250 Hello - Random Musings on Security and Exchange

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Remote Desktop Connection Manager Download (RDCMan) 2.81

Posted on 24th June 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Finally we have good news for all fans of the Remote Desktop Connection Manager (RDCMan) tool! It has risen from the ashes, and is now part of Sysinternals.

Over the years RDCMan built up a strong user base as it was a simple but powerful utility to manage connections to multiple machines. Sure, if you have three or four servers to manage you can get by with saved .rdp files or use the Universa… Read the rest “Remote Desktop Connection Manager Download (RDCMan) 2.81”

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New And Advanced Azure AD Connect Topics

Posted on 2nd June 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

There have been some recent feature additions to Azure AD Connect. If we look at the Azure AD Connection Version History after a brief hiatus, there are newer versions as of March 2021. At the time of witing, the latest version is 1.6.4.0 and was released on the 31st May 2021.

There are multiple new features and changes in this build.

Updated ADSyncTools PowerShell module
Defaults to V2 synchronisati

… Read the rest

0

Exchange Online App-Only Authentication Error AADSTS70011 Invalid Scope

Posted on 17th May 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

As more people are starting to use the Exchange Online V2 module (yay!), there are some new and different issues appearing.

In this case, the command to connect to the tenant was failing when App-Only authentication was used. A certificate was installed onto the machine where PowerShell was running.

The command used is shown followed by a glorious error.

Error Acquiring Token:
System.Exception:… Read the rest “Exchange Online App-Only Authentication Error AADSTS70011 Invalid Scope”

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Does Exchange Setup Automatically Run PrepareSchema?

Posted on 13th May 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

The question "Does Exchange setup automatically run /PrepareSchema?" was something that came up many times in the recent Hafnium remediation activities. This was due to many customers not updating Exchange for multiple years, and being extremely behind on updates. In order to get Exchange updated, it was necessary to perform multiple steps in the upgrade process. Sometimes the /PrepareSchema ta… Read the rest “Does Exchange Setup Automatically Run PrepareSchema?”

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TenantOrganizationConfig Required When Preparing Active Directory

Posted on 10th May 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

When running /PrepareSchema in an Exchange organisation with an existing Exchange Hybrid deployment you may run into an error which states:

"A hybrid deployment with Office 365 has been detected. Please ensure that you are running setup with the /TenantOrganizationConfig switch"

This is shown below:

A similar issue will occur if you specify only /PrepareAD

Note that the /TenantOrganizationConfig switc… Read the rest “TenantOrganizationConfig Required When Preparing Active Directory”

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Create Azure Az VM Using Existing UnManaged VHD

Posted on 7th May 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

The days change, but sometimes the issues stay the same. This is a redux of an existing post where there was an issue back in 2016 when I was not able to easily re-create a VM in a different Availability Set. As you can see in Create Azure RM VM Using Existing VHD – 250 Hello (rmilne.ca) PowerShell was used to re-create the VM as it allowed all of the resources to be specified.

The original VM was… Read the rest “Create Azure Az VM Using Existing UnManaged VHD”

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Unable to Run Exchange Setup–Pending Reboot From a Previous Installation

Posted on 3rd May 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

When installing Exchange updates, I place the server into maintenance mode and restart it prior to installing the actual Exchange update. This is due to have being burned many times by other teams or third party tools that conveniently "overlooked" the fact that their setup required the machine to restart. It also provides an opportunity for issues caused by those third party tools to surface be… Read the rest “Unable to Run Exchange Setup–Pending Reboot From a Previous Installation”

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Exchange Managed Availability State Unknown

Posted on 30th April 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

The below is one of the cases where the "Zen of Exchange Management" is what fixes the issue. I've been know to say that sometimes you just need to wait for Exchange to do what it needs to do. To pass the time, feel free to adopt a meditation pose and emit calm and peaceful humming noises. This is Zen.

Exchange Managed Availability Reports Status: Unknown

After remediating multiple other i… Read the rest “Exchange Managed Availability State Unknown”

1

Exchange 2016 CU20 PrepareAD Required

Posted on 28th April 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

This is a quick heads up for those who may be deploying Exchange 2016 in the near future. If you are currently on Exchange 2016 CU19 there are no AD schema changes required, but there are AD changes. The former is performed by /PrepareSchema, and the latter by /PrepareAD.

You can take a look at the history of Exchange 2016 schema changes in Active Directory schema changes in Exchange Server and th… Read the rest “Exchange 2016 CU20 PrepareAD Required”

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Exchange .NET Framework Upgrade – The Unsupported Kangaroo In The Room

Posted on 27th April 2021 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

It is critical Exchange installations are properly maintained in all regards. In order to stay current with Exchange Cumulative Updates (CUs), it is necessary to read the release notes for a given CU to determine if an update is required for the .NET Framework. Staying current on updates is required to receive full support from Microsoft. Exchange Hybrid supports N and N-1 for on-premises CUs, … Read the rest “Exchange .NET Framework Upgrade – The Unsupported Kangaroo In The Room”