How To Check Exchange Schema And Object Values In AD

This content was extracted from a separate upcoming Exchange 2013 schema post to maintain focus on viewing the Exchange schema attributes.

Exchange 2013 admins should assume that a Cumulative Update (CU) will have AD schema updates.  The release notes and release blog post will discuss this in detail for each CU.  This is very similar to the Exchange 2007/2010 service packs of old.

Table Of Exchange 2013 Schema Versions

TechNet documents the expected values for the various Exchange 2013 objects in AD.

For Exchange 2007 and 2010 Schema details please review this article.

Methods To Check Schema And AD Object Values

We can check the Exchange values stored in the AD schema version in a few ways.  For example we could use

• DSQuery
• LDP.exe
• ADSIEdit

Examples to check the ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt are shown below.

DSQuery

Can execute DSQuery commands to quickly get the required attribute data.  For example this queries the ms-Exch-Schema-Version-PT schema object and retrieves the rangeUpper data.

dsquery * CN=ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt,cn=schema,cn=configuration,dc=contoso,dc=com -scope base -attr rangeUpper

LDP.exe

1. In Ldp, click Bind on the Connection menu.
2. In the Bind type area, click Bind as currently logged on user, and then click OK.
3. On the View menu, click Tree.
4. In the Tree View dialog box, select CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=contoso,DC=comin the BaseDN list, and then click OK.
5. Expand the schema node in the navigation pane, and then click ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt.
6. If the ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt schema attribute is not listed, click General on the Options menu, increase the value of the Max children buffer size, click OK, and then repeat the previous step.  This should be 1,000 by default.
7. In the right pane, scroll down to the bottom and locate the rangeUpper attribute

ADSI Edit

1. In the ADSI Edit console, right-click ADSI Edit in the navigation pane, and then click Connect to.
2. In the Connection Settings dialog box, select Schema in the Select a well known Naming Context list, and then click OK.
3. Expand the schema node in the navigation pane, and then click CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=contoso,DC=com.
4. Right-click CN=ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt, and then click Properties.
5. On the property page, locate rangeUpper in the Attribute list

Command Line Example Using DSQuery

In this post let's use the DSQuery method since it is easy to script and then screenshot since we will be checking the attributes multiple times.  We also want to take a look at multiple objects.  Bhargav blogged about this previously.  We will also look at the msExchangeproductId attribute that is listed in the verification steps in TechNet.  The  full location of the four attributes we will look at are:

rangeUpper attribute of ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt object in Schema Naming Context

objectVersion attribute of Organization container in Configuration Naming Context

msExchProductId attribute of Organization container in Configuration Naming Context

objectVersion attribute on Microsoft Exchange System Objects container in Domain Naming Context

To do so, we can use the following queries in the Contoso.com lab:

DSQUERY.exe * "CN=ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt,CN=schema,CN=configuration,DC=Contoso,DC=com" -Scope base -Attr rangeUpper

DSQUERY.exe * "CN=Contoso,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=Contoso,DC=com" -Scope base -Attr objectVersion

DSQUERY.exe * "CN=Contoso,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=Contoso,DC=com" -Scope base -Attr msExchProductId

DSQUERY.exe * "CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=Contoso,DC=com" -Scope base -Attr objectVersion

Or  as a separate example, the Wingtiptoys.ca lab.

DSQUERY.exe * "CN=ms-Exch-Schema-Version-Pt,CN=schema,CN=configuration,DC=Wingtiptoys,DC=ca" -Scope base -Attr rangeUpper

DSQUERY.exe * "CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=Wingtiptoys,DC=ca" -Scope base -Attr objectVersion

DSQUERY.exe * "CN=Wingtiptoys,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=Wingtiptoys,DC=ca" -Scope base -Attr msExchProductId

DSQUERY.exe * "CN=Wingtiptoys,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=Wingtiptoys,DC=ca" -Scope base -Attr objectVersion

Adjust the commands to suit, unless you do happen to work for Contoso or Wingtiptoys……

Cheers,

Rhoderick