New-TestCasConnectivityUser.ps1Error

When you run TestCasConnectivityUser.ps1 , you need to have mail enabled test user account for the script to run properly. new-TestCasConnectivityUser.ps1 Drill down to Script directory on your exchange server, and run "new-TestCasConnectivityUser.ps1" Program Files Microsoft Exchange Server V14 Scripts Make sure the password you are using at the first time meets the password requirements and if you need specify the OU where the account will get created ( replace STP25.gov to your own Domain name space.) Get-MailboxServer mccnpwinmbx1 | .\new-TestCasConnectivityUser.ps1 -OU STP25.gov/users If you open ADUC you will be able to see this user, in the default users container. get-user extest_e7a1882f51284   No running  Test-OutlookWebServices -ClientAccessServer EXCCAS1 should work Respectfully, http://smtp25.blogspot.com/ (Blog) http://telnet25.wordpress.com/ (Blog)

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How to Find what Exchange 2010 Version you are running on your Server.

Use fallowing  PS to figure out what version of exchange 2010 you are running. [PS] C:\>Get-ExchangeServer | Format-Table Name, *Version* http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/exchange-server-and-update-rollups-builds-numbers.aspx [PS] C:\>Get-help Get-ExchangeServer [PS] C:\>Get-ExchangeServer | Format-List Respectfully, http://smtp25.blogspot.com/ (Blog) http://telnet25.wordpress.com/ (Blog)

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Exchange 2010 Administrator Audit log Powershell GUI

An interesting and useful new feature of Exchange 2010 is Administrator audit logging where each time a EMS cmdlet is run in the Exchange in the EMS, EMC or ECP this is logged. Within ECP you can do a search of the admin Audit logs and have the result emailed to you and what you receive in your inbox is an email with an a attachment called searchresult.xml. While this file contains a lot of great information there are a few problems with this format for administrators firstly is that OWA and Oultook will usually block the XML attachments so it can firstly be hard to get to the attachment. Secondly XML isn't the most readable format when it comes to trying to intemperate what was going on especially if you search across a larger number of days. So what I've put together is a GUI that first uses the EWS Managed API to find these any of these emails within your inbox and then gives you the option of exporting the raw xml or converting the XML to a CSV file or lastly using a separate report winform that groups the data retrieved and displays it back to the user. The later i think is a lot more useful as it lets you work more intuitively with the data and the better you can do this the more likely it is that you would spot an abnormality which is one to the purposes of auditing. eg this is what it looks like Note this GUI currently only handles the Admin Audit logs not the Mailbox Audit log which are in a different format. I've put a download of this script here

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Exchange 2010 Database Size, EDB file Path etc.….

You might wonder what is the size of  your Exchange Server databases , and their path etc. In Exchange 2010 the task is pretty real easy. Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | select ServerName,Name,DatabaseSize,EdbFilePath,LogFolderPath Now here how the output would look like to export this into CSV file add the fallowing at the end of PS Export-Csv c:\scripts\DBSize.csv Full Script would be like this Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | select ServerName,Name,DatabaseSize,EdbFilePath,LogFolderPath | Export-Csv c:\scripts\DBSize.csv Finally we will plug this into PowerGUI Give it a name Respectfully, http://smtp25.blogspot.com/ (Blog) http://telnet25.wordpress.com/ (Blog)

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Disable permanently Outlook Team Calendar

Outlook 2010 introduced new future called "Team Calendar". This future might be annoying or not acceptable in certain cases and un-ticking check mark to make it not seen might not be sufficient enough. If so and you are wondering how to disable this here is the solution. Team Calendars , star popping up from people outlook. –Reason: the AD Attribute called "Manager" is populated see picture When manager is listed for given user,  outlook is automatically creating calendar in this format  Team: Name of the manager Calendar inside peoples outlook see picture   Fire up reg edit on the problem workstation…..Drill down to fallowing directory [HKEY_CURRENT_USER Software Microsoft Office 14.0 Outlook Options WunderBar Create reg key if one does not exist "Value disablereportinglinegroupcalendar" This policy setting prevents Reporting Line Group Calendar from appearing in the navigation pane. If you enable this policy setting, Reporting Line Group Calendar will not appear in the navigation pane. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, My Reporting Line Group Calendar will appear in the navigation pane. Before After Respectfully, http://smtp25.blogspot.com/ (Blog) http://telnet25.wordpress.com/ (Blog)

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Setup wizard for update rollup 6 for Exchange server 2010 service pack 1 ended prematurely because of an error….

If you are attempting to install RU on Exchange 2010 server and receiving fallowing error, there is easy way to go around to get the install working without such issues. Problem: Install attempt RU XX on Exchange 2010 server is failing with above or similar error Solution: Run the setup file with Administrator privileges Cause: Most likely UAC turned on ( no need to try to turn it off ) Now here is the big secret , in old days we were able to say copy and paste into CMD window without typing the full path of the install file, you will quickly realize this is not working on Windows 2008 and you are like come on (-: on the install file hold "SHIFT" key down and left click to get option " Copy as path" Open CMD as administrator and "paste" will work now , Wowwww got to love this, whom ever though of making such improvement into Windows 2008, Now install will work flawless. Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog Http://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog) Http://telnet25.wordpress.com (Blog)

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Version Build number Release date

Version Build number Release date

Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 ---------- 4.0.837 --- Apr-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 (a) ----- 4.0.993 --- Aug-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP1 --- 4.0.838 --- May-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP2 --- 4.0.993 --- Aug-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP3 --- 4.0.994 --- Nov-96
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP4 --- 4.0.995 --- Apr-97
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP5 --- 4.0.996 --- May-98

Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 ---------- 5.0.1457 --- Mar-97
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 SP1 --- 5.0.1458 --- Jun-97
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 SP2 --- 5.0.1460 --- Feb-98
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 ---------- 5.5.1960 --- Nov-97
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP1 --- 5.5.2232 --- Jul-98
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP2 --- 5.5.2448 --- Dec-98
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP3 --- 5.5.2650 --- Sep-99
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP4 --- 5.5.2653 --- Nov-00

Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server ---------- 6.0.4417 --- Oct-00
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server (a) ----- 6.0.4417 --- Jan-11
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP1 --- 6.0.4712 --- Jul-11
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP2 --- 6.0.5762 --- Dec-11
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP3 --- 6.0.6249 --- Aug-11
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP3 --- 6.0.6487 --- Sep-11
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP3 --- 6.0.6556 --- Apr-11
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP3 --- 6.0.6603 --- Aug-11
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 ---------- 6.5.6944 --- Oct-11
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP1 --- 6.5.7226 --- May-11
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 --- 6.5.7638 --- Oct-11

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 ---------- 8.0.685.25 --- Dec-11
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1 --- 8.1.0240.006 --- Nov-11

What is Back Pressure in Exchange Server 2010

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Hub Transport and Edge Transport server role uses Back Pressure feature for system resource monitoring. Back Pressure monitors system resources like hard disk space and memory. If system resource utilization exceeds the specified limit, the Exchange server stops receiving new messages.

In Exchange Server 2007, when a Hub Transport or Edge Transport server resources are highly used, any new incoming connections are rejected. This has been changed in Exchange Server 2010 where incoming connections are accepted, but incoming messages are accepted at slower rate or are rejected.

There are three back pressure levels:-

· Normal means resource not overused. The server accepts new connections and messages.

· Medium means resource slightly overused. Back pressure is applied to the server in a limited manner. Mail from senders in the authoritative domain can flow. However, the server rejects new connections and messages from other sources.

· High means resource highly overused. Full back pressure is applied. All message flow stops, and the server rejects all new connections and messages.

1 AD Site, 1 DAG = no DAC

So as the TechNet article (Understanding Datacenter Activation Coordination Mode) explains you can’t enable DAC mode in Exchange Server 2010 for a DAG where all members are in the same AD site… So what happens if you lose your primary data centre where your Witness Server is located and you do have a single DAG spanning 2 data centres with all members in the same AD site?

First – work out if the loss is permanent. If it’s not it might be worth waiting until the data centre is back – that way you can probably avoid the risk of split brain since you can shutdown the remaining DAG members and wait for a managed recovery. If it is permanent then you have to do a bit of work – nothing that is going to take you too long but it’s not as simple as running a couple of PowerShell commandlets; and you have to consider what happens if you cannot manage the recovery of the lost DAG members – it is likely that you will have to do a full seed as opposed to an incremental reseed as at a minimum there is likely to be divergence which the store may not be able to recover from. The steps that worked for me in our test rig are as follows:

• Bring the cluster online - “net start clussvc /forcequorum”
• Evict the lost cluster nodes (I used cluster manager)
• Update the DAG membership by removing the failed servers - “Remove-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer –id <DAG> -mailboxserver <server> -configurationonly>”
• Create a new Witness Directory - “Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup –id <DAG> -witnesserver <server>”
• Reboot the remaining DAG members (might get away with restarting the cluster service and\or the information store and mounting the database)
• Databases should mount automatically according to AutoDatabaseMountDial

The better news is that Exchange Server 2010 SP1 is hopefully going to change the game. As Scott Schnoll writes…

“DAC mode has been extended to support DAGs that have all members deployed in a single Active Directory site, including Active Directory sites that have been extended to multiple locations.”

(http://blogs.technet.com/scottschnoll/archive/2010/04/10/new-high-availability-features-in-exchange-2010-sp1.aspx)

Take notice of the note that accompanies the blog though:

But a quick note: everything in this post is based on pre-release software and preliminary information that is subject to change. These are things we are working on or are about to work on. The feature names, behaviors and descriptions used below might not be the final names, behaviors and descriptions. The behvaiors described may or may not make it into the final shipping version of SP1 or a future version of the product. Standard disclaimers apply regarding pre-Beta software and content.”

The other idea that was given to me to avoid split brain and the need for a full seed in the event of failback is to mark the databases not to mount at startup. This means that where you cannot manage the startup of the lost DAG members the databases will not mount. Unfortunately this prevents automated failover where there is data loss but where the lost logs are within AutoDatabaseMountDial since the replicas will not be activated and get left in a failed state. Nice idea but didn’t work in my testing..

How to find out which domain controller i'm talking to?

To find out which domain controller your PC is talking to, use the following command:

nltest /dsgetdc:domainname.local



This is very handy when testing your active directory sites and services topology to ensure it is setup correctly. If you want to understand the process in which a client computer locates its domain controller please see this post:

http://clintboessen.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-clients-locate-domain-controllers.html

How to Enable Mailtips In Exchange 2010

If you are not up to speed on Mailtips I suggest you reading this article by the MS Exchange Team:

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/04/28/451193.aspx

To enable Mail Tips you need to use powershell with the Set-OrganizationConfig cmdlet. There are various components of mailtips you can enable or disable.

- MailTipsAllTipsEnabled. Controls whether MailTips are enabled. The default is $True.

- MailTipsExternalRecipientTipsEnabled. Controls whether MailTips for external recipients are enabled. The default is $False. External recipients are determined by reference to the accepted domains list. Any domain in this list is deemed internal; any other domain is deemed external.

- MailTipsGroupMetricsEnabled. Controls whether MailTips that depend on group sizes are enabled. The default is $True.

- MailTipsLargeAudienceThreshold. Controls the threshold for the number of recipients on a message before MailTips flags it as large. The default value is 25. This value is probably too low for large organizations, where big distribution groups are common. In this scenario, it makes sense to increase the value to 50 to stop MailTips from nagging users for no good reason.

- MailTipsMailboxSourcedTipsEnabled. Controls whether MailTips that depend on mailbox data such as out-of-office notices are enabled. The default is $True

Note: If all are enabled, it will increase load on your client access servers by 5%.

Detach Mailbox from User Account

To Detach or Disconnect a Exchange Mailbox from a user account use Disable-Mailbox in powershell. This removes the exchange attributes from the user account in Active Directory.

To reattach the mailbox to another user account use Connect-Mailbox

You can also permanently delete a disconnected mailbox at any time by using the Remove-Mailbox cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell

Use the Clean-MailboxDatabase cmdlet to scan the Active Directory directory service for disconnected mailboxes that are not yet marked as disconnected in the Microsoft Exchange store and update the status of those mailboxes in the Exchange store

Flush Transaction Logs in Exchange

This article applies to all versions of Exchange from 5.5 to 2010.

The following knowledge base article gives you all the fruit about flushing transaction logs but I assume you just want to know how to do it right?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/240145

Your Exchange Logs get deleted when your database backup completes. When your exchange server receives an email it dumps the email to the transaction logs. When the exchange server free's up it then plays these logs into the database. Sometimes Exchange may not have played all the log files into the database, so you cant simply "delete" them.

1. Dismount the all Exchange Mailbox Databases under the Storage Group you wish to clean up.

2. Use the ESEUTIL program to view if all the logs have been played into the Exchange Database.

eseutil /MH database.edb



If all the databases are in a Clean Shutdown or Consistent state, you may remove all the transaction logs. Older versions say "Consistent", New Versions of Exchange say "Clean Shutdown". In my screenshot I'm using Exchange 2010.

Note: If it is not in a "Clean Shutdown" or "Consistent" state, you can use eseutil to reply the log files into the database or remount the database and allow Exchange to replay them.
Caution: Do not delete log files if the state is not "Clean Shutdown" or "Consistent" as you will loose email!

3. Delete all log files including the chk file. The checkpoint file keeps track of which log files have been and have not been played into the database. Since there are no log files anymore, the checkpoint is not needed.

Caution: If your database is in the same directory as your log files be careful you dont accidently delete your edb database file as well!

4. Re-mount your exchange databases in your storage group. This will automatically create a new checkpoint file ready to go!

A quick way to determine your bridgehead servers?

You want to determine which bridgehead servers have been elected in each Active Directory site to troubleshoot replication issues?

Use the following command:

repadmin /bridgeheads

Outlook does not Redirect to Exchange 2010 SP1 CAS Array

Problem:

You have a single Exchange 2010 SP1 server "Ex2010.domain.local" running HT, MBX and CAS roles. You move a mailbox from the Exchange 2010 SP1 install to a new Exchange 2010 SP1 CAS Array installation "CASArray01.domain.local".

Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 will still points at the mailbox "Ex2010.domain.local", it will not automatically update and point at "CASArray01.domain.local". This is because the RPC CA service doesn't respond with a "ecWrongServer" like previous versions of Exchange did.

Microsoft is aware of this issue however their is no easy resolution in terms of a little code tweak.

How do I prevent this from happening:

Microsoft has been telling customers for a long time to always create a CAS Array even if they have one server - they need a one server array. If all servers single servers were setup in an Array from the beginning this problem would not exist.

Is there a way to force all Outlook clients to automatically perform a full re-autodiscover and attach to the new server?

Yes - if you remove the "Host A" record from DNS for the old Exchange 2010 server old Exchange 2010 server "Ex2010.domain.local" the Outlook clients should do a full re-autodiscover and attach to the new CAS array "CASArray01.domain.local" automatically.

This however is generally impractical especially when you want to stage your mailbox move slowly instead of attempt the big bang approach where all mailboxes are moved in one hit. For small server migrations this is a workable solution.

Is there another work around other then removing a Host A record from DNS?

Yes - create a PRF (Outlook Profile) configuration file to automatically update Outlook to point to the new server. You will need to script this out to ensure it automatically runs on all workstations.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179062.aspx

Please look at this article for information on pushing these settings via Group Policy or Script:

http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/deployprf.htm

DO NOT USE - Outlook Cached Exchange Mode

Cached Exchange Mode is the process of when 2003/2007/2010 downloading a copy of the users mailbox and storing it locally on their workstation. This means all emails opened by the user from there onwards does not hit the Exchange servers significantly reducing load.

Many clients however still disabled cached Exchange mode on their users workstations. When asking them "why", their answer is always:

Because we need the user can access the most updated address book when they click the global address book.

If your company has this requirement this doesn't mean you need to disable Cached Exchange Mode. You can configure a registry key on your clients to simply keep the address book in online mode.

For more information on this key for Outlook 2003/2007/2010 please see:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841273

Generally the only time you want to disable cached exchange mode is if your users run on a terminal services or Citrix shared environment where you do not want a copy of EVERY users mailbox downloaded and stored locally on the terminal server!