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...”

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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

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. 

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

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.

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'…”

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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….”

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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/

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.