250 Hello - Random Musings on Security and Exchange

1

Exchange Scripting Agent – The Power Of Script

Posted on 24th June 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Exchange 2010 introduced a very interesting feature – the Scripting Agent. The intent for this component is to provide extensibility to the base management tools and ensure consistency for the execution of cmdlets in the environment. The feature is not enabled by default and you must manually enable it if you want to leverage the Scripting Agent.

If you are looking for a way to set default optio… Read the rest “Exchange Scripting Agent – The Power Of Script”

3

How To Request Certificate Without Using IIS or Exchange

Posted on 17th June 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

The blog post on how to integrate Office 365 with Windows 2012 R2 AD FS raised an interesting question from a reader (Hi Eric!) on how should he request a certificate for the AD FS instance since there is no longer an IIS dependency. This means that there is no longer an IIS console to generate a certificate request with. What to do?

You could generate a certificate request, complete it and then e… Read the rest “How To Request Certificate Without Using IIS or Exchange”

0

How To Disable Remote Desktop Printer Mapping

Posted on 2nd June 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

After doing Exchange Risk Assessment (ExRAP) and Exchange Risk Assessment As A Service for almost four years, one thing continues to irritate my OCD personality! When I look at the event logs on an Exchange server, the logs should be a sea of blue. That is there should be no errors as that indicates something is not quite right and should be addressed.

Opening up the system event log on numerous c… Read the rest “How To Disable Remote Desktop Printer Mapping”

1

How To Hide Server Manager At Logon

Posted on 30th May 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Since some of my test machines are a touch low on resources, having to wait for the server manager process to finish loading can be a little bit painful. On those machines a very pertinent question is: How can I disable Server Manager from auto starting?

There are group policy and local policy options to suppress this in addition to editing the registry.

There is always the option to disable it dire… Read the rest “How To Hide Server Manager At Logon”

0

Exchange 2013 CU5 Released

Posted on 27th May 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Exchange 2013 CU5 has been released to the Microsoft download centre! Exchange 2013 has a different servicing strategy than Exchange 2007/2010 and utilises Cumulative Updates (CUs) rather than the Rollup Updates (RU/UR) which were used previously. CUs are a complete installation of Exchange 2013 and can be used to install a fresh server or to update a previously installed one. Exchange 2013 SP… Read the rest “Exchange 2013 CU5 Released”

0

Exchange 2010 SP3 RU6 Released

Posted on 27th May 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

The Exchange team today announced the availability of Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3. RU6 is the latest rollup of customer fixes available for Exchange Server 2010. The release contains fixes for customer reported issues and previously released security bulletins. For example, the security issue that was addressed in Exchange 2010 SP3 RU4 is contained in RU6.

&n… Read the rest “Exchange 2010 SP3 RU6 Released”

2

Registry Editor Favourites – Who Knew?

Posted on 21st May 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

When I was in Seattle for some internal training in January, one of the chaps delivering a demo used a feature that I wish I’d known about previously. When he was demonstrating some of the update mechanics for Office Pro Plus he immediately skipped to the correct portion of the registry by using a shortcut feature in Registry Editor.

Yes, there is a favourites bookmark feature!

Update 20-8-2014: Ad… Read the rest “Registry Editor Favourites – Who Knew?”

0

Enabling AD FS 2012 R2 Extranet Lockout Protection

Posted on 5th May 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Security is an integral aspect of running modern IT operations. There is a clear understanding that we need to protect our IT assets, company data and personal identifiable information. So when we discuss a migration to Office 365, security is an inevitable topic. One aspect that we need to discuss is around account lockout, and how to protect our Active Directory accounts as part of the overal… Read the rest “Enabling AD FS 2012 R2 Extranet Lockout Protection”

0

MEC 2014 Content Available

Posted on 2nd May 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

MEC 2014 session recordings and slides are now available for everyone’s enjoyment!

As always Ross Smith, Scott Schnoll and Brian Day deliver some great content that you must check out! If you are in the throes of deploying Exchange 2013 SP1 right now, then please do look at Brian Day’s session. You will not regret it!

Take some time to go through these 74 awesome sessions.

My MEC 2014 write-… Read the rest “MEC 2014 Content Available”

1

How To Install AD FS 2012 R2 For Office 365–Part 3

Posted on 30th April 2014 by Rhoderick Milne [MSFT]

Well then, here we are in part three already! Previously we:

Installed AD FS 2012 R2 For Office 365 in part 1

Installed AD FS 2012 R2 Proxy For Office 365 in Part 2

Now we want to change the Office 365 domain to be a federated domain. As discussed in part 1, this means that all of the users who authenticate using this domain will become a federated identity and the on-premises AD FS server is responsi… Read the rest “How To Install AD FS 2012 R2 For Office 365–Part 3”