Tuesday, December 20, 2011

KMS Activation Issue - Windows 7 on Dell OptiPlex

 

Problem

One of the Dell OptiPlex machines were not getting Windows 7 activated by KMS.

I tried running slmgr –ato with no success. Every time following error appeared

Error Code: 0xc004f035. The Software Licensing Service reported that the computer could not be activated with a Volume license product key. Volume licensed systems require upgrading from a qualified operating system. Please contact your system administrator or use a different type of key.

 

Resolution

To fix this issue, update BIOS to the latest version available on Dell support site

Monday, December 12, 2011

As Kindle Fire Faces Critics, Remedies Are Promised

 

“..The Kindle Fire, Amazon’s heavily promoted tablet, is less than a blazing success with many of its early users. The most disgruntled are packing the device up and firing it back to the retailer.

A few of their many complaints: there is no external volume control. The off switch is easy to hit by accident. Web pages take a long time to load. There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing. The touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky…”

“..“In less than two weeks, we’re rolling out an over-the-air update to Kindle Fire,” said Drew Herdener, a company spokesman.

There will be improvements in performance and multitouch navigation, and customers will have the option of editing the list of items that show what they have recently been doing…”

Source

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Outlook Advanced Search Error

Issue

When you try to run Advanced Search in Microsoft Outlook following error appears

Outlook cannot perform your search. Outlook cannot display this view”

image image

Simple Search works fine but the issue only occurs when searching a shared or just one mailbox. All users that access this mailbox have same symptom.

Resolution

Since all users are getting the same issue, its not just outlook. There is some wrong with the mailbox itself. In most cases it is a custom Search Folder that is creating this issue.

there are two ways to resolve this issue.

1. Delete the Search Folder that is not working properly (Right Click –> Delete Folder)

image

2.

a. Create a new mapi profile for just that one mailbox and make sure that Outlook prompts you to choose a profile when opened

b. Go to Start –> Run or press Win+R keys and type outlook /cleanfinders press Enter

c. Choose the profile for the mailbox that has issue

 

Any of the above actions will clear the broken search folder, fixing the search issue.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Skype is now part of Microsoft

Together we will bring innovative technology to friends, families and colleagues everywhere. And now the future possibilities for our customers are even more exciting. We will enable more people to connect in more ways that transform and enhance their lives. And this is just the beginning.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/skype/?WT.mc_id=MSCOM_EN_US_DLC_DETAILS_122LSUS011889

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Microsoft Skype acquisition finalized

“I am delighted to announce the deal with Microsoft has formally closed, and Skype is now a division of Microsoft. This represents a huge leap forward in Skype's mission to be the communications choice for a billion people every day…”

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/oct11/10-13SkypePR.mspx

http://blogs.skype.com/en/2011/10/acquisitionclose.html

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Send a WebPage to Kindle

I have been using a kindle for a few weeks now and I find it extremely useful.

Reading on computer screen is not comfortable specially I spend more than 20 minutes reading on an LCD my eyes start to hurt so Kindle is great for that. Anyways, since Amazon is not really paying me to advertise their Kindle I will get to the point.

There are many time when I am doing some research and I come across some great articles that I want to read online. I have two ways to read it on my Kindle

1. Go to the URL on experimental browser on kindle (not a great reading experience still)

2. Use a plugin with your browser (Chrome, Firefox) or an Android app to send the page converted to Kindle readable format (This is great!)

There is a tool called Kindle it, It allows me to send an webpage I am reading to my …@free.kindle.com email which converts it and sends it to my kindle.

To get the add-on visit
http://fivefilters.org/kindle-it/

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Bulk Convert Office 97/2003 Files to Office 2007 or Office 2010

 

Many organizations are now using Office 2007 or Office 2010 most documents are still in legacy format. Although there is no harm with using doc files created in previous versions. But there are limitations with formatting options and manipulation of the overall document.

Microsoft provides with a tool that can help converting many doc file and a fileshare or a multiple directories to the new docx format.

here you can download tools for the relevant version of Office

Office 2007

Office 2010

with OMPM (Office Migration Planning Manager) one can batch convert old doc file to docx format.

Instructions to Migrate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files to the 2007 Office system can be found here

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179019%28office.12%29.aspx 

Instructions to Convert binary Office files by using the Office File Converter (OFC) and Version Extraction Tool (VET) can be found here

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179019.aspx

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Windows 8 Developer’s Preview - Remove Metro UI

 

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/tweak-windows-8-to-remove-the-metro-interface/5077?tag=nl.e064

“…First, start regedit. In Windows 8, if you are in the Metro Interface, you can just type r e g e d i t and that application will appear in the search, like you see in Figure A.

Figure A
Just start typing in Windows 8 and the OS will assume you want to search for an application

Inside the registry editor, navigate to this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer


Double-click the key labeled: RPEnabled as shown in Figure B.



Figure B




Double-click RPEnabled


When the Edit DWORD comes up (Figure C), change the Value data from 1 to zero and click OK.



Figure C




Change the Value data from 1 to zero


That’s it. Now, when you click the Start Menu on the Windows 8 Desktop you will get the old Start Menu you know rather than the tiled screen Microsoft is hoping you will want to know..”

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts

 

Anywhere in Windows 8

WIN + Q
Find and Application

WIN + W 
Search Settings or Control Panel

WIN + I 
Open Preferences of currently running application and windows

WIN + O
Disable screen rotation (turn off the gyro reaction to the tablets)

WIN + C 
Opens MetroUI Start Menu with taskbar items like time and network connectivity

Windows Explorer Hotkeys; (Press ALT Key + the below combination)

A – to open the “special features”

C O – to copy the selected items.

C P – copy the path to the file / folder.

C F – copy the folder (use the drop-down list)

D – delete the selected.

E – edit the selected files.

H – to show the history of file versions.

M – move the files (using the drop-down list).

N – Create a new folder.

P S – insert label

P R – open properties.

P E – Open With …, select the application again using a drop-down list.

S A – select all.

S N – deselect.

S I – invert the selection.

R – rename a selected file (s).

T – cut

V – to paste.

W – to create a new document, choose the template – using the drop-down list.

How to Create Bootable USB for Windows 8 Developer Preview

“..Like many folks, after watching the BUILD keynote this morning, I couldn't wait to get home and install Windows 8 Developer Preview on my laptop. The instructions for installing Windows 8 are simple enough. The only fly in the ointment is that installing Windows 8 requires a DVD to create an install package…”

So Mount the ISO first lest say it is mounted on I: drive

Here are the steps to format a USB flash drive.

  1. Insert a USB flash drive into your computer
  2. Start a Command Prompt as an Administrator and type diskpart. This starts the Disk Partition tool which you need to use to format the flash drive. Once you see the DISKPART command prompt, type in the following commands
  3. DISKPART> list disk /* shows list of active disks */
  4. DISKPART> select disk # /* # is the number for your USB flash drive */
  5. DISKPART> clean /* deletes any existing partitions on the USB flash drive */
  6. DISKPART> create partition primary /* create a primary partition on the USB flash drive */
  7. DISKPART> select partition 1 /* select the newly created partition */
  8. DISKPART> active /* make the new partition active */
  9. DISKPART> format /FS:NTFS /* format the USB drive with NTFS file system */
  10. DISKPART> assign /* assign a volume and drive letter to the USB drive */
  11. DISKPART> exit /* exit Disk Partition */

At this point, your USB flash drive should be showing up in Windows Explorer and have a drive letter assigned to it, e.g. F:\.

Make the USB flash drive bootable

We just need to make the USB flash drive bootable before copying the files. To do this, you can use the Boot Sector Registration Tool (bootsect.exe) which is located in the boot folder of the Windows 8 ISO image.

  1. Start a Command Prompt as an Administrator and CHDIR into the boot folder of the Windows 8 ISO image, e.g. I:\boot where I:\ is the drive where the ISO image is mounted
  2. Type bootsect /nt60 E: /* where E: is the drive assigned to the USB flash drive */
Step 3: Copy the Windows 8 files onto the USB flash drive

From a command line, use XCOPY to copy the Windows 8 files to the USB flash drive . In the example below, I:\ is the drive where the ISO image is mounted. F:\ is the USB flash drive.

XCOPY I:\*.* F:\ /E /F /H

Source

Windows 8–Useful Links

Windows 8 is the hot news on every technical news portal and blog, here is a collection of links that will help you get more info on anything related to Windows 8. Watch the keynote from yesterday during BUILD Conference. If you just want to watch Windows 8 related bit in the keynote use the link below:

Everything You Need to Know About Windows 8 in Eight Minutes

Download ISO

Download Windows 8 ISOs Right Now

Feature Talks

Windows 8: classic desktop features [video]

Windows 8 requires less power than Windows 7

Windows 8: What's new on the desktop experience

Windows 8: Introducing Windows 8's tablet interface, Metro

Windows 8 app store approval policy outlined

Windows 8 Metro apps and Windows Store [video]

Hands on: Windows 8 input options and pen computing

Windows 8: A look at Internet Explorer 10

Windows Live SkyDrive Integration in Windows 8

Reviews

Welcome to Windows 8 – The Developer Preview

Windows 8 developer preview UX in pictures

Windows 8 really does change everything, it’s mind-blowing

Hands on: Windows 8 review

Microsoft blows up Windows with Windows 8

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Microsoft download from The Garage: Mouse without Borders and Others

Microsoft have released a great little app for users us with multiple PCs. The addin comes from a Garage project at Microsoft which is a program designed to encourage incubations of ideas and projects.

With the application it treats all your Windows PCs as if they were one single desktop, so if you have two machines side by site (as I do at work) you can use the mouse as though they were one PC including dragging files between them. It’s a great idea and if you have a dedicated Media Center machine connected to your TV as well a laptop it would be a great way of controlling it from one place.

Source: link

Download: link

There are other applications that can be used to achieve the same and even better in some cases.

http://inputdirector.com/

http://synergy-foss.org/

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Exchange 2010 SP2 on its way

“..With the release of Exchange Server 2010 SP2 later this year, we will add a new feature known as Address Book Policies . Following this addition, hosters who wish to deploy the standard on-premises configuration of Exchange and use ABP will be supported. As you may have read in a recent post over on the Exchange Partner Marketing blog, our view on whether to host Exchange using Hosting Mode or the standard on-premises configuration is changing in response to feedback we’ve had...”

Read more

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Exchange 2010 SP1 - Rollup 5 is released

Microsoft has released Update Rollup 5 for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) that is dated August 23, 2011...

download from the link below

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27193

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Why was Exchange 2010 sp1 Rollup 4 recalled?

Here are some details on why Exchange 2010 sp1 RU4 was recalled.

An Update on Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Rollup Update 4

I really hope that Microsoft makes some proper changes to avoid this in future. Having a reputation for recalling updates for something as critical as Exchange or anything for that matter is not a good sign. Industry learns and inherits standards from such companies so they have to be very diligent in their offerings.

Well I wish the Exchange Team well for future rollouts. 

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Emails stuck in submissions queue–Exchange 2010 sp1

While checking the message queue on a hub transport server I found many messages stuck with status retry and last error read something like the following

 400 4.4.7 The server responded with: 550 5.6.0 CAT.InvalidContent.Exception: InvalidCharsetException, Character set name (ISO-8859-6-i) is invalid or not installed.; cannot handle content of message with InternalId….

I always like to have the mail queue clear and specially submission (local deliveries), which can be a nightmare if clogged.

Resolution

by looking at the details of these messages one could tell that they are either spam of Exchange server cannot process it because the FromAddress field is <> empty.

to get rid of these messages from the queue, I just used the following cmdlet.

Get-Message -Filter {FromAddress -eq "<>"} -Server htserver | Remove-Message

Monday, August 1, 2011

Missing Manage Send as Permissions option in Exchange Management Console

In Exchange 2010 RBAC allows you to grant permissions to Helpdesk or Administrators in a very granular manner.  There are built in groups that one can use for Helpdesk and Recipient Management that one can add User Support team to be able to manage permissions on a mailbox, create and delete mailbox, mail enable public folders, manage permissions on mailbox etc.

Issue

I used the built in groups to grant our user support team permissions that they required. All works fine but User Support was unable to see or grant send as permissions. When any of them right click a mailbox they don’t even see an option to view or change send as permissions. They do see an option for managing full mailbox permissions.

Resolution

In Toolbox of EMC go to “Role Based Access Control (RBAC) User Editor”

Double click Recipient Management Role and in the Roles add “Active Directory Permissions” click on Save.

image

Friday, July 29, 2011

Announcing the re-release of Exchange 2010 SP1 Rollup 4

“….The review completed by the Exchange CXP team determined that the issue identified in 'KB 2581545: The copy or move operation on a folder that contains subfolders does not work as expected after you install Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1 dated June 22, 2011’ introduced a serious regression in the original release of Rollup 4. As a result, a new version of Rollup 4 dated July 23, 2011 has been tested and released with the change that caused the regression removed. The re-release of Rollup 4 is tracked by 'KB 2579150: Description of Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1'…”

Read More

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Microsoft Says Happy Birthday to Linux

Microsoft wishes Linux kernel happy 20th Birthday!

Microsoft just want to say

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

“Windows Server 8” sneak preview

“….

If you’re in IT you are likely pulled between an almost infinite need for more computing power to deliver business solutions and the ever increasing demands for greater agility, higher efficiency and lower costs.  Fortunately, you can now deliver on these seemingly contradictory demands by leveraging the benefits of cloud computing with our public and private cloud solutions.  And they are only going to get better.

Today we are excited to give you a sneak peek at the next step in private cloud computing by showing you just two of hundreds of new capabilities coming in the next version of Windows Server, internally code-named “Windows Server 8.”…”

Read More

Click here to Watch - go to 36:50

Monday, July 18, 2011

Glad we waited! - Exchange 2010 SP1 RU4 Removed from Download Center

“…We have discovered an issue impacting some customers who have installed Exchange 2010 SP1 RU4 into their Exchange environment and as a result have removed SP1 RU4 from Download Center and recommend customers do not proceed with any planned deployments of SP1 RU4.

A small number of customers have reported when the Outlook client is used to move or copy a folder that subfolders and content for the moved folder are deleted. After investigation we have determined that the folder and item contents do not appear in the destination folder as expected but may be recovered from the Recoverable Items folder (what was previously known as Dumpster in older versions of Exchange) from the original folder. This behavior occurs due to a customer requested change in SP1 RU4 which allowed deleted Public Folders to be recovered. Outlook and Exchange are not correctly processing the folder move and copy operations causing the folder contents to appear to be deleted. OWA and Exchange Web Services clients are not affected by this change and process the folder move or copy actions correctly….”

Read More

Friday, July 8, 2011

Upgrade All Distribution Lists to Exchange 2010

To make use of Exchange 2010 distribution list features and make way to decommission your legacy servers upgrade you all your distribution lists to Exchange 2010 by running the following cmdlet

Get-DistributionGroup –ResultSize Unlimited | Set-DistributionGroup –ForceUpgrade

In Exchange 2010 management of distribution lists has changed a little due to exchange design. To manage permissions of who can edit membership of members of a group and who can manage groups see the following post.

http://mykbit.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-manage-distribution-lists-with.html

How to manage Distribution Lists with groups in Exchange 2010

Issue

When User1 tries to add a new member to the DistributionGroup1 distribution group, she gets this error:

Changes to the distribution group list membership could not be saved. You do not have sufficient permissions to perform this operation on this object.


Figure 1: User gets a permissions error when trying ot modifying a distribution group membership in Microsoft Outlook

In the past, User1 was able to add/remove members to the distribution group by using Outlook and didn’t need to call the help desk for assistance. What has changed?

You know that you had previously configured SecurityGroup1 to be able to manage this distribution group. Did someone make a change to User1’s security group membership? You look at ADUC first. No change – the user’s still a member of SecurityGroup1.


Figure 2: The user’s still a member of the security group that’s configured to manage the distribution group

Next, you check the distribution group configuration in ADUC to verify that DistributionGroup1 is still being managed by SecurityGroup1.


Figure 3: The user’s still a member of the security group that’s configured to manage the distribution group

Okay, so what’s the deal here? You know you recently migrated to Exchange 2010. So you take a look at DistributionGroup1 in EMC (which reveals that it’s managed by SecurityGroup1, but also displays an ‘Object Not Found’ error).


Figure 4: EMC displays the security group with an ‘Object not found’ error

Why is Exchange 2010 doing this?

This behavior is by design. In Exchange 2010, distribution groups can’t be managed by groups – only individual users can manage groups. So it’s possible that using Exchange 2003, you used groups to manage a distribution group. Group ownership was handled at a different level. Now that these mailboxes have been moved to Exchange 2010, members of these groups can’t modify the group.

So are there any workarounds?

We’ve created a script to work around this limitation. Download Set-DistributionGroupOwners.ps1 from the Script Center.

The script will allow you to simulate a group having ownership of a distribution group in Exchange 2010. The script can be run in three different modes depending on the switches you pass.

  1. Mode 1 – Set Ownership for a particular distribution group. Modifications to the ManagedBy attribute are not set at this time. It will simply modify a Custom Attribute to have the information needed later when the script sets the ManagedBy attribute.
  2. Mode 2 – Modify the ManagedBy attribute of a specific distribution group so the members of either a security group or distribution group can manage it.
  3. Mode 3 – Is designed to be run as a scheduled task and ensure individual members of a group have ownership of the Distribution Group which they are set to own. This mode is used if you prefer to automate the process and perhaps run it nightly to look for any changes to security group and distribution group membership.

Read More from the Source: http://msibrahim.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/how-to-manage-groups-with-groups-in-exchange-2010/

Now available: Co-author documents in the Word Web App

'”…We designed co-authoring in the Word Web App on SkyDrive accordingly:  When you’re co-authoring, you always have a real time view into who is making changes and where these changes are occurring.  As soon as you begin typing, the corresponding section of the document is locked and others are notified, placing you in control and freeing others from distraction.  Contributors can hit “save” at any time to see an updated view of all changes…”

Read More

Coming Soon: PST Capture Tool

Can you believe it! Finally!!!

Well done Exchange Team!

“…We're excited to announce that later this year we'll be adding a new tool to our already rich portfolio of planning and deployment tools. This new tool, PST Capture, will be downloadable and free, and will enable you to discover .pst files on your network and then import them into both Exchange Online (in Office 365) and Exchange Server 2010 on-premises. PST Capture will be available later this year. It doesn’t replace the New-MailboxImportRequest cmdlet that exists already for importing known .pst files into Exchange Server, but instead works in parallel to enable you to embark on a systematic search and destroy mission to rid yourself of the dreaded .pst scourge <*pirate growl*>…”

read more

After Installing Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1, Searching via OWA or Outlook Online Mode Fails

With Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1, you may find that performing a search via Outlook Web App (OWA) results in an error message, “The action couldn’t be completed.  Try again later.” Additionally, Outlook clients operating in Online Mode can no longer search for attachments or embedded emails. 

When this issue occurs, you will see the following events in the application log:

Log Name: Application
Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
Event ID: 9877
Task Category: Content Indexing
Level: Error
Description:
Content Indexing function 'CISearch::EcGetRowsetAndAccessor' received an unusual and unexpected error code from MSSearch. Mailbox Database: <Database Name> Error Code: 0x80043629

Log Name: Application
Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
Event ID: 9842
Task Category: Content Indexing
Level: Error
Description:
Function CISearch::EcGetRowsetAndAccessor detected that content indexing was disabled for database '<Database Name>' because of error '0x80041820' from MSSearch.

Resolution

  1. Download the script Repair-ExchangeSearchSymlinks.ps1 from the Script Center.
  2. Copy the Repair-ExchangeSearchSymlinks.ps1 script to the Scripts directory on the Mailbox server (default installation is C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\v14\Scripts).
  3. On the afflicted Mailbox server, open the Exchange Management Shell by right-clicking the shortcut and selecting “Run as Administrator”.
  4. Within the Exchange Management Shell, navigate to the Exchange Scripts directory.
  5. Within the Exchange Management Shell, run the following script:

    .\Repair-ExchangeSearchSymlinks.ps1

  6. Within the Exchange Management Shell, run the following script (without the symbols [] and substitute the database name(s) for any databases you wish to reset:

    .\ResetSearchIndex.ps1 [-force] <dbname> [<dbname>]...

  7. You will receive an Event ID 109 when the rebuilding of the index starts for each database and an Event ID 110 for each database when the index rebuild has completed.
  8. After receiving Event ID 110 for each database, test to make sure search functions correctly with both OWA and Outlook operating in Online Mode.

 

Source: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/06/30/after-installing-exchange-2010-service-pack-1-searching-via-owa-or-outlook-online-mode-fails.aspx

Windows 8 Name Becomes Official, Goes Unnoticed

Windows 8 is going to be a truly great operating system is all the rumours are true. We already know a great deal about the tablet interface, which seems to have won universal acclaim, and other announced and leaked features are getting significant interest such as cloud / SkyDrive integration. Not the least of these is Microsoft’s announcement of a “Windows 7 Mode” and the discovery of the company’s Hyper-V virtualisation client in some x64 builds. Together these hint strongly as the final dropping of internal legacy support. read more

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Released: Update Rollup 4 for Exchange 2010 SP1

This update contains a number of customer-reported and internally found issues since the release of RU1. See 'KB 2509910: Description of Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1' for more details. In particular we would like to specifically call out the following fixes which are included in this release:

  • 2519359
    Unable to Create a 'Reply With' Rule on Public Folders Even With Owner and Send As Permissions
  • 2394554
    Generating DSN fails if original mail uses non-support encoding charset.
  • 2490134
    Outlook 2007 does not deliver "Delayed Delivery" Messages against an Exchange 2010 Server in Online mode with any additional Transport loaded in the Outlook Profile

Read and Share–28 June 2011

 

Windows 8 to RTM in April 2012
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/not-so-crazy-microsoft-rumors-windows-8-to-rtm-in-april-2012/9823 

Use Group Policy to enforce Office 2010 settings
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179081.aspx

Combine PowerShell Modules to Avoid Writing Scripts
http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2011/06/28/combine-powershell-modules-to-avoid-writing-scripts.aspx

Friday, June 24, 2011

Slow Mailbox Move with Exchange 2010 SP1

If you are having trouble with the speed of moving mailboxes to Exchange 2010 SP1. This trick might help you speed up the move of mailboxes from Exchange 2003, 2007 to Exchange 2010 SP1

http://blogs.technet.com/b/nawar/archive/2010/10/06/slow-mailbox-move-with-exchange-2010-sp1.aspx

Read and Share 24-June-2011

How Windows 8 could change everything

Clues abound that Hyper-V is a foundation technology for Windows 8, enabling Microsoft to dominate a new era of desktop virtualization – Read More

Windows 8 and Hyper-V 3.0: Revolutionary benefits await admins

Admins may think Hyper-V is not important to the desktop, but it could bring huge advantages for Windows management
Read More

Hacks of the Day

Global hacking group breaks into DPS network link

Hacker pleads guilty to AT&T iPad breach link

Hackers Force Brazilian Officials to Shut Down Presidential Website link

Feds declare victory over notorious Coreflood botnet link

Friday, June 10, 2011

Delete emails in multiple mailboxes in Exchange 2010 SP1

Export-Mailbox is no longer supported in Exchange 2010 sp1, in stead there is New-MailboxExportRequest but the problem is that “-DeleteContents” is not supported with mailbox export.

In order to be able to search and delete emails from multiple Exchange 2010 mailboxes one has to have the following roles assigned.

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "Support Diagnostics" –User username

New- ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "Mailbox Import Export" -User username

above will ensure that a user has proper permissions to perform this command.

In order to find and delete a certain email from one mailbox you can perform the following command

Search-Mailbox -Identity username -SearchQuery 'subject:"Email Subject that you want to search for"' –DeleteContent

this can be run for all mailboxes on a server as well

Get-Mailbox –Server “*servername*” –ResultSize unlimited | Search-Mailbox -SearchQuery 'subject:"Email Subject that you want to search for"' –DeleteContent

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

WHO: Cell phone use can increase possible cancer risk–USE BLUETOOTH PEOPLE

Usually I don’t blog about general news but this one I had to. To my fellow world citizens, Please use a headset or Bluetooth for safety. Watch this informative video for more info

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/31/who.cell.phones/index.html?iref=NS1

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation

While trying to install an msi following prompt appears

ScreenShot486

and the following event is logged in the event log

Event ID – 7000

c:\downloads\filename.msi is not permitted by software restriction policy. The Windows Installer only allows installation of unrestricted items. The authorization level returned by software restriction policy was 0x0 (status return 0x800b010c).

Resolution

This error means that there a revoked certificate your certificate repository from the maker of the software you are trying to install. Once the revoked certificate is deleted, installation would work fine.

To remove the revoked cert follow the instruction below.

Open Internet Explorer, go to Internet Options –> Contents –> Certificates –> Untrusted Publishers –> Remove the publisherScreenShot487

In my case it was Quest Software

ScreenShot489

Close Internet Explorer and try the installer, it should work fine now.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Couldn't find public folder–When Get-PublicFolderStatistics is run in Exchange 2010 SP1

 

When I tried the following cmdlet in EMS

Get-PublicFolder '\PublicfolderName' -Recurse | Get-PublicFolderStatistics

I got the following error

Couldn't find public folder "\PublicfolderName" on server "server.domain.org".
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (\PublicfolderName:PublicFolderIdParameter) [Get-PublicFolderStatistics], InvalidOperationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : 773CD1AB,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.MapiTasks.GetPublicFolderStatistics

Couldn't find public folder "\PublicFolderName\subfolder" on server "server.domain.org".
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (\PublicFolderName\subfolder:PublicFolderIdParameter) [Get-PublicFolderStatistics], InvalidOperationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : 773CD1AB,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.MapiTasks.GetPublicFolderStatistics

Solution

This seems to be bug (may be a feature :)

If you add the resultsize parameter to the cmdlet it works fine

Get-PublicFolder '\PublicfolderName' -Recurse | Get-PublicFolderStatistics –ResultSize unlimited

Friday, May 20, 2011

Announcing Exchange 2010 Service Pack 2

Microsoft bring Exchange 2010 SP2 in the second half of this year, it will include the following

  • OWA Mini - A browse-only version of OWA designed for low bandwidth and resolution devices.
  • Cross-Site Silent Redirection for Outlook Web App
  • Address Book Policies: Allows organizations to segment their address books into smaller scoped subsets of users providing a more refined user experience than the previous manual configuration approach.
  • Other Fixes

Read for more details

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/05/17/announcing-exchange-2010-service-pack-2.aspx

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Error Mounting–Newly Created Mailbox Database in Exchange 2010 SP1

When you create a new database in a new Exchange 2010 environment following error occurs when trying to mount it.

Event ID – 15, Source – MSExchangeRepl

Active Manager failed to mount database DB2 on server servername.domain.org. Error: An Active Manager operation failed. Error: The database action failed. Error: Operation failed with message: MapiExceptionNotFound: Unable to mount database. (hr=0x8004010f, ec=-2147221233)

Resolution

Make sure that the database points to the correct Public Folder Database and has the Offline Address Book selected. After you have do the above, the database will mount correctly.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Windows 7 + RemProf = Windows XP + Delprof

It has been a while since I have been looking for a remote profile deletion utility for Windows 7. Microsoft provided Delprof for Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 but it doesn’t work on any OS beginning with Vista. We are in the process of transitioning to Windows 7, out user support guys make heavy use of Delprof as we use Roaming Profiles which get corrupted or have other issues at time or we simply need to clean a workstation. So in the absence of Delprof our user support needs to login to the workstation to clear profiles on a workstation or login to a XP virtual machine and use the command prompt for remote profile deletion.

While  looking for a solution I found the following freeware utility

RemProf download and look at the help file for more info.

Using it with PsExec one can achieve what Delprof does and more. It makes a better Delprof alternative.

for example if you need to delete only one users profile from a workstation, you can user the following command

psexec \\computername \\uncpath\remprof /L username

there are many more options, following is from the help file that comes with it.

Usage:
REMPROF [/LIST|username|/A|/D:days|/AD:days] [/EXCLUDE:usernames] [/?]

/LIST - List all user profiles currently not in use (Default).
username - Delete user profile based on username.
/A - Delete all user profiles that have no username association
including abandoned profile folders.
i.e. The username has been deleted in Active Directory but
a profile still exists in form of a SID or the profile did
not unload correctly and a residue profile folder exists.
/D:days - Delete all user profiles equal to or older than the number of
days specified. NB: /D: without a number is equal to /D:0.
/D:0 will remove CURRENT user profiles not in use.
/AD:days - Delete all user profiles that have no username association
and are equal to or older than the number of days specified.
NB: /AD: without a number is equal to /AD:0.
/EXCLUDE:username/s - Exclude particular users from being deleted.
Can accept multiple entries, seperated by comma.
Must be last command line argument.
Unassociated profiles cannot be excluded.
Do not include the Domain Name.
/? - show this help file

REMPROF without parameters will execute the /LIST switch by default.

I find it a very useful tool, hope it helps you too.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Installing Exchange 2007 SP2 Management Tools on Windows 7 SP1

We recently deployed Windows 7 SP1 64bit to all the IT staff and the user support team required Exchange Management Tools installed on their workstations.  I just asked them to go ahead and copy the installer on the local disk and fire up the installation as administrator and choose management tools in a custom installation. I was told that there was a compatibility  issue error while doing the installation.

Resolution

I installed the following features just to make sure that the perquisites are met.

  • IIS 6 Management Console
  • IIS 6 WMI Compatibility
  • IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration Compatibility
  • IIS Management Console

ScreenShot411

I tried the installation again as administrator and checked the compatibility mode to Vista SP2, got the following error.

ScreenShot412

So trusting in the good old restart trick Smile I restarted and ran the same setup as administrator and compatibility mode (right click > Properties > Compatibility) Vista SP2. It worked like a charm!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

ScanMail for Microsoft Exchange – Java virtual machine is not installed

After a successful installation of ScanMail on our Exchange 2010 sp1 servers, when I tried to login to the Management site, I received the following error

image

Server had Internet Explorer 8 installed, I though I should try it from my Windows 7 64bit machine just to make sure that its not just the server. I received the same error on my workstation as well.

I am sure Java was installed correctly and was enabled for IE and Firefox, I tried opening the site in Firefox and got same error on all 64bit machines.

Resolution

Fix was simple

I had to install 32bit version of JRE on all 64bit machines. That solved the issue for all browsers.

thought this might be helpful for some out there.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Cannot install an application over the network on Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2

When you try to install of run an application from a network share you get the following error

Application Error: The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000000f). Click OK to close the application.

image

to resolve this issue, download the following hotfix. Install it and restart the computer.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978869