Posts Tagged Exchange 2010

Upgrading Exchange 2007 MCTS / MCITP Certification to Exchange 2010 MCTS / MCITP

If you are like me who had previously earned MCTS or MCITP in Exchange 2007, you can now upgrade your certification to MCTS / MCITP Exchange 2010.

The certifications are as below:

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Configuration

Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Enterprise Messaging Administrator 2010

To earn your MCTS in Exchange 2010, you will need to pass exam 70-662. The MCTS certification is for Messaging Generalist who is responsible for maintenance and administration of Exchange 2010 servers in an enterprise environment. Don’t let the words get in your way, this exam also counts towards your MCITP certification. You can find skills measured and other details here.

To earn your MCITP in Exchange 2010, you will need to pass exam 70-663. The MCITP certification is for those responsible for the Exchange Messaging environment in an enterprise environment. If you are not a senior administrator or technical lead responsible for Exchange Messaging environment, passing the exam will still earn you MCITP which can help towards fulfilling your aspirations of becoming one. You can find skills measured and other details here.

I would highly recommend that you are familiar with the product and have some experience with the product before attempting these exams. There are many resources that can help you prepare for exam. I highly recommend making Exchange 2010 Documentation on TechNet your #1. It is constantly updated with current information and contains almost every detail you need to know as an IT Pro about the product. I will also recommend that you read Microsoft Exchange Team Blog. The blog is resource of very valuable information about not only Exchange Server 2010 but previous versions as well.

And for my status, I was lucky enough to attempt the exams when they were in beta and I did achieve passing score in both. Call me certifiable!

Good luck to you all who are planning for these exams.

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What does New-ExchangeCertificate –confirm do?

Depends who is asking.

Let’s assume a scenario where you are trying to create a new self-signed certificate on Exchange 2007 using a script. You run the command “New-Exchange Certificate – Services “IMAP, POP3, IIS, SMTP” –Confirm:$false”. The script stops at a prompt when it tries to confirm overwrite of existing SMTP certificate (because current self-signed certificate is assigned to that function). Since this is breaking your script, you decide to throw in –force to force override of the prompt.

Now you face another error: “Parameter set cannot be resolved using the specified named parameters.

This is because –Force serves different purpose in Exchange 2007. According to TechNet:

Use this parameter switch to overwrite an existing certificate request file that matches the same file path as specified in this cmdlet. By default, this cmdlet will not overwrite existing files.

Unfortunately, there is no way you can override the dreaded SMTP certificate prompt in Exchange 2007 (that I know of).

Now let’s turn our attention to Exchange 2010. Since New-ExchangeCertificate cmdlet does not directly write to a file, –force serves the purpose you expected in previous scenario. According to TechNet:

The Force switch specifies whether to override the confirmation prompt and set the new self-signed certificate as the default certificate for TLS for internal SMTP communication. By default, this cmdlet requires a confirmation before setting the new certificate as the default certificate for TLS encryption of internal SMTP communication.

So in case you were wondering, there you go.

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Webcast Series – Upgrade Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 – Part 1

Ever since Exchange 2010 is RTM, I have been advocating to upgrade directly to Exchange 2010 if it makes sense for your environment. As I discussed with administrators who manage Exchange 2003 environments, I received a very positive response from many who expressed their strong interest in skipping Exchange 2007 and upgrade to Exchange 2010.

Since I have had a lab that was designed for this purpose only, I decided to create a webcast series that will walk through the process of upgrading from Exchange 2003 environment to Exchange 2010 environment.

I am publishing Part 1 of multi part series here. I will be publishing more parts as time permits but no less than once a month. You can download the webcast here. The webcast works best when viewed in 1024×768 or higher resolution.

I also request that you provide your  questions, comments and feedback to feedback@bhargavs.com. It will greatly help me improve future webcasts.

I hope this webcast series will help you learn Exchange 2010 upgrade process and you can apply the learning in real-world. Thanks and enjoy!

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Automate Update Rollup installation during Exchange 2010 setup

If you are about to install Exchange 2010, one of the checks in your checklist should be Update Rollup 1 for Exchange 2010. This would come after you have installed Exchange 2010 on your server. But what if I tell you that you can slipstream RU1 with your Exchange setup?

All you have to do is populate a folder with RU installer and use /UpdatesDir switch with setup.com. The example would be setup.com /role:mailbox /UpdatesDir:”C:\ExchangeSources\RUs”. Once this command successfully completes, you will see that the exchange install is complete and your determined patches from the UpdatesDir are applied to the server in single step! Isn’t that a thing of beauty?

Exchange Server Update Rollups are cumulative so you don’t need to have RU1 installer if you build a new server with RU2 in future. All you need is RU2 installer file in UpdatesDir and exchange source to install from.

There are many other useful switches to automate Exchange 2010 setup. you can find the reference on Technet.

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Another Podcast from RunAs Radio

Once Again, I had privilege of talking to Richard and Greg from RunAs radio. This time we went deep discussing how Exchange 2010 High Availability featured have changed from previous versions!

I am sure the you will like it. Download the podcast from http://bit.ly/5o3bSv. I welcome feedback and comments.

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BlackBerry announced Exchange 2010 support but what is the impact?

MS Exchange Team blogged about BlackBerry Enterprise Server support for Exchange 2010 recently. It has been viral on social networks and many have been cheering about the news as their Exchange 2010 deployment or upgrade plans hinged on this to some degree.

I was one of them. I was waiting for this news as it allows me to help customers I work with and plan accordingly.

As I started digging into details, I found few things that I didn’t necessary like.

  • I could not find any documentation on how BES connects to mailboxes, does it use RPC Service on CAS (MAPI on Middle Tier)?
  • Calendaring by default still uses MAPI/CDO libraries. You can configure BES to use EWS with provided Trait Tool, but I failed to understand the impact of doing so with available documentation
  • BES recommends to Turn off Client Throttling in Microsoft Exchange 2010!
  • BES recommends to Increase the maximum number of connections to use Address Book Service from default 50 to a large number (documented 100,000)!!!

Last two bullets in particular greatly concerns me as Exchange developers must have imposed default limits based on previous experiences and a good reason. By making BES recommended changes, are you going to open up a door to potential issues?

For enterprise clients, the road to implementing BES in Exchange 2010 environment, especially in coexistence scenario with Exchange 2003 and/or Exchange 2007 will require careful planning which isn’t going to be a fast track by any means.

It will be interesting to find out more details and assess the real impact of recommended changes.

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New Podcast from RunAs Radio

Recently, I had privilege of talking to Richard and Greg from RunAs radio. We discussed the features of the newly released Exchange 2010 and why businesses still running Exchange 2003 should jump right to the latest version and skip 2007 entirely.

I am sure the listeners will benefit from it. You can download the podcast from http://bit.ly/5fSqbp. Comments welcome.

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Script to install Exchange 2010 pre-requisites for Windows Server 2008 R2

Even though installing pre-requisites on Windows Server 2008 R2 is simple and straight forward as described here, it makes it even faster if you were to use a script to do so.

MVP Anderson Patricio recently published a script for the same. What the script did not do is what I took liberty to add. I am publishing entire script below with credit to Anderson where it is due.

My code adds functionality to download and install Microsoft Filter Pack if the server has internet connectivity.

UPDATE: Pat Richard enhanced this script and added some checks and other functionality which makes it even more useful. You can read Pat’s post here. The script below is result of combined effort of Anderson, Pat and myself.

#############################################################################
# Set-Exchange2010Prereqs.ps1
# Configures the necessary prerequisites to install Exchange 2010 on a 
# Windows Server 2008 R2 server
#
# Pat Richard, MVP
# http://ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange
# 
# 1.0 – Original script 11/27/09 based on the work of Anderson Patricio and
# Bhargav Shukla 
# 
# Dedicated blog post:
# http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/archive/2009/12/12/Automated-prerequisite-installation-via-PowerShell-for-Exchange-Server-2010-on-Windows-Server-2008-R2.aspx
#
# Some info taken from
# http://msmvps.com/blogs/andersonpatricio/archive/2009/11/13/installing-exchange-server-2010-pre-requisites-on-windows-server-2008-r2.aspx
# http://www.bhargavs.com/index.php/powershell/2009/11/script-to-install-exchange-2010-pre-requisites-for-windows-server-2008-r2/
#############################################################################
 
# Detect correct OS here and exit if no match
if (-not((Get-WMIObject win32_OperatingSystem).OSArchitecture -eq '64-bit') -and (Get-WMIObject win32_OperatingSystem).Version -eq '6.1.7600'){
	Write-Host "This script requires a 64bit version of Windows Server 2008 R2, which this is not." -ForegroundColor Red -BackgroundColor Black
	Exit
}
 
Function InstallFilterPack(){
# future: look and see if it's already installed
# 			via registry HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{95120000-2000-0409-1000-0000000FF1CE}
	trap {
		Write-Host "Problem downloading FilterPackx64.exe. Please visit http://tinyurl.com/36yrlj"
		break
	}
	#set a var for the folder you are looking for
	$folderPath = 'C:\Temp'
 
	#Check if folder exists, if not, create it
	if (Test-Path $folderpath){
		Write-Host "The folder $folderPath exists."
	} else{
		Write-Host "The folder $folderPath does not exist, creating..." -NoNewline
		New-Item $folderpath -type directory | Out-Null
		Write-Host "done!" -ForegroundColor Green
	}
 
	# Check if file exists, if not, download it
	$file = $folderPath+"\FilterPackx64.exe"
	if (Test-Path $file){
		write-host "The file $file exists."
	} else {
		#Download Microsoft Filter Pack
		Write-Host "Downloading Microsoft Filter Pack..." -nonewline
		$clnt = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
		$url = "http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/e/6/be61cfa4-b59e-4f26-a641-5dbf906dee24/FilterPackx64.exe"
		$clnt.DownloadFile($url,$file)
		Write-Host "done!" -ForegroundColor Green
	} 
	#Install Microsoft Filter Pack
	Write-Host "Installing Microsoft Filter Pack..." -nonewline
	$expression = $folderPath+"\FilterPackx64.exe /quiet /norestart"
	Invoke-Expression $expression
	Start-Sleep -Seconds 10
	write-host "done!" -ForegroundColor Green	
}
 
Function SetRunOnce(){
	# Sets the NetTCPPortSharing service for automatic startup before the first reboot
	# by using the old RunOnce registry key (because the service doesn't yet exist, or we could
	# use 'Set-Service')
	$hostname = hostname
	$RunOnceCommand = "sc \\$hostname config NetTcpPortSharing start= auto"
	if (Get-ItemProperty -Name "NetTCPPortSharing" -path 'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) { 
	    	Write-host "Registry key HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce\NetTCPPortSharing already exists." -ForegroundColor yellow
        	Set-ItemProperty "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce" -Name "NetTCPPortSharing" -Value $RunOnceCommand | Out-Null
	} else { 
	    	New-ItemProperty "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce" -Name "NetTCPPortSharing" -Value $RunOnceCommand -PropertyType "String" | Out-Null
	} 
}
 
Import-Module ServerManager
$opt = "None"
# Do { 
	clear
	if ($opt -ne "None") {write-host "Last command: "$opt -foregroundcolor Yellow}
	write-host
	write-host Exchange Server 2010 - Prerequisites script
	write-host Please, select which role you are going to install..
	write-host
	write-host '1) Hub Transport'
	write-host '2) Client Access Server'
	write-host '3) Mailbox'
	write-host '4) Unified Messaging'
	write-host '5) Edge Transport'
	write-host '6) Typical (CAS/HUB/Mailbox)'
	write-host '7) Client Access and Hub Transport'
	write-host
	write-host '9) Configure NetTCP Port Sharing service'
	write-host '   Required for the Client Access Server role' -foregroundcolor yellow
	write-host '   Automatically set for options 2,6, and 7' -foregroundcolor yellow
	write-host '10) Install 2007 Office System Converter: Microsoft Filter Pack'
	write-host '    Required if installing Hub Transport or Mailbox Server roles' -foregroundcolor yellow
	write-host '    Automatically set for options 1, 3, 6, and 7' -foregroundcolor yellow
	write-host 
	write-host '13) Restart the Server'
	write-host '14) End'
	write-host
	$opt = Read-Host "Select an option.. [1-14]? "
 
	switch ($opt)    {
		1 { InstallFilterPack; Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server -restart }
		2 { SetRunOnce; Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Dyn-Compression,NET-HTTP-Activation,RPC-Over-HTTP-Proxy -restart }
		3 { InstallFilterPack; Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server -restart }
		4 { Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server,Desktop-Experience -restart }
		5 { Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,ADLDS -restart }
		6 { SetRunOnce; InstallFilterPack; Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Dyn-Compression,NET-HTTP-Activation,RPC-Over-HTTP-Proxy -restart }
		7 { SetRunOnce; InstallFilterPack; Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Metabase,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,WAS-Process-Model,RSAT-Web-Server,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Dyn-Compression,NET-HTTP-Activation,RPC-Over-HTTP-Proxy -restart }
		9 { Set-Service NetTcpPortSharing -StartupType Automatic }
		10 {
			# future - auto detect Internet access
			write-host 'Can this server access the Internet?'
			$filtpack = read-host 'Please type (Y)es or (N)o...'
			switch ($filtpack)				{
				Y {InstallFilterPack}
				N {Write-warning 'Please download and install Microsoft Filter Pack from here: http://tinyurl.com/36yrlj'}
			}
		}
		13 { Restart-Computer }
		14 {write-host "Exiting..."}
		default {write-host "You haven't selected any of the available options. "}
	}
# }
# while ($opt -ne 14)
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Exchange 2010 New and Improved Features

Exchange Server 2010 comes with host of new features and improved functionality that makes the product even better.

In this post, I am going to list new and improved features. In interest of keeping the post manageable, I have included lot more details in attached word file. Attached Excel file also provides a tabular form to compare Exchange 2010 to previous versions.

Download Word Document - Exchange 2010 - New and Improved Features
Download Excel Document - Exchange 2010 - Feature comparison

Read the rest of this entry »

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Logs not truncated after VSS Backup in Exchange 2007 SP2 or Exchange 2010

Release of Exchange 2007 SP2 brought much awaited feature – VSS Backups!

This was exciting. You were now able to take Exchange Server Backups on Windows Server 2008 without third-party backup software.

That was until after you ran your first backup, or a few more if you weren’t watching! That is when you noticed that the backups have not failed but the transactions logs did not truncate either!

What could go wrong with Exchange? Why is it not truncating logs? The backups have not failed.

Trust me, there is nothing wrong with Exchange. Exchange is fine!

The problem is with the way backup is run. When you run the backup and select “Everything”, The VSS default is “Copy” backup. When you run “Copy” backup, it does not change archive bit. In this case, it does not truncate transaction logs.

You need to make sure when you run the backup to create a custom backup and make sure it is “Full” backup and not a “Copy” backup. When you run a “Full” backup, Exchange will truncate transaction log files as expected after backup successfully completes.

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