About Michel de Rooij

Michel de Rooij, with over 25 years of mixed consulting and automation experience with Exchange and related technologies, is a consultant for Rapid Circle. He assists organizations in their journey to and using Microsoft 365, primarily focusing on Exchange and associated technologies and automating processes using PowerShell or Graph. Michel's authorship of several Exchange books and role in the Office 365 for IT Pros author team are a testament to his knowledge. Besides writing for Practical365.com, he maintains a blog on eightwone.com with supporting scripts on GitHub. Michel has been a Microsoft MVP since 2013.

Exchange 2007 SP3 Rollup 1

Posted on September 19, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Back from a 2 week holiday, so I have some catching up to do.

First up is the release of Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (KB2279665). This update raises Exchange 2007 version number to 8.3.106.2.

Here’s the list of changes included in this rollup (KB2279665):

2188615 Event ID: 4999 is logged when the EdgeTransport.exe process crashes intermittently on an Exchange Server 2007 server
2203381 “554 5.6.0 STOREDRV.Deliver; Corrupt message content” NDR is generated when you send an email message to an Exchange Server 2007 user
2251714 The connecting information is not logged when a user accesses a mailbox that is hosted on an Exchange Server 2007 server by using POP3 or by using IMAP4
958305 An incorrect user is displayed as the caller in a mail message in an Exchange Server 2007 environment
973040 The Bcc information is lost when the Exchange Server 2003 journalized messages are sent to an Exchange Server 2007 mailbox
973637 Exchange Server 2007 creates incorrect Lotus Notes proxy email addresses
975424 The “legacyExchangeDN” value is shown in the “From” field of an email message instead of the Simple Display Name in an Exchange Server 2007 environment
975993 “The message could not be opened” error message when an Exchange Server 2007 user tries to open or accept a meeting request
976100 Shared calendar items are shown incorrectly in the server time zone instead of the time zone of an Exchange Server 2007 user who is accessing the shared calendar
977189 The meeting time of a meeting forward notification is incorrect on an Exchange Server 2007 server
978144 A warning message is received when you run the Test-ReplicationHealth cmdlet on an Exchange Server 2007 server
978468 You receive an error message and Event ID: 1008 is logged when you move an Exchange Server 2007 mailbox
979038 A memory leak occurs in the Microsoft.Exchange.Monitoring.exe process when you run the Test-OwaConnectivity cmdlet or the Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity cmdlet in Exchange Management Shell on an Exchange Server 2007 server
979194 Excluding domain names from the Sender ID filter does not take effect after you run the Set-SenderIDConfig cmdlet on an Exchange Server 2007 server
979338 Fax communication sessions are dropped by an Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging server
979519 The PR_REPORT_TEXT property represents an incorrect read notification in Exchange Server 2007
979803 Internet Explorer unexpectedly focuses on an Exchange Server 2007 user’s OWA inbox or on an OWA calendar that is added as a web part on a SharePoint Server-based website
980205 Public folder replication is blocked unexpected in an Exchange Server 2007 environment
980301 The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service stops responding during a Volume Shadow Copy Service backup on an Exchange Server 2007 server
980404 A multibyte character is converted into a “0xFFFD” character or into unrecognized characters when you use Exchange Web Services in an Exchange Server 2007 environment
980725 You experience issues when you move messages from one mailbox folder to another mailbox folder in an Exchange Server 2007 environment
980914 A user does not receive any new email messages by using a third-party POP3 client in a mixed Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2003 environment
980953 A second dot is added to the file names of the automatic generated attachments on an Exchange Server 2007 SP2 or later version server
981794 The Get-AgentLog cmdlet operation stops and you receive an error message Exchange Server 2007
982055 The store.exe process crashes occasionally on an active node when you move the Exchange Virtual Server from an active node to a passive node in an Exchange Server 2007 cluster environment
982099 Unexpected issues occur after you run the Set-mailbox cmdlet on an Exchange Server 2007 server to convert a shared mailbox into a regular mailbox
982118 The VSS backup operation fails occasionally and Event ID: 2034 is generated on an Exchange Server 2007 server
982213 The display name or the address of a user is displayed in garbage characters when you reply to an email message in an Exchange Server 2007 environment
982475 The inline image of an email message that is sent by using OWA with S/MIME enabled is lost for an Exchange Server 2007 user
982542 Attachments of certain email messages disappear at the client-side when you use an ExOLEDB-based application to change email messages in an Exchange Server 2007 environment
982722 It takes a long time to copy or move items from one public folder to another public folder by using Outlook in an Exchange Server 2007 environment
982928 The Msftesql.exe process continues using memory on an Exchange Server 2007 server
983296 Exchange ActiveSync crashes on an Exchange Server 2007 server causing the client synchronization to be unavailable
983447 A NDR is not generated when an email message is not delivered after you set the value for “Maximum number of recipients” of “Transport Settings” to “0” on an Exchange Server 2007 server
983529 The EdgeTransport.exe process crashes and then restarts on an Exchange Server 2007 server
983540 “Http 500” error message when you use Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant on an Exchange Server 2007 Client Access server to diagnose issues

As the Exchange Team mentioned, when running ForeFront Protection for Exchange, make sure you disable ForeFront before installing the rollup and re-enable it afterwards, otherwise the Information Store and Transport services may not start. You can disable ForeFront using fscutility /disable and enable it by using fscutility /enable

You can download Exchange 2007 SP3 Rollup 1 here.

Decommisioning a DAG member

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

While I was at it, I thought I might as well blog about it. In the situation you need to dismantle an Exchange 2010 DAG member, proceed as follows:

Start up Exchange Management Console (ofcourse you can do this from the Exchange Management Shell as well, but in this example I’ll use EMC);
Go to Organization Configuration > Mailbox > Database Management;
Select the database where ” Mounted on Server” reads the server you’re decommissioning;
Select Move Active Mailbox Database;
Select the Mailbox server to host the mailbox database copy and select Move;
When the move has finished, select the database copy hosted on the server you want to decommission in the lower pane. There, select Remove.
When finished you’re greeted with a warning message. That is because the copy has been removed, but the files are still present. Remove them manually when required;
Next, we need to remove the server from the DAG. Select tab Database Availability Groups;
Select the DAG the server is a member of and select Manage Database Availability Group Membership;
Select the server and click the red cross to remove it from the list. Click Manage to proceed with the actual removal;
When finished the mailbox server is no longer member of the DAG.

You can then proceed with uninstalling Exchange. Note that you can only remove DAG members of a healthy DAG.

ForeFront Update Center

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Want to check if you’re running the latest Service Pack or Rollup for your ForeFront components? The ForeFront team has published a page where all ForeFront components, related technologies included, are listed, including information on the latest Service Pack, Rollup, version number as well as a link to product guidance.

The ForeFront Update Center as it is called contains information on the following products:

Microsoft Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server
Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint
Microsoft Forefront Client Security
Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server
Forefront Security for SharePoint
Forefront Server Security Management Console
Forefront Security for Office Communications Server
Antigen 9.0 for Exchange
Antigen 8.0 for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010
Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006
Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010
Intelligent Application Gateway 2007

You can find the page here.

Performance Analysis of Logs 2.0

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

In December I blogged about a nice performance analyzing tool called Performance Analysis of Logs or PAL. PAL might be of use in situations when you don’t have advanced monitoring tools like SCOM or when you want to easen the tedious task of cycling through generating performance logs, collecting them, and finally use performance monitor to analyse those logs to zoom in on performance issues.

That was version 1.3x, which didn’t have Exchange 2010 support at the time.

Yesterday PAL creator Clint Huffman released version 2.0, which includes Exchange 2010 support. Unlike the earlier version, this version is basically a GUI to generate PowerShell scripts which do the job for you. Therefor, it requires PowerShell 2.0 or greater. Be advised that for to function, the PAL installer will set the PowerShell execution policy to unrestricted to allow execution of PowerShell scripts. Check with your company policy if that is allowed.

You can download Performance Analysis of Logs 2.0 here.

Note that Mike Lagase, who maintained the Exchange treshold files for PAL 1.x, has released a similar tool called PerfWiz which supports Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 You can read about that on Mike’s blog here.

DAC: Changes in Exchange 2010 SP1 (Part 3)

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Part 1: Active Manager, Activate!
Part 2: Datacenter Activation Coordination Mode

In the first two articles I discussed on Exchange 2010 Active Manager and Datacenter Activation Coordination (DAC) mode in Exchange 2010 RTM. But Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) introduces changes related to DAC, which I’ll discuss in this post.

Supported Configurations
To start with, DAC mode support has been extended in Exchange 2010 SP1 to support all 2 DAG configurations with 2 or more members. This is great, since you can now enable DAC mode for 2-member DAGs. Like I explained in the 2^nd part, split brain syndrome isn’t unlikely, all the more with 2 nodes given the 50/50 situation. Implementing SP1 enables you to leverage DAC mode for the simplest form of mailbox database resilience, using DAGs with 2 members over 2 sites configurations. When required, DAC in SP1 will use the Witness Server to provide the necessary arbitration.

Another thing is that SP1 doesn’t have the requirement of being enabled for DAGs in at least 2 Active Directory sites. This is good news for customers who have their Active Directory organized in a single site located over multiple locations, e.g. stretched VLANs.

Planning
When implementing SP1 on DAG members, you must implement SP1 on all DAG members as soon as possible. Reason is that DAG members running Exchange 2010 RTM can move their databases to a DAG member running Exchange 2010 SP1, but not vice versa. So, do not postpone implementation of SP1 on additional DAG members after implementing it on the first, as it impacts your failover and switchover options. Worst case when not doing so, is ending up in the situation where you cannot activate databases on a server because it doesn’t contain SP1.

Alternate Witness Server
In SP1 you can configure the Alternate Witness Server and Directory using the Exchange Management Console. This location can be used to preconfigure the Alternate Witness Server used during switchover or failover to the secondary datacenter. The configured value will be picked up automatically using the Restore-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup cmdlet during a datacenter switchover, when not explicitly specifying AlternateWitnessServer and AlternateWitnessDirectory there.

Note that this location could already be configured in Exchange 2010 RTM using the Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup using the AlternateWitnessDirectory and AlternateWitnessServer options.

Conclusion
DAC is a useful option that each administrator running DAGs on Exchange should consider enabling. But be aware of the caveats, like the requirement of all nodes to be able to communicate with each other during start up. All in all, DAC is a helpful option as it not only prevents issues like split brain syndrome, but it also makes the process of switching datacenters easier and less prone to error. Exchange 2010 SP1 extends the number of possible configuration in which to implement DAC, making DAC an option for the masses.

I hope you found this 3-part post useful, if you still got questions do not hesitate asking me.

Part 1: Active Manager, Activate!
Part 2: Datacenter Activation Coordination

In the first two articles I discussed on Exchange 2010 Active Manager and Datacenter Activation Coordination (DAC) mode in Exchange 2010 RTM. But Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) adds some nice features to DAC mode, which I’ll discuss in this 3^rd article.

Note that this location could already be configured in Exchange 2010 RTM using the Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup using the AlternateWitnessDirectory and AlternateWitnessServer options.