Messaging

Items related to messaging services with a focus on Exchange Online (EXO) and Exchange server (on-premises)

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Blocking Outlook Versions Connecting To Exchange 2010

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

In a recent customer engagement the senior messaging architect wanted to restrict the versions of Outlook connecting to the Exchange servers.  This was due to the fact that there were some old and unsupported versions of Exchange and some incentive had to be applied to those business groups to ensure that all the stragglers were updated.  As mentioned in a previous post, do not overlook Outlook pa… Read the rest “Blocking Outlook Versions Connecting To Exchange 2010”

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Unable Connect Exchange Remote PowerShell Using Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

After updating Windows 10 you may be unable to connect to a remote PowerShell session.  This is an issue for versions of Exchange 2010 onwards as we use remote PowerShell for administration.  The same applies for Exchange Online in Office 365.  Note that directly loading the Exchange PSSnapin is not supported apart from a limited number of documented scenarios, for example this is one of them.  For… Read the rest “Unable Connect Exchange Remote PowerShell Using Windows 10 Anniversary Update”

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Office 365 Workshop Links–August 2016

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

This is a link throw-down for the items discussed during a recent Office 365 workshop that I delivered to customers in a rather tropical Winnipeg last week.  It has to be said that the +30 Winnipeg is much better than the –30 Winnipeg!

I’m posting the links here since they will be available to all of the attendees, and thought that others may also find them useful/interesting.

Office 365 Public Road

… Read the rest “Office 365 Workshop Links–August 2016”
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Network Monitor Filter Examples

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]
The below is an assortment of Network Monitor (NetMon) filters that I used on a frequent basis.  With each of the filters, there is a quick explanation of why they are used.
The filters can be used as regular display filters, or as a colour filter.  The retransmission one is especially useful to have set as a colour filter, as they they stand out when reviewing traces.

Filter Source IPv4 A

… Read the rest “Network Monitor Filter Examples”
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Outlook Unexpectedly Changed Mail to Keep Offline Settings

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

The below was noted when dealing with a customer issue where the VIP was complaining that Outlook had "unexpectedly" changed the amount of data which they had chosen to keep offline.  They had a laptop system with a very small SSD, which filled up due to the increased OST size.

Large OST issues happened frequently in Outlook 2010 as that version of the client would download all content to the OST. … Read the rest “Outlook Unexpectedly Changed Mail to Keep Offline Settings”

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Exchange Self Signed SHA2 Certificates

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

In recent builds, Exchange has been updated to support the newer SHA2 certificates.  Exchange 2010 SP3 RU13 and Exchange 2013 CU 12 updated the SMIME control’s certificate to SHA2.

Additionally, Exchange 2013 CU13 and Exchange 2016 CU2 added support for generating the self signed certificates as SHA2 certs.

The below is for reference to save having to spin up labs in the future to review differences i… Read the rest “Exchange Self Signed SHA2 Certificates”

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Office 365 Exchange Hybrid Deployments Busting The Autodiscover Myth

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

When configuring an Exchange Online hybrid deployment, there are many things to consider.  Asides from the various networking, certificate and client discussions there is also a requirement to ensure that Autodiscover is functioning correctly.  In addition to having Autodiscover correctly published to the Internet an additional wrinkle commonly pops up, which takes people down the wrong garden pat… Read the rest “Office 365 Exchange Hybrid Deployments Busting The Autodiscover Myth”

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Slow Exchange Server Boot In Azure VM

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

One of the great uses of Azure is to host VMs which can address a number of business requirements.  While we can install Exchange 2013 on an Azure VM, this is generally not the most cost effect way to have mailboxes running in a cloud.  Office 365 is the recommended option to leverage cloud mailboxes since it has pricing and feature advantages.  Some customers may still wish to do deploy Azure Exch… Read the rest “Slow Exchange Server Boot In Azure VM”

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Dude, Where’s My File Share Witness

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

The question of: I have just ran New-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup and I do not see a File Share Witness (FSW) folder or cluster resources. Where are all my Database Availability Group (DAG) and cluster resources…? What went wrong?

This is a common scenario when an admin is building a DAG, and during the process they check to see that what has changed on the servers. One thing that that causes a false … Read the rest “Dude, Where’s My File Share Witness”

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Script To Start Exchange Services

Posted on by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Running scripts to start and stop services has been a task long associated with Exchange.  For those who pre-date Exchange 2000, do you remember the fun issues with the increased WaitToKillServiceTimeout value?  By default in ye olde days HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlWaitToKillServiceTimeout was 20,000 ms (20 secs).   Installing Exchange increased that to 600,000 ms (10 minutes). … Read the rest “Script To Start Exchange Services”