Exchange 2010 SP3 RU12 & Exchange 2007 SP3 RU18

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

Exchange 2010 Logo The Exchange Team released Rollup 12 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 (KB3096066) as well as Rollup 18 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (KB3078672). These update raise version numbers to 14.3.279.2 and 8.3.445.0 respectively.

Apart from a Daylight Savings Time update, documented here, these Rollups contain the following fixes:

Exchange 2010 SP3 Rollup 12:

KB 3048372 Exchange Calendar items are shifted incorrectly when some Windows DST updates are applied
KB 3096125 CryptographicException error when Edge Transport service crashes in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
KB 3097219 Organizer’s name isn’t displayed in the subject of the recurring meeting requests in Exchange Server 2010
KB 3106421 Very long URLs in an email message don’t open in OWA in Internet Explorer
KB 3115809 Mailboxes can be accessed when the DefaultNetworkCredentials option is selected when you use Exchange Web Services Managed API to connect to Exchange Server

Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Rollup 18:

KB 3106421 Very long URLs in an email message don’t open in OWA in Internet Explorer

Notes:

If you want to speed up the update process for systems without internet access, follow the procedure described here to disable publisher’s certificate revocation checking.
If you got an Exchange 2010 DAG, and want to properly update the DAG members, check the instructions here.
As for any Hotfix, Rollup, Service Pack or Cumulative Update, apply this update to a acceptance environment first, prior to implementing it in production. When you lack such facilities, hold out a certain period and monitor the comments on the release article or TechNet forum for any issues.

Rollups are cumulative per service pack level, i.e. they contain fixes released in earlier update Rollups for the same product level (RTM, SP). This means you can apply the latest Rollup after installing a fresh installation of RTM or SPx version, for that product level.

You can download Exchange 2010 SP3 Rollup 12 here and Exchange 2007 SP3 Rollup 18 here.

Exchange Server Role Requirements Calculator 7.8

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

The Exchange team today published an update for the Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator as well. The new version number is 7.8. This version incorporates sizing for Exchange 2016 as well and includes support for ReFS (default for Exchange 2016). The version number is also dropped from the calculator.

More or less complementary to the calculator is the updated sizing guidance for Exchange 2016, which was also published today here. No big changes here, apart from multi-role only option and a slight increase in CPU requirements to cover for unforeseen circumstances as the team is still learning from real-world behavior. This makes sense, looking at the speed in which the calculator was released compared to the one for Exchange 2013. Kudos to the Exchange team!

New and enhanced functionality since version 7.6:

Added support for Exchange 2016
Included CPU utilization guidance changes for Exchange 2016
Diskpart.ps1 and CreateDAG.ps1 now support ReFS
Moved DataMoveReplicationConstraint setting from CreateMBDatabases.ps1 to CreateMBDatabaseCopies.ps1
Revised all of the Distribution dialog controls to load their defaults from variables rather than use hard-coded values
The DAG name from the Input tab now flows through as the default on the Export DAG dialog
Updated Distribution tab dialog controls to persist the global catalog value during a session
Added conditional formatting for ReplayLagTime and SafetyNetThreshold
Removed 2013 from the name of the calculator

Fixes since version 7.6:

Fixed inaccuracies with “Number of Exchange Data Volumes per Server” input
Fixed calcActDBPDCWorst formula to take into account non-HA deployments
Fixed multiple dbs / volume calculation to take into account ReplayLagManager
Fixed calcNumDBCopyInSDC formula to take into account proper number of lagged copies
Fixed MaxPreferredActive not being displayed for A/A (Single DAG) site resilient solutions
Fixed an issue with Fail* buttons on Distribution tab when using some regional settings
Fixed an issue with volume path persistence on the Distribution tab Mount Points dialog

You can download the calculator here. For more information, please consult the list of changes here or Read Me here.

Blocking Mixed Exchange 2013/2016 DAG

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

In the RTM version of Exchange 2016, there’s an issue in that it is allows you to add Exchange 2016 Mailbox servers to Exchange 2013 Database Availability Groups, and vice-versa. As stated in the Release Notes (you do read those?), creating such a mixed version DAG is not supported. In theory, you could even jeopardize your Exchange data, as database structures from both versions are different. This action is also not prevented from the Exchange Admin Center, requiring organizations to have very strict procedures and knowledgeable Exchange administrators.

If you are worried about this situation and you want to prevent accidently adding Mailbox servers to an existing DAG consisting of members of a different Exchange version, there is a way (until this is blocked by the product itself, of course). Cmdlet Extension Agents to the rescue!

The Scripting Agent not only allows you to add additional instructions to existing Exchange cmdlets, but also to provide additional validation before cmdlets are executed. I did two short articles on Cmdlet Extension Agents’ Scripting Agent here and here, so I will skip introductions.

First you need to download a file named ScriptingAgentConfig.xml from the location below. If you already have Scripting Agents, you need to integrate the code in your existing ScriptingAgentConfig.xml files. The code checks if the server you want to add using the Add-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup cmdlet is of a different major version than one of the current DAG members.

Next, you need to copy this ScriptingAgentConfig.xml file to $ENV:ExInstallPath on every Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2016 server in your organization, e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin\CmdletExtensionAgents\ScriptingAgentConfig.xml. To help your with this process, Exchange fellow Paul Cunningham made a small script to push this XML from the current folder to every Exchange server in your organization, PushScriptingAgentConfig.ps1.

Last step is to enable the Scripting Agent using:

Enable-CmdletExtensionAgent ‘Scripting Agent’

After distributing the scripting agent file and enabling the scripting agent, when you try to add an Exchange 2016 (version 15.1) server to an Database Availability Group consisting of Exchange 2013 Mailbox servers, using Add-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer, you will receive an error message:

This also works vice-versa, thus when you inadvertently try to add Exchange 2013 servers to an Exchange 2016 Database Availability Group, provided you distributed the XML on the Exchange 2013 servers as well. The error is also thrown when you try to perform this action using the Exchange Admin Console.

You can download the ScriptingAgentConfig.XML for blocking Mixed Exchange 2013/2016 DAGs from the TechNet here.

Exchange 2010-2013 Migration and OAB

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

Last year, Exchange fellows Andrew Higginbotham, Paul Cunningham as well as the Exchange Team reported on checking, and when necessary configuring, your Offline Address Book (OAB) in your current Exchange Server 2010 environment, prior to installing Exchange Server 2013. Not doing so could result in a complete download of the Offline Address Book created by Exchange Server 2013, titled ‘Default Offline Address List (Ex2013)’.

Today I received a report that there is a different symptom of configuration absence. In this case, the customer reported on the inability to download the offline address book, and upon further inspection the Autodiscover server did not report back on the offline address book URL to use. In other words, OAB information was absent from the Autodiscover response, and Outlook gets confused. Note that this issue was reported in Outlook 2010 after installing Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 10. I’m not sure if this change in behavior was introduced in these later builds of Exchange 2013 or Outlook, but it’s still a good thing to know.

The remedy here of course is to configure any (Exchange 2010) mailbox database with unconfigured Offline Address Book setting, and point them to the default offline address book using:

Get-MailboxDatabase | Where-Object {$_.OfflineAddressBook -eq $Null} | Set-MailboxDatabase -OfflineAddressBook (Get-OfflineAddressBook | Where-Object {$_.IsDefault -eq $True})

Knowledgebase RSS feeds

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

Update: Added Exchange 2016 and Skype for Business 2016 feed.

Note: This is an update of an article from January, 2010.

Like most people I still use RSS feeds to keep track of news and updates from various sources. But did you know you can also keep track of Microsoft’s knowledgebase articles per product using RSS feeds? Great for keeping track of updates in RSS readers like Outlook or sites like Feedly, or creating triggers on sites like IFTTT (If-This-Then-That) to automatically send e-mail notifications.

Here are some RSS feeds on knowledgebase articles that might be of interest to you:

Exchange Server