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.

iOS6 issues with Exchange (updated)

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Michel de Rooij

Since the release of iOS6, several issues have been identified with this version when used in conjunction with Exchange:

Meeting Request where the device user becomes the meeting organizer, which can potentially enable attendees to cancel the meeting for everyone invited. This issue has been documented in KB2768774;
Autodiscover not working properly when the e-mail address doesn’t match the user’s UPN.

The Exchange Team published an article where they mentioned several suggestion to “mitigate” the issue; mitigate is quoted here, because some of the suggestions mentioned are in my opinion non-options in a corporate environment, like the suggestion to switch to IMAP/POP. Not only does that remove calendaring functionality, it’s also a lot of work and hassle for end users for the – I expect – short period before we see an iOS update from Apple, after which people can go back to using Exchange ActiveSync again.

How to deal with this issue in the – relatively short – period between now and the iOS 6 fix, depends on the risk your organization is willing to take. When you’re not willing to take any chances, you can block IOS 6 devices using Exchange’s Allow/Block/Quarantine (ABQ) feature or blocking them on the Reverse Proxy level, e.g. ISA or TMG; more information on how to accomplish the latter here. While being a rather draconic measure, it might prove a better temporary measure when compared to the suggestion to ask end users not to take action on calendars in iOS, which could be an accident waiting to happen.

As a more user friendly solution, I’ll gladly bring to your attention a script created by UC Architects fellow Steve Goodman, which can collect information on current iOS users in your environment. Then, with this information, you can selectively pick out iOS 6 devices and communicate the issues with their users until a fix is released. You can get the script here.

Note that there are reports of Apple currently testing IOS 6.0.1 and it is rumored the Meeting Request fix will be included.

Update, November 1st, 2012: Apple released IOS 6.0.1 which fixes the meeting request issue amongst other things (but not the Autodiscover issue). Update your IOS device Over The Air or using iTunes.

Exchange 2013 RTM Help File

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Michel de Rooij

A quick post for those interested, e.g. you’re planning for or about to implement Exchange 2013 or just want to look up something: the Exchange 2013 RTM help file has been made available for download (dated Oct2012).

Note that the help file is still incomplete, so I expect it gets updated in the upcoming period.

It comes in a Hybrid as well as an On Premise version; you can get them here.

The UC Architects Podcast S01E10

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Michel de Rooij

The 10th episode of The UC Architects is online. The UC Architects is a bi-weekly podcast on Unified Communications in the Microsoft domain, i.e. Exchange and Lync, or related subjects.

This episode is hosted by Steve Goodman, who’s joined by John Cook, Michael Van Horenbeek, Serkan Varoglu, Johan Veldhuis, Ståle Hansen and yours truly.

Amongst the topics discussed in this episode are:

Exchange, Lync, SharePoint, and Office RTM
Microsoft Surface RT
Lync Ignite
Exchange Ignite
iOS 6 Calendaring Issues
Exchange 2010 Datacenter Switchover Troubleshooter
Exchange 2013 Beta exams
Exchange Update Rollups re-released
Lync Profile Tool
TEC Europe

You can check the podcast including the links mentioned here. To subscribe to the podcast using iTunes check here, Zune here or RSS here.

Review: Exchange Data Center Switchover Tool (Updated)

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Michel de Rooij

Last week, the Exchange team released what they called the “Exchange 2010 datacenter switchover tool” (note that the title mentions troubleshooter). The tool could prove helpful to some and can be insightful to others.

While I applaud any effort put in to minimize risks and the possibility of human error, especially in stressful situations like data center switchovers, I do have some suggestions for improvement.

First, the name. A “tool” might imply it’s something to aid in the switchover process, while in fact it’s more of an interactive decision maker or guide walking you through the process and can be utilized to practice dry runs or test formalized procedures.

That brings me to my second point, which is the format. A process like a data center switchover with all its decision moments is perhaps better translated to a flow chart rather than an interactive PowerPoint slide deck, which looks good on screen but can’t be printed. Also, a PDF or XPS might be more convenient; not everyone has PowerPoint at hand all the time, especially when working remotely on servers.

Finally, the contents is almost taken directly from the original Technet data center switchover article here, with the same questions and steps. It could perhaps be turned in a more valuable tool if it could read the environment and tailor questions based on what it discovers.

You can check out the “troubleshooter” yourself by downloading it here. Of course, this is only the first version; I suggest you leave feedback and suggestions on how to improve the tool in the accompanying article on the Exchange Team blog here.

Update October, 24th:UC Architects fellow Serkan Varoglu created a Exchange Data Center Switchover workflow diagram; you can download it here.

The UC Architects Podcast S01E09

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Michel de Rooij

The 9th episode of The UC Architects is online. The UC Architects is a bi-weekly podcast on Unified Communications in the Microsoft domain, i.e. Exchange and Lync, or related subjects.

This episode is hosted by Pat Richard, who’s joined by John A. Cook, Justin Morris, Tom Arbuthnot and Dave Stork. Special Guest is Elan Shudnow.

Amongst the topics discussed in this episode are: