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.

The UC Architects Podcast Ep39

Posted on June 21, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

We’re glad to announce the availability of episode 39 of The UC Architects podcast.

This episode is hosted by Steve Goodman, who is joined by Johan Veldhuis, Dave Stork, John Cook, Tom Arbuthnot and Michel de Rooij. Editing was done by Andrew Price.

Min topics discussed in this episode are:

Exchange 2013 CU5 (Release, Hybrid Improvements, OAB Improvements)
Exchange 2010 SP3 UR6
Discussion about Exchange storage (Steve’s Article, VMware KB)
Open Specifications Posters for Office client, Lync, SharePoint, Exchange, SQL Server, and Windows
Exchange Server 2013 Platform Options poster
DLP from Exchange coming to OneDrive for Business and SharePoint
myBulletins, tool that provides personalized list of the security bulletins
Lync Room System (LRS) v15.10 May update out for Smart with fixes and enhancements
Lync Callback Reminder
XenDesktop Certified on Lync 2013
Update 2880980 for Lync 2013
Lync 2013 support for SQL AlwaysON
Beta release of Azure AD Sync via Connect
UC Birmingham User Group August

More information on the podcast including references and a link to download the podcast here or you can subscribe to the podcasts using iTunes, Zune or use the RSS feed.

About
The UC Architects is a bi-weekly community podcast by people with a passion for Unified Communications; our main focus is on Exchange, Lync or related subjects.

1.000.000 views reached!

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

What started out as a pleasant and rewarding journey on November 24th, 2009 reached another milestone today. This blog, containing just over 440 posts, went through the 1 million views mark in the past 24 hours. Together with the 1350 Twitter followers, seeing my small community contributions help you guys (or girls) out is keeping me motivated. A big thanks to all of you and keep coming back!

Multi-Factor Authentication in Office 365 (Part 1)

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Multi-Factor Authentication identifies an end user with more than one factor. Authentication is based on something you know, such as your password; something you have, such as a security token or smart card; or something that’s a physical characteristic of who you are, such as biometrics. By creating an additional factor on top of the password, identity is better protected. Multi-Factor Authentication is seen as a must-have for cloud-based services, especially for administrative types of accounts.

In this first tip on SearchExchange, I explain how you can configure Multi-Factor Authentication in Office 365, discuss the so-called contact methods, explain app passwords for non-MFA applications as well as show the MFA end user experience.

Read the full article over on SearchExchange

Script Updates

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

A small heads-up for those not following me on Twitter of one of the other social media channels. Last week I made updates to the following three scripts:

Install-Exchange2013.ps1, version 1.72

Added CU5 support
Added KB2971467 (CU5 Disable Shared Cache Service Managed Availability probes)

Remove-DuplicateItems.ps1, version 1.3

Changed parameter Mailbox, you can now use an e-mail address as well.
Added parameter Credentials.
Added item class and size for certain duplication checks.
Changed item removal process
Remove items after, not while processing folder. Avoids asynchronous deletion issues.
Works against Office 365.

Remove-MessageClassItems.ps1, version 1.3

Changed parameter Mailbox, you can now use an e-mail address as well
Added parameter Credentials
Added parameter PartialMatching for partial class name matching.
Changed item removal process. Remove items after, not while processing folder. Avoids asynchronous deletion issues.
Works against Office 365.
Deleted Items folder will be processed, unless MoveToDeletedItems is used.
Changed EWS DLL loading, can now be in current folder as well.

Be advised I keep am overview of the scripts and their current versions with publish dates here.

Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 5

Posted on May 27, 2014 by Michel de Rooij

Today, Cumulative Update 5 for Exchange Server 2013 was released by the Exchange Team (KB2936880). This update raises Exchange 2013 version number to 15.0.913.22.

This Cumulative Update contains the following fixes compared to SP1 (CU4):

2963590 Message routing latency if IPv6 is enabled in Exchange Server 2013
2963566 Outlook Web App accessibility improvement for UI appearance in Exchange Server 2013
2962439 You cannot sync contacts or tasks in Microsoft CRM client for Outlook in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2962435 CRM synchronization fails if the time zone name of a meeting is not set in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2962434 Slow performance in Outlook Web App when Lync is integrated with Exchange Server 2013
2958430 “Some or all Identity references could not be translated” error when you manage DAG in Exchange Server 2013 SP1 in a disjoint namespace domain
2957592 IME is disabled in Outlook Web App when you press Tab to move the focus in an email message in Exchange Server 2013
2942609 Exchange ActiveSync proxy does not work from Exchange Server 2013 to Exchange Server 2007
2941221 EWS integration for Lync works incorrectly in an Exchange Server 2013 and 2007 coexistence environment
2926742 Plain-text message body is cleared when writing in Outlook Web App by using Internet Explorer 8 in Exchange Server 2013
2926308 Sender’s email address is broken after importing a PST file into an Exchange Server 2013 mailbox
2925559 Users always get the FBA page when they access OWA or ECP in Exchange Server 2013
2924519 “SyncHealth\Hub” folder is created unexpectedly after installing Cumulative Update 2 for Exchange Server 2013
2916113 Cannot open .tif files from email messages by using Windows-based applications in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2592398 Email messages in the Sent Items folder have the same PR_INTERNET_MESSAGE_ID property in an Exchange Server 2010 environment

Notes:

Be advised that this CU includes a Managed Availability probe configuration that may result in the frequently restarting of the Microsoft Exchange Shared Cache Service in some environments. More information, see KB2971467.
Be advised of OAB architectural changes documented here. If you are affected, it is recommended to update CAS servers prior to Mailbox servers.

This Cumulative Update includes schema and AD changes, so make sure you run PrepareSchema / PrepareAD. After updating, the schema version will be 15300.

Note that Cumulative Updates can be installed directly, i.e. no need to install RTM or Service Packs prior to installing Cumulative Updates. Note that once installed, you can’t uninstall a Cumulative Update nor any of the installed Exchange server roles. The order of upgrading servers is irrelevant, unlike with previous generations of Exchange.

Finally, and I can’t emphasize this enough: For any Hotfix, Rollup, Service Pack or Cumulative Update, I’d recommend to thoroughly test this in a test and acceptance environment first, prior to implementing it in production. When you lack such facilities, hold out a week or two and monitor the comments on the release article or TechNet forum for any issues.

You can download Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 5 here; UM Language Packs can be found here. More details about these changes, preparing Active Directory or installing this Cumulative Update can be found in the original announcement.