Exchange Updates – June 2018

Posted on by
2

Ex2013 LogoThe Exchange Team released the June updates for Exchange Server 2013 and 2016, and an additional Rollup 22 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3.

Apart from fixes and time zone changes, these updates contain the following important changes and notes:

  • As announced earlier, Exchange 2013 CU21 and Exchange 2016 CU10 require .NET Framework 4.7.1.
  • All three updates require the VC++ 2013 runtime library, because it is needed by a 3rd component in WebReady Document Viewing in Exchange 2010/2013 and Data Loss Prevention in Exchange 2013/2016. Exchange 2010 SP3 RU22 will force installation of this VC++ runtime.
  • Updates include a critical security patch for Oracle Outside In libraries. More about the issue in MSRC advisory ADV180010.
  • Exchange 2013 CU21 and Exchange 2016 CU10 introduce support for directly creating and enabling remote shared mailboxes, e.g. 
    New-RemoteMailbox [-Shared] [-Name remoteMailboxName]
Enable-RemoteMailbox [-Identity user] [-Shared] [-RemoteRoutingAddress user@domain]
Set-RemoteMailbox [-Name user] [-Type Shared]

    You need to run setup /PrepareAD to see these changes. More information in KB4133605.

  • This is the last planned Cumulative Update for Exchange 2013 as it enters Extended Support.
  • Exchange 2010 SP3 RU22 adds support for Windows Server 2016 Domain Controllers.

 

Version Build KB Article Download UMLP Schema Changes
Exchange 2016 CU10 15.1.1531.3 KB4099852 Download UMLP No
Exchange 2013 CU21 15.0.1395.4 KB4099855 Download UMLP No
Exchange 2010 SP3 RU22 14.3.411.0 KB4295699 Download

Exchange 2016 CU10 fixes:

  • 4056609 Event ID 4999 and mailbox transport delivery service won’t start with Exchange Server 2016 CU7 installed
  • 4133605 Cmdlets to create or modify a remote shared mailbox in an on-premises Exchange environment
  • 4133620 “HTTP 500 due to ADReferralException” error when a user tries to view detail properties of mailboxes in a child domain in Exchange Server
  • 4095974 “System.InvalidOperationException” occurs when the “Enable-MailPublicFolder” cmdlet is run against a public folder in Exchange Server
  • 4095973 Set-ServerComponentState cmdlet does not honor the write scope defined in the RBAC management scope in Exchange Server
  • 4095993 HTTP 500 error when an administrator tries to manage regional settings in ECP on Windows Server 2016
  • 4294209 Cannot clear the “Maximum message size” check box for Send messages or Receive messages in EAC in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4294208 “TooManyObjectsOpenedException” error when you run the “Get-PublicFolderMailboxDiagnostics” cmdlet in Exchange Server
  • 4294212 Cannot send VBScript-created messages in the Outlook 2016 client
  • 4294211 Cannot run “Set-CalendarProcessing” cmdlets after you apply CU8 or CU9 for Exchange Server 2016
  • 4294210 Cannot edit an email attachment in OWA in an Exchange Server 2016 environment
  • 4294204 Changing “IsOutOfService” to “False” in an earlier Exchange Server version does not immediately update in a later Exchange Server environment
  • 4092041 Description of the security update for Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 and 2016: May 8, 2018

Exchange 2013 CU20 fixes:

  • 4133605 Cmdlets to create or modify a remote shared mailbox in an on-premises Exchange environment
  • 4133604 User can’t log on to a POP/IMAP account by using NTLM authentication in Exchange Server 2013
  • 4133618 Unexpected error occurs when running the Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork cmdlet in Exchange Server 2013
  • 4133620 “HTTP 500 due to ADReferralException” when a user tries to view detail properties of mailboxes in a child domain in Exchange Server
  • 4058473 An Office 365 primary mailbox user cannot be assigned full access permissions for an on-premises mailbox in Exchange Server
  • 4094167 The MSExchangeRPC service crashes with a System.NullReferenceException exception in Exchange Server 2013
  • 4095974 “System.InvalidOperationException” occurs when the “Enable-MailPublicFolder” cmdlet is run against a public folder in Exchange Server
  • 4092041 Description of the security update for Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 and 2016: May 8, 2018
  • 4294205 POP3 services intermittently stop in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
  • 4294204 Changing “IsOutOfService” to “False” in an earlier Exchange Server version does not immediately update in a later Exchange Server environment

Exchange 2010 Rollup 22 fixes:

  • 4295751 EWS impersonation not working when accessing resource mailboxes in a different site in Exchange Server 2010 SP3

Notes:

  • Exchange 2016 CU8 and Exchange 2013 CU18 do not contain schema changes compared to their previous Cumulative Update. However, they introduce RBAC changes in your environment. Use setup /PrepareAD to apply RBAC changes, before deploying or updating Exchange servers.
  • When upgrading from an n-2 or earlier version of Exchange, or an early version of the .NET Framework, consult Upgrade Paths for CU’s & .NET.
  • When upgrading your Exchange 2013 or 2016 installation, don’t forget to put the server in maintenance mode when required. Regardless, setup will put the server in server-wide offline mode post-analysis, before making actual changes.
  • When using Exchange hybrid deployments or Exchange Online Archiving (EOA), you are required to stay at most one version behind (n-1).
  • If you want to speed up the update process for systems without internet access, you can follow the procedure described here to disable publisher’s certificate revocation checking.
  • Cumulative Updates can be installed directly, i.e. no need to install RTM prior to installing Cumulative Updates.
  • Once installed, you can’t uninstall a Cumulative Update nor any of the installed Exchange server roles.
  • The order in which you upgrade servers with Cumulative Updates is irrelevant.

Caution:

As for any update, I recommend to thoroughly test updates in a test environment prior to implementing them in production. When you lack such facilities, hold out a few days and monitor the comments on the original publication or forums for any issues.

Automation, DevOps and the Evolution of the IT Pro

Posted on by
Reply

iTunes-Podcast-logo[1]Recently, Simon Waight and I were invited by fellow MVP Chris Goosen from Cloud Architects to come chat a little on Automation, DevOps and the evolution of the IT Professional.

With the bridge narrowing between development and infrastructure on a daily basis, and infrastructure becoming code, the DevOps culture is becoming more and more important to be knowledgeable about for IT Professionals with a background in infrastructure.

You can listen to the podcast recording here, or you can subscribe to the Cloud Architects podcast.

 

Security Updates for Exchange 2016, 2013 and 2010

Posted on by
Reply

Ex2013 LogoA quick heads-up for those that missed it that earlier this month, as Microsoft released security updates for supported releases of Exchange Server 2016 and 2013 as well as Exchange Server 2010.

The security updates patch issues as reported in the following Microsoft Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures:

  • CVE-2018-8151 – Microsoft Exchange Memory Corruption Vulnerability
  • CVE-2018-8154 – Microsoft Exchange Memory Corruption Vulnerability
  • CVE-2018-8159 – Microsoft Exchange Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
  • CVE-2018-8153 – Microsoft Exchange Spoofing Vulnerability
  • CVE-2018-8152 – Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

You can download the security updates here:

You may notice that Exchange 2013 Service Pack 1 is still in there, but this is because Cumulative Updates and Service Packs are on a different servicing model. Every Cumulative Update is supported for three months after the release of the next Cumulative Update; Exchange 2013 SP1 entered extended support early April, and will only receive critical updates such as this one.

Be advised that for Exchange 2013 and 2016, Security Updates are Cumulative Update level specific. While the downloaded security updates may carry the same name, the files are different and you cannot apply the downloaded security update file for Exchange 2016 CU8 to Exchange 2016 CU9. I suggest adding some form of identification of the Cumulative Update to the file name when you save it, e.g. Exchange2016-KB4092041-x64-en-CU9.msp.

As with any patch or update, I’d recommend to thoroughly test this in a test and acceptance environment first, prior to implementing it in production.

 

Exchange & .NET Framework 4.7.2

Posted on by
4

Ex2013 LogoA quick blog on the recent release of .NET Framework 4.7.2. In the past I blogged about the tight relationship between Exchange versions and the .NET Framework, and the supported combinations of those two to deploy and run Exchange. Shortly after publishing that article, Microsoft revised its support statement:

“When upgrading Exchange from an unsupported CU to the current CU and no intermediate CUs are available, you should upgrade to the latest version of .NET that’s supported by Exchange first and then immediately upgrade to the current CU. This method doesn’t replace the need to keep your Exchange servers up to date and on the latest, supported, CU. Microsoft makes no claim that an upgrade failure will not occur using this method, which may result in the need to contact Microsoft Support Services”.

Now while 4.7.2 is a minor release, it is not mentioned in the Exchange supportability matrix at this moment. As such, it is not a validated combination, and you will be in uncharted territory with an unsupported configuration. The revised support statement only mentions upgrading Cumulative Update directly to a recent release as many customers were faced with a two-step upgrade process coming from old Cumulative Updates, basically ignore the supportability matrix. However, it does not mention anything about upgrading to the latest .NET Framework version at this moment. So don’t.

To block (accidental) installation of .NET Framework 4.7.2, you can configure the following registry key on your current Exchange servers to block its installation:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\WU\BlockNetFramework472= 1 (REG_DWORD)

or using PowerShell code:

$Version='472'
$RegKey= 'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\WU'
$RegName= ('BlockNetFramework{0}' -f $Version)
If( -not (Test-Path $RegKey -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
    New-Item -Path (Split-Path $RegKey -Parent) -Name (Split-Path $RegKey -Leaf) -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | out-null
}
New-ItemProperty -Path $RegKey -Name $RegName -Value 1 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue| out-null
If( ( Get-ItemProperty -Path $RegKey -Name $RegName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue)) {
    Write-Output ('Installation blockade for .NET Framework {0} set' -f $Version)
}
Else {
    Write-Error ('Unable to set registry entry {0}\{1}' -f $RegKey, $RegName)
}

Exchange Updates – March 2018

Posted on by
3

Ex2013 LogoThe Exchange Team released the March updates for Exchange Server 2013 and 2016, and these Cumulative Updates contain a ton of fixes. Like the earlier Cumulative Updates for Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2016, and in addition to the fixes – see below – these Cumulative Updates contain the following important changes:

  • Support for .NET Framework 4.7.1. Be advised that .NET Framework 4.7.1 will be required for the next cycle of quarterly updates, which will be released in June 2018.
  • Full support for TLS 1.2. More information and guidance here.

On a smaller note, Exchange 2010 Service Pack 3 Rollup 20 was also released, which contains two security fixes CVE-2018-0924 and CVE-2018-0940, as well as DST changes.

Version Build KB Article Download UMLP Schema Changes
Exchange 2016 CU9 15.1.1466.3 KB4055222 Download UMLP No
Exchange 2013 CU20 15.0.1367.3 KB4055221 Download UMLP No
Exchange 2010 SP3 RU20 14.3.389.1 KB4073537 Download

Exchange 2016 CU9 fixes:

  • 4054513 Mailbox usage status bar in OWA displays incorrect mailbox usage
  • 4055433 User is added to an entire series when accepting a single instance through Exchange ActiveSync
  • 4057216 Health mailbox’s password is exposed in logs for a failed probe in Exchange Server 2016 and 2013
  • 4058373 “A parameter cannot be found” error when you run Install-AntiSpamAgents.ps1 in Exchange Server 2016 CU7
  • 4058379 All cross-forest meeting updates have to be accepted again in Exchange Server 2016 and 2013
  • 4058383 Exchange Control Panel (ECP) redirection fails in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4058384 Get-CalendarDiagnosticAnalysis shows DateTime in 12-hour clock in Exchange Server 2016 and 2013
  • 4058399 Disabling a mailbox can’t remove legacyExchangeDN from user’s properties in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4073094 Emails outside a UID range are returned when you request for emails by using IMAP
  • 4073095 “550 5.6.0 CAT.InvalidContent.Exception” and email isn’t delivered in Exchange Server 2016 and 2013
  • 4073104 PIN can be reset on a Unified Messaging (UM)-enabled mailbox for a user outside a scoped OU
  • 4073103 The Enable-Mailbox cmdlet doesn’t block migrated users from provisioning in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4073107 Language can’t be changed when a user from a child domain tries to change language in OWA
  • 4073111 Can’t access a CAS website such as OWA/ECP/Autodiscover in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4073110 You can’t access OWA or ECP after you install Exchange Server 2016 CU8
  • 4073109 Search-MailboxAuditLog -ShowDetails not showing all messages in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4073114 “ADOperationException” error when OWA text verification fails in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4073214 Can’t enable OWA offline access in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4073531 CultureNotFoundException when selecting a LCID 4096 language in OWA for Exchange Server 2016
  • 4076520 MatchSubdomains isn’t usable for Set-AcceptedDomain in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4076741 Incorrect NDR when an administrator deletes a message from a queue in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4077655 Event ID 258 “Unable to determine the installed file” after you uninstall Windows PowerShell 2.0
  • 4057290 Incorrect user is returned in the ECP when one user’s display name matches another user’s alias
  • 4058372 Blank page in Exchange Admin Center Audit Log in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4058382 Can’t retrieve time slot information about private calendar items as a delegate on another user’s account in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4058401 Administrator audit logging does not record Set-ServerComponentState cmdlet details in Exchange Server 2013 or 2016 environment
  • 4073097 Monitoring probes of ECP.Proxy health checks fail on all CAS roles in Exchange Server 2013 and 2016
  • 4073098 The ETS and EXS groups are incorrectly granted “SeDebugPrivilege” in Exchange Server 2016 on-premises
  • 4073108 “There was a problem loading your options” error when a user accesses OWA Voice Mail options in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4077924 Store Worker process crashes when you move, restore, or repair mailboxes that have issues with the logical index within the database in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4091453 Update improves linguistics features and CJK handling for search in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4073392 Description of the security update for Microsoft Exchange: March 13, 2018

Exchange 2013 CU20 fixes:

  • 4073392 Description of the security update for Microsoft Exchange: March 13, 2018
  • 4073094 Emails outside a UID range are returned when you request for emails by using IMAP
  • 4073097 Monitoring probes of ECP.Proxy health checks fail on all CAS roles in Exchange Server 2013 and 2016
  • 4057216 Health mailbox’s password is exposed in logs for a failed probe in Exchange Server 2016 and 2013
  • 4058384 Get-CalendarDiagnosticAnalysis shows DateTime in 12-hour clock in Exchange Server 2016 and 2013
  • 4057290 Incorrect user is returned in the ECP when one user’s display name matches another user’s alias
  • 4055433 User is added to an entire series when accepting a single instance through Exchange ActiveSync
  • 4058401 Administrator audit logging does not record Set-ServerComponentState cmdlet details in Exchange Server 2013 or 2016 environment
  • 4073095 “550 5.6.0 CAT.InvalidContent.Exception” and email isn’t delivered in Exchange Server 2016 and 2013
  • 4058379 All cross-forest meeting updates have to be accepted again in Exchange Server 2016 and 2013
  • 4073093 Save issues occur when you use the plain Text Editor in OWA of Exchange Server 2013
  • 4073096 Emails sent from a shared mailbox aren’t saved in Sent Items when MessageCopyForSentAsEnabled is True

Notes:

  • Exchange 2016 CU7 and later requires Forest Functionality Level 2008R2 or later.
  • Exchange 2016 CU8 and Exchange 2013 CU18 do not contain schema changes compared to their previous Cumulative Update. However, they may introduce RBAC changes in your environment. Use setup /PrepareSchema to manually update the schema, or use /PrepareAD to apply RBAC changes, before deploying or updating Exchange servers. To see if you need to update the schema compared to your version or verify the update has been performed, consult the Exchange schema overview.
  • When upgrading from an n-2 or earlier version of Exchange, or an early version of the .NET Framework, consult Upgrade Paths for CU’s & .NET.
  • When upgrading your Exchange 2013 or 2016 installation, don’t forget to put the server in maintenance mode when required. Regardless, setup will put the server in server-wide offline mode post-analysis, before making actual changes.
  • Using Windows Management Framework (WMF)/PowerShell version 5 or later on anything earlier than Windows Server 2016 is not supported. Don’t install WMF5 on your Exchange servers running on Windows Server 2012 R2 or earlier.
  • When using Exchange hybrid deployments or Exchange Online Archiving (EOA), you are required to stay at most one version behind (n-1).
  • If you want to speed up the update process for systems without internet access, you can follow the procedure described here to disable publisher’s certificate revocation checking.
  • Cumulative Updates can be installed directly, i.e. no need to install RTM prior to installing Cumulative Updates.
  • Once installed, you can’t uninstall a Cumulative Update nor any of the installed Exchange server roles.
  • The order in which you upgrade servers with Cumulative Updates is irrelevant.

Caution:

As for any update, I recommend to thoroughly test updates in a test environment prior to implementing them in production. When you lack such facilities, hold out a few days and monitor the comments on the original publication or forums for any issues.

 

Exchange Mailboxes and Signatures

Posted on by
Reply

vote!One of the longest standing requests of the community regarding Exchange features is the request to have the ability to share e-mail signatures between Outlook for desktop, Outlook Web Access (OWA) and mobile clients like Outlook for iOS. Several 3rd party vendors have been filling this gap with solutions with the possibility of adding standardized signatures on the transport layer or through application add-ins for the WYSIWYG approach.

The Outlook products don’t share signatures; Outlook Web Access does store the signature in a so-called Folder Associated Item (FAI) in the mailbox, making the signature persist when moving the mailbox around. But that unfortunately is only for Outlook Web Access; Outlook for desktop signatures are stored in files in one’s user profile, and Outlook for iOS only allows you to configure a single line, which often is used to apologize for any typos in the message, more common when using mobile devices, by setting it to ‘Mail sent using mobile’ or text of similar nature.

However, after a recent discussion with the relevant product groups by Jeff Guillet, the product groups challenged MVPs that there is indeed a significant demand for this feature by getting people to vote on UserVoice. Jeff with the MVPs designed a functional specification for this feature, which will be shared with the product groups at a later date. There is no reason why we can’t expect this feature to work for both Exchange Online as well as Exchange on-premises. Part of the request will also be to be able to manage the signature through PowerShell, similar to how the Outlook Web Access signature can now be managed using Set-MailboxMessageConfiguration.

So, power to the community and get your voice heard if you want this feature. You can vote on UserVoice here. Thank you.

Comparing Sets of Cmdlets

Posted on by
1

powershellWith the speed of development in Office 365, it is sometimes hard to track which changes have been made to your tenant. Of course, there is the roadmap and message board which you can use to keep up to date, but those are in general high level descriptions. Sometimes you may want to see what are the changes at the cmdlet level in your tenant, between tenants, or Azure Active Directory module. And there is also the occasional gem in the form of a yet undocumented cmdlet or parameter which could hint at upcoming features.

For this purpose I have created a simple script which has two purposes:

  1. Export information on the current cmdlets available through Exchange Online or Azure Active Directory.
  2. Compare two sets of exported information, and display changes in a readable way.

The script is in PowerShell (of course), and is called Compare-Cmdlets.ps1. To export information, you need to be already connected to either Exchange Online or Azure Active Directory (or both).

To export cmdlet information, use:

.\Compare-Cmdlets.ps1 –Export

For Exchange Online and Azure Active Directory, separate export files are created. The files are prefixed with a timestamp and postfixed with the Exchange Online build or Azure Active Directory module version, e.g. 201803121814-ExchangeOnline-15.20.548.21.xml or 201803121815-AzureAD-2.0.0.137.xml.

After a few days/week, or when connected to another tenant or using a new Azure Active Directory PowerShell module, run the export again. You will now have 2 sets of Exchange Online or Azure Active Directory cmdlets, which you can compare using the following sample syntax:

Compare-Cmdlets.ps1 -ReferenceCmds .\201801222108-ExchangeOnline-15.20.428.21.xml -DifferenceCmds .\201803120926-ExchangeOnline-15.20.548.21.xml

image

A progress bar is shown as comparison might take a minute. When the script has finished checking the two sets, you will see output indicating changes in cmdlets, parameters or switches, e.g.

image

Download
You can find the script on the TechNet Gallery or GitHub.

MVP’s around the world

Posted on by
1

image.pngMid-2017, I  had a look at the publicly available statistics on MVP’s around the world after Microsoft changed their MVP award renewal regime. This was to check if there was any impact noticeable. With the regime change, also came a change that MVP’s can be awarded on a monthly basis. This means people can be awarded every month; maybe not in every category, but overall yes.

For the start of 2018, let’s first have a look at the total population of MVP’s. The total number of MVP’s went down from 3410 in July last year, to 3695 now (-15%). The table below contains the number of awards per category, and the change from July 2017 to January 2018:

Competence Jul2017 Jan2018 Change
Access 37 39 +5%
AI 1 20 +1900%
Business Solutions 193 214 +11%
Cloud and Datacenter Management 392 412 +5%
Data Platform 399 422 +6%
Enterprise Mobility 148 157 +6%
Excel 94 104 +11%
Microsoft Azure 311 350 +13%
Office Development 38 42 +11%
Office Servers and Services 449 480 +7%
OneNote 15 15 0%
Outlook 14 14 0%
PowerPoint 36 37 +3%
Visio 14 14 0%
Visual Studio and Development Technologies 901 1002 +11%
Windows and Devices for IT 148 136 -8%
Windows Development 277 266 -4%
Word 23 23 0%
Total 3490 3747 +7%

Note: The total number of MVP’s doesn’t equal the total number of competences, as people can be awarded in more than one category.

Overall, the numbers are up in most categories. However, as stated before, a big sanitation round is expected for Q3’2018, as this year the former October and January awardees will be up for the new yearly renewal cycle, which takes place mid-2018. The new category introduced last year, Artificial Intelligence, saw a significant number of folks being added.

When zooming in on the Office Servers and Services MVP’s category, the awards per country is shown in the following heath map and table. Note that anonymous MVP’s are not taken into account:

image

Country Number Country Number Country Number
Argentina 2 (0%) India 12 (0%) Russia 9 (12%)
Australia 23 (-18%) Ireland 1 (-50%) Saudi Arabia 1 (100%)
Austria 2 (100%) Israel 1 (0%) Serbia 1 (0%)
Belarus 1 (100%) Italy 10 (-10%) Singapore 4 (0%)
Belgium 7 (0%) Japan 18 (-6%) Slovakia 1 (0%)
Bosnia-Herzegovina 2 (-34%) Jordan 1 (100%) Slovenia 2 (0%)
Brazil 4 (-56%) Korea 7 (-37%) South Africa 5 (0%)
Brunei Darussalam 1 (0%) Kuwait 1 (0%) Spain 6 (0%)
Bulgaria 1 (-50%) Latvia 1 (0%) Sri Lanka 5 (-38%)
Canada 38 (-14%) Macedonia F.Y.R.O 1 (-50%) Sweden 8 (-12%)
Chile 1 (-50%) Malaysia 2 (-34%) Switzerland 5 (-29%)
China 15 (-22%) Mexico 4 (0%) Thailand 1 (0%)
Colombia 2 (-34%) Nepal 1 (100%) The Netherlands 15 (25%)
Croatia 6 (20%) New Caledonia 1 (100%) Turkey 5 (25%)
Czech Republic 4 (100%) New Zealand 5 (0%) Ukraine 2 (0%)
Denmark 4 (0%) Norway 6 (20%) United Arab Emirates 3 (-40%)
Egypt 2 (0%) Pakistan 2 (0%) United Kingdom 25 (0%)
Finland 2 (0%) Palestine 1 (0%) United States 111 (5%)
France 16 (0%) Peru 2 (100%) Uruguay 1 (0%)
Germany 19 (26%) Poland 3 (0%) Vietnam 2 (-50%)
Greece 1 (0%) Portugal 4 (-20%) TOTAL 480 (-5%)
Hungary 4 (33%) Romania 2 (0%)
When looking at the changes over the last year (January 2017 – January 2018), the total number went down from 505 to 480 (-5%). As the Office Servers and Services category contains quite a few long-standing, former October or January MVP awardees, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for this year’s renewal cycle.


Upgrade Paths for CU’s & .NET

Posted on by
32

Ex2013 LogoUpdate 2/13/2018: Revised Microsoft upgrade guidance added.
Update 2/15/2018: Added missing CU14.

Microsoft keeps track of the current supported combinations of .NET Framework and Exchange Cumulative Updates at the Exchange Server Supportability Matrix. However, as time progresses, support information on older Cumulative Updates might be removed from the information presented, and you may need to resort to cached versions of this page or other sources to find this information.

This might be problematic for organizations that are not current, and need to find out which upgrade path they are required to follow to stay within the boundaries of supported Exchange deployment configurations. For example, you may need to upgrade to a specific Cumulative Update first, that is supported with a newer release of the .NET Framework, in order to be able to upgrade to a later Cumulative Update.

For these situations, the following tables contains the supportability matrix, enhanced with information regarding earlier Cumulative Updates and .NET Framework versions. These will provide you the supported upgrade paths for older versions of Exchange.

Exchange 2016

.NET RTM-CU1 CU2 CU3-CU4 CU5-CU7 CU8
4.5 – – – – –
4.5.1 – – – – –
4.5.2 X X X – –
4.6.11 – X X – –
4.6.2 – – X X X
4.7.12 – – – – X

Exchange 2013

.NET RTM-CU3 CU4(SP1)-CU12 CU13-CU14 CU15 CU16-CU18 CU19
4.5 X X X – – –
4.5.1 – X X X – –
4.5.2 – X X X – –
4.6.11 – – X X – –
4.6.2 – – – X X X
4.7.12 – – – – – X

Notes

  1. When possible, bypass .NET Framework 4.6.1, as it not only requires updating the CU level prior to updating the .NET Framework, but also requires an additional hotfix: kb3146715 (ws2012r2), kb3146714 (ws2012) or kb3146716 (ws2008r2).
  2. NET Framework 4.7.1 is recommended but not yet required for the indicated product versions.

Usage
Suppose your organization loves procrastinating, and you are running Exchange 2013 CU6. Luckily, you run it on .NET Framework 4.5.1, which was already a supported configuration back in 2014 – yes, it’s been that long. Looking at the table, to get current with a minimal number of updates in mind, you can derive the following path:

image

The upgrade path to CU19 would therefor be:

  1. Upgrade to Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 15
  2. Upgrade .NET Framework to 4.6.2
  3. Upgrade to Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 19
  4. Optionally, upgrade .NET Framework to 4.7.1

Note that in addition to information being refreshed on Microsoft pages, availability of older Cumulative Updates or .NET Framework updates might also change, so archive those files accordingly, if not for recovery of existing Exchange servers, then for this exact purpose.

Of course, you should stay current as possible from a support and security perspective, making the above a non-issue. Reality is, there are customers who have reasons, legitimate or not, to be trailing with updates in their environment, and at some point may need guidance on how to proceed in order to get current. I hope this information helps in those situations.

Thoughts and feedback is welcomed in the comments.

Update: Per February 13th, Microsoft updated upgrade guidance on the Exchange Supportability Matrix page, stating:

“When upgrading Exchange from an unsupported CU to the current CU and no intermediate CUs are available, you should upgrade to the latest version of .NET that’s supported by Exchange first and then immediately upgrade to the current CU. This method doesn’t replace the need to keep your Exchange servers up to date and on the latest, supported, CU. Microsoft makes no claim that an upgrade failure will not occur using this method, which may result in the need to contact Microsoft Support Services”.

This means you will be supported when upgrading in the revised upgrade path, but the risk is still there. In the example above, when going from Exchange 2013 CU6 with .NET 4.5.1 to CU19, the support statement indicates you can upgrade to .NET Framework  4.7.1, when install CU19. However, things might break and you may need to contact support to get back in a supported, working situation. Therefor, I repeat my recommendation to download and archive CU’s and .NET Framework files, even when you are not planning on installing them (yet).

Exchange Updates – December 2017

Posted on by
1

Ex2013 LogoThe Exchange Team released the December updates for Exchange Server 2013 and 2016. Apart from the usual set of fixes, these Cumulative Updates also have the following enhancements:

  • Like announced earlier, these quartely updates introduce support for .NET Framework 4.7.1. Be advised that .NET Framework 4.7.1 will be required for the quarterly updates to be released in June 2018.
  • Upgrading an existing Exchange deployment with these Cumulative Updates will preserve TLS cryptography settings.
  • Support for Hybrid Modern Authentication (Info).
Version Build KB Article Download UMLP Schema Changes
Exchange 2016 CU8 15.1.1415.2 KB4035145 Download UMLP Yes
Exchange 2013 CU19 15.0.1365.1 KB4037224 Download UMLP No

Exchange 2016 CU8 fixes:

  • 4056329 Can’t access EWS from Outlook/OWA add-ins via makeEwsRequestAsync in Exchange Server 2016 and Exchange Server 2013
  • 4054516 “Your request can’t” error when accessing an archive mailbox via OWA in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4055953 The recipient scope setting doesn’t work for sibling domains in Exchange Server 2016
  • 4055435 No MAPI network interface is found after you install Exchange Server 2016 CU7
  • 4056609 Event ID 4999 and mailbox transport delivery service does not start after you install Exchange Server 2016 CU7
  • 4045655 Description of the security update for Microsoft Exchange: December 12, 2017
  • 4057248 Many Watson reports for StoragePermanentException in Exchange Server 2016

Exchange 2013 CU19 fixes:

  • 4046316 MAPI over HTTP can’t remove client sessions timely if using OAuth and the resource has a master account in Exchange Server 2013
  • 4046205 W3wp high CPU usage in Exchange Server 2013
  • 4046182 Event ID 4999 or 1007 if diagnostics service crashes repeatedly in Exchange Server 2013
  • 4056329 Can’t access EWS from Outlook/OWA add-ins via makeEwsRequestAsync in Exchange Server 2016 and Exchange Server 2013
  • 4045655 Description of the security update for Microsoft Exchange: December 12, 2017

Exchange 2010
In addition the Cumulative Updates, Exchange Server 2010 SP3 also received an important update, which fixes the issue described in KB4054456. You can download Rollup 19 here, which will raise the version number to 14.3.382.0. The related KB article is KB4035162.

Notes:
  • Exchange 2016 CU7 and later requires Forest Functionality Level 2008R2 or later.
  • Exchange 2016 CU8 and Exchange 2013 CU18 do not contain schema changes compared to their previous Cumulative Update. However, they may introduce RBAC changes in your environment. Use setup /PrepareSchema to manually update the schema, or use /PrepareAD to apply RBAC changes, before deploying or updating Exchange servers. To see if you need to update the schema compared to your version or verify the update has been performed, consult the Exchange schema overview.
  • When upgrading your Exchange 2013 or 2016 installation, don’t forget to put the server in maintenance mode when required. Regardless, setup will put the server in server-wide offline mode post-analysis, before making actual changes.
  • Using Windows Management Framework (WMF)/PowerShell version 5 or later on anything earlier than Windows Server 2016 is not supported. Don’t install WMF5 on your Exchange servers running on Windows Server 2012 R2 or earlier.
  • When using Exchange hybrid deployments or Exchange Online Archiving (EOA), you are required to stay at most one version behind (n-1).
  • If you want to speed up the update process for systems without internet access, you can follow the procedure described here to disable publisher’s certificate revocation checking.
  • Cumulative Updates can be installed directly, i.e. no need to install RTM prior to installing Cumulative Updates.
  • Once installed, you can’t uninstall a Cumulative Update nor any of the installed Exchange server roles.
  • The order in which you upgrade servers with Cumulative Updates is irrelevant.

Caution: As for any update, I recommend to thoroughly test updates in a test environment prior to implementing them in production. When you lack such facilities, hold out a few days and monitor the comments on the original publication or forums for any issues.