value data box, type the value 1, and then click OK.
    8. Close Registry Editor.
    9. Again check the System Event log for any Kerberos errors.
Please note: Make all Exchange servers and all DCs. All clocks should be synchronized to within 5 minutes of one other.
 
ref:
 
 

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

How to Reindex Outlook 2007 or later

If you search for items in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or later and do not receive the results that you expect, the indexing of your Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office system data files (the search catalog) may not be complete.
 
Symptoms of an incomplete index include the following:
Partial or no search results are returned.
Items that you expect to appear based on your search criteria are not displayed.
You can rebuild the search catalog, which restarts the indexing of your data files. The search catalog is a file where all of your Outlook and Microsoft Windows items (data files) are indexed. To rebuild your search catalog, do the following:
1.Exit Outlook.
2.In Microsoft Windows, click the Start button, and then click Control Panel.
3.Do one of the following:
 
1) Windows 7 Click Index Option
2) Windows Vista     Click System Maintenance, and then click Indexing Options.
    Note   In Classic view, double-click Indexing Options.
3) Microsoft Windows XP     Under See Also, click Other Control Panel Options, and then click Indexing Options.
    Note   In Classic view, double-click Indexing Options.
4.Click Modify, select the check boxes for the locations you want to index (Outlook), and then click OK.
5.Click Advanced.
6.Click Rebuild.
7.Restart Outlook.
If rebuilding the search catalog does not correct your search problem and retrieve the expected search results, see Instant Search is not finding all the items I expect for additional information.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Cannot delete Default Exchange 2010 Mailbox Database

When an Exchange 2010 mailbox role is installed, a default mailbox database is created. In Exchange 2007, the default database is named "Mailbox Database" whereas in 2010, it comes with a random numbering at the end of the "Mailbox Database" name since you cannot have the same Mailbox Database in your Org with multiple server environments. This is to make the mailbox database name unique. Mine is named "Mailbox Database 0683456784".
 
As most of the admins, your first instinct is to remove the default database and create ones with your company's naming convention or the names of your choice. You created a new database named "MDB1" and tried deleting the default one, only to be greeted with the error below.
 
"This mailbox database contains one or more mailboxes or arbitration mailboxes. Before you can remove this mailbox database, you must disable, move or remove user mailboxes and move arbitration mailboxes"
 
Technet explains arbitration mailboxes as the mailboxes used for managing approval workflow. For example, an arbitration mailbox is used for handling moderated recipients and distribution group membership approval.
 
You moved your user mailboxes to another database and ran the following command to find the arbitration mailboxes.
 
Get-Mailbox –Database "Mailbox Database 0683456784" –arbitration
 
You moved the arbitration mailboxes as well to the second database with the command below.
Get-Mailbox –Database "Mailbox Database 0683456784" –arbitration | New-MoveRequest – TargetDatabase MDB1
You confirmed that the arbitration mailboxes were successfully moved using the
Get-MoveRequest cmdlet.
Once the mailbox move was completed, you could delete your default database!
 

Friday, June 24, 2011

BES AgentOptimizeAlgorithm

I had been long looking for the feature to distribute agents evening to speed up mailbox scanning processing particular after we upgrade Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 a couple years ago. I was always told that sorry we cannot do that by RIM support. Finally I got the postive answer from RIM by editting register key.
 
By default, if you run MSDE, BES only supports two dynamic agents per server. If you run Full MS SQL edition for BES database, you can run as many as 20 agents (RIM recommends you should run less than 10 agents per BES). BES assigns users to agents per Exchange servers and up to 400 users per agent. Since we had migrated all 5000 user mailboxes to one Exchange 2007 CCR server, for about 700 users per BES HA, by default, it will allocate 400 users for two dynamic agents, the message delivery significantly delays whenever we failover BES (it could take about two hours to complete the sync) that made BES failover useless.
 
Now that after we have implemented AgentOptimizeAlgorithm, and changed from two agents to five agents for 800 users per HA server, message delivery delay has been reduced from 2 hours to 15 minutes.
 
Also if you use Exchange 2010, BES basically sees the CAS as the mailbox with 2010 (instead of the actual mailbox server the user is on, assuming you have installed the CAS on a separate server). Because of this, if you have multiple CAS behind a load balancer, it throws the "keep users from the same exchange server on the same BES" rule out. This is our situation and the guidance given to us by RIM is to implement the AgentOptimizeAlgorithm to 1 (simple algorithm) to randomly assign users to an Agent instead of keeping an Agent to one mail server:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Research In Motion\BlackBerry Enterprise Server\Dispatcher.
DWORD value is 1 - the simple algorithm is used.
DWORD value is 2 - the complex algorithm is used.
The Default value is 2. a complex algorithm, Note: if you don't see the key, create the REG-Dword key.
 
Enabling Simple Messaging Agent Distribution Algorithm
 
The distribution algorithm can be changed with the DWORD registry key AgentOptimizeAlgorithm located in
32 bit - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Research In Motion\BlackBerry Enterprise Server\Dispatcher.
64bit - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Research In Motion\BlackBerry Enterprise Server\Dispatcher.
DWORD value is 1 - the simple algorithm is used.
DWORD value is 2 - the complex algorithm is used.
The Default value is 2.
 
If the registry key does not exist, create it.
 
No advanced logic is used in this process.
 
BlackBerry smartphone users are simply distributed evenly across the number of agents specified in the DWORD registry key NumAgents located in:
32bit - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Research In Motion\BlackBerry Enterprise Server\Agents.
64bit - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Research In Motion\BlackBerry Enterprise Server\Agents.
Default value is 5, do not increase it higher than 10.
Note: If the above registry keys do not exist, they need to be created.
 
Note: A maximum of 2 Messaging Agents will be created if the configuration database is on Microsoft SQL Database Engine (MSDE).  Move the configuration database to SQL 2005 Express using KB03112.
 
 After talking with RIM on this one, it is my understanding that if you are completely Exchange 2010 or 2007 (instead of mixed mode with 2003) and you have implemented EWS using the traittool on the global level (and not per server or agent) then you can completely uninstall MAPI since it is no longer being used (KEEP CDO THOUGH!). Of course I would test in a lab first, but this is what I intend to do after we are finished migrating to 2010.
 
Note: We run BES 5.0.3 HA with Intel Powerful processors (16 virtual processors with 32 GB RAM)

"Upgrade Issues" prompt appears when upgrading to BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3 HA

Just done BES 5.02 HA to BES 5.0.3 recently. Since starting from BES 5.0.3 Integrated MDS is no longer support, you may get the following error once you do the upgrade:
 
When upgrading to BlackBerry® Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3, a prompt titled Upgrade Issues may appear that contains wording similar to the following:
The setup application found the BlackBerry MDS Integration Service on the following computers in the BlackBerry Domain:

<ComputerName>

Before you can continue the current upgrade process you must un-install the BlackBerry MDS Integration Service. For more information, see the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Upgrade Guide
 
Cause 1
 
The BlackBerry® Mobile Data System Integration Service (MDS-IS) must be uninstalled from the BlackBerry Domain before an upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3 can continue.
Cause 2
 
The BlackBerry Mobile Data System Integration Service (MDS-IS) SQL backup must be deleted from the server so the install of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3 can continue.
 
Resolutions:
 
Please choose the appropriate option below and follow the associated steps, depending on the version of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server that is running, or the resolution that fits your circumstances.
The BlackBerry Mobile Data System Integration Service (MDS-IS) must be uninstalled from the BlackBerry Domain before an upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3 can continue.
Resolution 1
 
Option - Using CreateDB executable included with BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3
Supported versions:
  • BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 SP7 to 5.0 SP2 MR5 
Related Steps
  1. Extract the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3 software to a folder.
  2. Navigate to the folder above and double-click the Database folder.
  3. In the Database folder, right-click the BESMgmt.cfg file and choose to open it with Notepad.
  4. In this file, make the following changes:
    1. For CMD=Install, change Install to Upgrade.
    2. For DATABASE_NAME=BESMgmt, replace BESMgmt with the name of your BlackBerry Configuration Database, if different.
    3. For SERVER=local if required, update this value with the name of the Microsoft® SQL Server® that the BlackBerry Configuration Database is hosted on. If an instance is used, specify it as SERVERNAME\INSTANCENAME.
    4. If necessary, populate the MSSQL_PORT= value with the port of your Microsoft SQL Server if different than 1433.
    5. If using Microsoft SQL Server Authentication, populate the USERID= and PASSWORD= values with a Microsoft SQL Server Authentication account that has System Administrator privileges.
    6. Change BACKUP=false to BACKUP=true.
    7. If required, change BES_TYPE=Exchange to Domino if you are running BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for IBM® Lotus® Domino®.
  5. From the menu in Notepad, click File > Save and close the file.
  6. Double-click the CreateDB.exe file in the same folder as the BESMgmt.cfg file.
  7. Proceed with the installation of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3 upgrade.

Option - Using installation software and the BlackBerry Administration Service to remove the BlackBerry MDS Integration Service

Supported versions:
  • BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP1 to 5.0 SP2 MR5 
Installation Related Steps
  1. Locate or obtain the installation file for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP1 or SP2 and extract it to a folder.
  2. Locate and double-click the Setup.exe file from the above folder.
  3. Choose your language from the drop-down list.
  4. Accept the license agreement and click Next.
  5. Leave all database details as is for your deployment while clicking Next until you reach the Setup Options screen.
  6. On the Setup Options screen, clear the check box beside the BlackBerry MDS Integration Service and click Next.
  7. Click Next, and complete the rest of the setup screens as you would for a new installation.
  8. If prompted, reboot the computer.

    Note: If you are running BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP1, skip the steps below and proceed to the BlackBerry Administration Service Steps.
  9. If you don't already have it available, obtain the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP2 MR2 or MR3 software from http://www.blackberry.com/support/downloads.
  10. Extract BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP2 MR2 or MR3 software to a folder. Ensure this is a different folder than Step 1 above.
  11. Locate and double-click the Setup.exe file from the folder in Step 10.
  12. Choose your language and click OK.
  13. Click Next.
  14. Enter your service account password and click Next.
  15. Once the installation has completed, reboot the computer.
  16. Click Next on all outstanding prompts for the rest of the installation, leaving all existing options unchanged.
  17. Click Start Services and then click Next.
BlackBerry Administration Service Steps
  1. Once the installation has completed, log in to the BlackBerry Administrative Service.
  2. Under Servers and Components, expand BlackBerry Solution Topology > BlackBerry Domain > Component View> BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and click the server name.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the resulting page and click Edit Instance.
  4. In the Supported MDS Integration Service instance names, click the drop-down list and select the blank space above the existing entry.
    Click Save All.
  5. Go back to Servers and Components, expand BlackBerry Solution Topology > BlackBerry Domain, and click Component View.
  6. Scroll to the MDS Integration Service heading, and click the Delete icon to delete the instance.
  7. Click Yes - Delete the instance.
  8. When prompted to confirm, click Yes - Delete the instance.
  9. From Windows Services restart the services named BlackBerry Administration Service - Application Server and BlackBerry Administration Service - Native Code Container
Once the above steps are completed, proceed with the upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3. Please refer to the Installation Guide for details on completing the upgrade.

Option - Using the installation software and the BlackBerry Manager to remove the BlackBerry MDS Integration Service
Supported versions:
  • BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 SP7
Installation Related Steps
  1. Navigate to Start > Control Panel > Add Remove Programs.
  2. Click the Remove button beside the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
  3. Click Yes to the resulting prompt that asks if you are sure that you want to remove the software.
  4. If you wish to keep your current logs, click No to the warning about removing them.

    Note: If BlackBerry Manager is installed on a remote computer, there is no need to reinstall the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.  Please proceed to the BlackBerry Manager Related Steps below.
  5. Locate or obtain the full installation file or files used to install or upgrade BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 SP7 software and extract it to a folder.

    Note: If the file that was used to install BlackBerry Enterprise Server 4.1 SP7 has the term upgrader in it, please obtain a full installation file from the BlackBerry Expert Support Center.
  6. Locate and double-click the Setup.exe file from the above folder.
  7. Choose your language from the drop-down list.
  8. Accept the license agreement and click Next.
  9. At the Setup Type screen, select an option that does not include the BlackBerry MDS Integration Service, and click Next.
  10. Click Next at the Preinstallation Checklist screen.
  11. Enter your service account password and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server name (if different from the default populated) and click Next.
  12. Select whether or not you are using a local or remote Microsoft SQL Server and click Next.
  13. Click Next at the Installation Summary screen.
  14. Once the installation is complete, reboot the computer if you are not prompted to do so.
  15. After the reboot, enter database information for your installation and click Next.
    Complete all other prompts that should have pre-existing information present while clicking Next, and then click Start Service, then click Finish.
BlackBerry Manager Related Steps
  1. Open the BlackBerry Manager by navigating to Start > Programs > BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and click BlackBerry Manager.
  2. For each BlackBerry Enterprise Server in the left navigational bar, perform the following:
    1. Select the BlackBerry Enterprise server from the left navigational bar.
    2. On the right pane, click the Server Configuration tab.
    3. In the pane below, click Edit Properties.
    4. In this new window, click MDS Integration Service on the left navigation area.
    5. On the right, click the URL beside BlackBerry MDS Integration Service Server URL, and choose Default.
    6. Click Apply then OK.
  3. Click the BlackBerry Domain icon on the left navigation bar.
  4. On the right, click the drop-down list named Service Control & Customization.
  5. Click the option named Delete MDS Integration Service.
  6. In this new window, select the MDS Integration Service entry and click Remove.
  7. Click Apply, then OK.
Once the above steps are completed, proceed with the upgrade to BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3. Please refer to the Installation Guide for details on completing the upgrade.
The BlackBerry Mobile Data System Integration Service (MDS-IS) SQL backup must be deleted from the server so the install of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP3 can continue.
Resolution 2
1) Browse to <drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup
2) Delete the MDSIS backup files.
 
Additional Information
The BlackBerry MDS Integration Service is only responsible for facilitating connectivity for BlackBerry MDS Runtime Applications, and has no effect on Internet or intranet browsing, nor other third-party Java® or web applications.
Note: BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP2 Maintainance Release 2, 3, 4 or 5 are required to be installed as they fix an issue related to removing the BlackBerry Mobile Data System - Integration Service (MKS762391) when using the BlackBerry Administration Service.
 
Note: We did option 2, we still have the issue. Option1 is the best choice.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Exchange 2010, say good bye to single instance storage (SIS)

 
 
In Exchange Server 2010, there is no more single instance storage (SIS). To help understand why SIS is gone, let's review a brief history of Exchange.
During the development of Exchange 4.0, we had two primary goals in mind, and SIS was borne out of these goals:
  1. Ensure that messages were delivered as fast and as efficient as possible.
  2. Reduce the amount of disk space required to store messages, as disk capacity was premium.
Exchange 4.0 (and, to a certain extent, Exchange 5.0 and Exchange 5.5) was really designed as a departmental solution. Back then, users were typically placed on an Exchange server based on their organization structure (often, the entire company was on the same server).  Since there was only one mailbox database, we maximized our use of SIS for both message delivery (only store the body and attachments once) and space efficiency. The only time we created another copy within the store was when the user modified their individual instance.
For almost 19 years, the internal Exchange database table structure has remained relatively the same:
Then came Exchange 2000.  In Exchange 2000, we evolved considerably - we moved to SMTP for server-to-server connectivity, we added storage groups, and we increased the maximum number of databases per server.  The result was a shift away from a departmental usage of Exchange to enterprise usage of Exchange.  Moreover, the move to 20 databases reduced SIS effects on space efficiency, as the likelihood that multiple recipients were on the same database decreased.  Similarly, message delivery was improved by our optimizations in transport, so transport no longer benefited as much from SIS either.
With Exchange 2003, consolidation of servers took off in earnest due to features like Cached Exchange Mode.  Again the move away from departmental usage continued.  Many customers moved away from distributing mailboxes based on their organization structure to randomization of the user population across all databases in the organization.  Once again, the space efficiency effects of SIS were further reduced.
In Exchange 2007, we increased the number of databases you could deploy, which again reduced the space efficiency of SIS. We further optimized transport delivery and completely removed the need for SIS from a transport perspective.  Finally, we made changes to the information store that removed the ability to single instance message bodies (but allowed single instancing of attachments). The result was that SIS no longer provided any real space savings - typically only about 0-20%.
One of our main goals for Exchange 2010 was to provide very large mailboxes at a low cost. Disk capacity is no longer a premium; disk space is very inexpensive and IT shops can take advantage of larger, cheaper disks to reduce their overall cost. In order to leverage those larger capacity disks, you also need to increase mailbox sizes (and remove PSTs and leverage the personal archive and records management capabilities) so that you can ensure that you are designing your storage to be both IO efficient and capacity efficient.
During the development of Exchange 2010, we realized that having a table structure optimized for SIS was holding us back from making the storage innovations that were necessary to achieve our goals. In order to improve the store and ESE, to change our IO profile (from many, small, random IOs to larger, fewer, more sequential IOs), and to resolve our inefficiencies around item count, we had to change the store schema. Specifically, we moved away from a per-database table structure to a per-mailbox table structure:
This architecture, along with other changes to the ESE and store engines (lazy view updates, space hints, page size increase, b+ tree defrag, etc.), netted us not only a 70% reduction in IO over Exchange 2007, but also substantially increased our ability to store more items in critical path folders.
As a result of the new architecture and the other changes to the store and ESE, we had to deal with an unintended side effect.  While these changes greatly improved our IO efficiency, they made our space efficiency worse.  In fact, on average they increased the size of the Exchange database by about 20% over Exchange 2007. To overcome this bloating effect, we implemented a targeted compression mechanism (using either 7-bit or XPRESS, which is the Microsoft implementation of the LZ77 algorithm) that specifically compresses message headers and bodies that are either text or HTML-based (attachments are not compressed as typically they exist in their most compressed state already).  The result of this work is that we see database sizes on par with Exchange 2007.
The below graph shows a comparison of database sizes for Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 with different types of message data:
As you can see, Exchange 2007 databases that contained 100% Rich Text Format (RTF) content was our baseline goal when implementing database compression in Exchange 2010. What we found is that with a mix of messaging data (77% HTML, 15% RTF, 8% Text, with an average message size of 50KB) that our compression algorithms are on par with Exchange 2007 database sizes. In other words, we mitigated most of the bloat caused by the lack of SIS.
Is compression the answer to replacing single instancing all together? The answer to that question is that it really does depend. There are certain scenarios where SIS may be viable:
  • Environments that only send Rich-Text Format messages. The compression algorithms in Exchange 2010 do not compress RTF message blobs because they already exist in their most compressible form.
  • Sending large attachments to many users. For example, sending a large (30 MB+) attachment to 20 users.  Even if there were only 5 recipients out of the 20 on the same database, in Exchange 2003 that meant the 30MB attachment was stored once instead of 5 times on that database. In Exchange 2010, that attachment is stored 5 times (150 MB for that database) and isn't compressed. But depending on your storage architecture, the capacity to handle this should be there. Also, your email retention requirements will help here, by forcing the removal of the data after a certain period of time.
  • Business or organizational archives that are used to maintain immutable copies of messaging data benefit from single instancing because the system only has to keep one copy of the data, which is useful when you need to maintain that data indefinitely for compliance purposes.
If you go back through our guidance over the past 10 years, you will never find a single reference to using SIS around capacity planning.  We might mention it has an impact in terms of the database size, but that's it.  All of our guidance has always dictated designing the storage without SIS in mind.  And for those that are thinking about thin provisioning, SIS isn't a reason to do thin provisioning, nor is SIS a means to calculate your space requirements.  Thin provisioning requires an operational maturity that can react quickly to changes in the messaging environment, as well as, a deep understanding of the how the user population behaves and grows over time to sufficiently allocate the right amount of storage upfront.
In summary, Exchange 2010 changes the messaging landscape.  The architectural changes we have implemented enable the commoditization of email - providing very large mailboxes at a low cost.  Disk capacity is no longer a premium.   Disk space is cheap and IT shops can take advantage of larger, cheaper disks to reduce their overall cost.  With Exchange 2010 you can deploy a highly available system with a degree of storage efficiency without SIS at a fraction of the cost that was required with previous versions of Exchange.
So, there you have it. SIS is gone.
 
 

Outlook Fonts change once you compose a new email or reply to an email

Issue:
 
Everytime once you compose a new email or reply to an email, Your Outlook's new message window shows very big or timy letters.
 
Cause:
 
If your font looks smaller or bigger than the actually configured font size, your zooming factor has been set above or below 100%.
 
Resolutions:
 
You can change it back in the following way:
 
Outlook 2010
When composing click on the Zoom button on the Home tab.
 
Outlook 2007

When composing go to the Format Text tab and click on the Zoom button.
 
 
Previous versions of Outlook
You can only zoom when you have Word set as the email editor. The Zoom function can be found in the View menu.
 
Note:
The change in the zoom factor probably was caused by holding the CTRL button while scrolling. This is an alternative method to change the zoom factor.
 
 

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Outlook 2007 support for Exchange 2010 SP1 mailbox Archive

 
Outlook 2007 support for Personal Archives in Exchange 2010 SP1.
 
Exchange 2010 includes Personal Archives, a feature designed to help you reduce the risks from PST files and reduce the costs of discovery. Organizations can provision archive mailboxes for their users, allowing them to store older e-mail that's accessed less frequently in the archive. From the user's perspective, archive mailbox behaves like a PST file, minus the file management overhead and risks of a PST file. For more details, see Understanding Personal Archives in Exchange 2010 documentation. Also check out Exchange GM Perry Clarke's Geek Out With Perry series for a chalk talk video on Exchange Archiving.
In the Exchange 2010 RTM timeframe, users could use Outlook 2010 or Outlook Web App (OWA) to access archive mailboxes. This update extends archive support to Outlook 2007.

How does it work in Outlook 2007?

If an administrator provisions an archive mailbox for a user, it is accessible in Outlook 2007 with the December 2010 Cumulative Update installed. As with Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007 uses the Autodiscover service to obtain information about the user's archive mailbox. This occurs when the user starts Outlook, or at a fixed interval when Outlook is running. The archive mailbox is only accessible when the user is connected to the Exchange server.

Cached Exchange Mode and Archive Mailboxes

In Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007, users can access archive mailboxes only when they're connected to the Exchange server. The connection can be an RPC (over TCP) connection, or Outlook Anywhere (aka RPC over HTTP). Even if the Outlook profile is configured to use Cached Exchange Mode, the archive mailbox is never cached locally to the user's computer. When the user is no longer connected to Exchange, the archive mailbox becomes inaccessible. The locally cached primary mailbox remains accessible if using Cached Exchange Mode.
Once the archive mailbox is visible in Outlook 2007, users can expand the folder hierarchy, and are able to perform the following operations:
  • Move or copy messages and folders between their primary mailbox and the archive mailbox
  • Move or copy messages and folders between a PST file and their archive mailbox (if access to PST files is not blocked by the administrator).
    Note: In Exchange 2010 SP1, administrators can also use mailbox import requests to import data from PST files to either the user's archive or primary mailbox. For more information, see Understanding Mailbox Import and Export Requests.
  • Export or import messages to and from the archive mailbox
  • Use Inbox Rules to automatically move messages to a folder in the archive mailbox
However, Outlook 2007 does not support the following functionality:
  • Search across primary and archive mailboxes: When a user searches the primary mailbox, and selects All Mailbox Items, Outlook does not search the archive mailbox. Similarly, when the user searches the archive mailbox, the primary mailbox is not searched.
  • Archive policies: In Outlook 2007, users can't use personal tags (also known as archive policies) to move items to the archive mailbox. Any default archive policies for the mailbox continue to be applied. Users can use Outlook Web App to see or apply archive policies.

    Archive policies are retention policy tags with the Move to Archive action. Organizations can use the Default Archive and Retention Policy, or apply custom retention policies to a mailbox. The policies can include a default policy tag (DPT) to move items from the primary mailbox to the archive mailbox, and personal tags which users can apply to messages or folders to move them to archive. For more information, see Understanding Personal Archives, and Understanding Retention Tags and Retention Policies.
With the release of this update, organizations with Office 2007/Outlook 2007 deployed can benefit from Exchange 2010's archiving and retention features.