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 Mailboxes and Signatures

Posted on March 16, 2018 by Michel de Rooij

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 March 12, 2018 by Michel de Rooij

powershell With 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:

Export information on the current cmdlets available through Exchange Online or Azure Active Directory.
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

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.

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

MVP’s around the world

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Michel de Rooij

Mid-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:

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 December 21, 2017 by Michel de Rooij

104

7/7/2025: Added note.

Microsoft keeps track of the currently 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 determine which upgrade path to stay within the boundaries of supported Exchange deployment configurations. For example, you may need to upgrade to a specific Cumulative Update first, supported by a newer release of the .NET Framework, to upgrade to a later Cumulative Update.

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

Note: In-place upgrades of the operating system on which Exchange Server runs are not supported and will not work. Also, keep in mind that you cannot mix nodes within the same Database Availability Groups concerning the operating system. New operating system = new Exchange Server installation = new Database Availability Group.

Exchange 2019

.NET	RTM-CU1	CU2-CU3	CU4-CU13	CU14-CU15
4.7.2	X	X	–	–
4.8	–	X	X	–
4.8.1	–	–	X	X

Exchange 2016

.NET	RTM- CU1	CU2	CU3- CU4	CU5- CU7	CU8- CU9	CU10	CU11- CU12	CU13- CU14	CU15- CU23
4.5	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
4.5.1	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
4.5.2	X	X	X	–	–	–	–	–	–
4.6.1¹	–	X	X	–	–	–	–	–	–
4.6.2	–	–	X	X	X	–	–	–	–
4.7²	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
4.7.1	–	–	–	–	X	X	X	–	–
4.7.2	–	–	–	–	–	–	X	X	–
4.8	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	X	X

Exchange 2013

.NET	RTM- CU3	CU4(SP1)- CU12	CU13- CU14	CU15	CU16- CU18	CU19- CU20	CU21- CU22	CU23
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	–	–
4.7²	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–
4.7.1	–	–	–	–	–	X	X	–
4.7.2	–	–	–	–	–	–	X	X
4.8	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	X

Notes

When possible, bypass .NET Framework 4.6.1, as it not only requires updating the CU level before updating the .NET Framework, but also requires an additional hotfix: kb3146715 (ws2012r2), kb3146714 (ws2012) or kb3146716 (ws2008r2).
.NET Framework 4.7 is not supported for any product level.

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:

The upgrade path to CU19 would therefor be:

Upgrade to Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 15
Upgrade .NET Framework to 4.6.2
Upgrade to Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 19
Upgrade .NET Framework to 4.7.1 (Optional)

Note that in addition to information being refreshed on Microsoft pages, the 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 as current as possible from a support and security perspective, making the above a non-issue. The reality is, some customers have reasons, legitimate or not, to be trailing with updates in their environment, and at some point may need guidance on how to proceed to get current. I hope this information helps in those situations.

Thoughts and feedback are welcome in the comments.

Update: On 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 installing CU19. However, things might break, and you may need to contact support to get back into a supported, working situation. Therefore, 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 December 19, 2017 by Michel de Rooij

The 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.