Exchange Server 2016 Preview is here!

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

And so it begins. Few moments ago, the Exchange team published the public preview of Exchange 2016. The build number of the preview version is 15.1.225.17 (yes, 15.1.*, not 16.*). Exchange 2016 Preview raises schema to version 15317.

The team’s post contains information on the changes and features introduced in Exchange 2016. Many of these were already announced at Ignite earlier this year. An earlier blog post on these announcements can be found here.

With this Exchange 2016 Preview, there are important deviations from announcements made at Ignite 2015:

Minimum required Forest Functional Level (FFL) and Domain Functional Level (DFL) is Windows Server 2008. At Ignite is was announced Windows Server 2008 R2 FFL/DFL would be required.
Supported Operating Systems will be Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2. At Ignite, it was announced Windows Server 2012 was not going to be supported. Note that Windows Server 10 (Windows Server 2016) is currently in preview, is not (yet) supported, but likely will be at or shortly after both reach RTM status.
Coexistence requires Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 8 or Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 Rollup 9. This is lower than Exchange 2013 CU10+ or Exchange 2010 SP3 RU11+ as was mentioned at Ignite.
Exchange 2016 Preview works with Outlook 2013, Outlook 2010 with KB2965295, or Outlook 2016 (currently in Preview). This is a lower requirement than Outlook 2010 SP2 with KB2956191 and KB2965295 or Outlook 2013 SP1 with KB3020812 as announced at Ignite. Note that Mac users can utilize Outlook for Mac for Office 365 or Outlook for Mac 2011.
Not mentioned at Ignite, but something which recently was introduced in Exchange Online, is the introduction of auto-expanding In-Place Archives in Exchange 2016 Preview. After filling up the initial archive with 100 GB (default quota), Exchange will create auxiliary archives in chunks of 50 GB. To the end user using Outlook 2016 or Outlook for the web (the new Outlook WebApp branding), these archives will appear as a single archive. Downlevel Outlook clients will only display the initial 100 GB archive.

Meanwhile, the TechNet technical library has been updated with information on Exchange 2016. Be advised that this documentation may be incomplete and subject to change, and in fact may even be not on par with the preview product. However, as the product reaches RTM, the documentation should become more complete and final.

Some links to get you started:

The official announcement from the Exchange Team can be found here
Preliminary documentation for Exchange 2016 can be found on TechNet here
Documentation on Active Directory schema changes for Exchange 2016 can be found here

Needless to say, this is a preview. It’s great to play with in a lab, but don’t install it in your production environment unless you are part of the TAP program.

You can download the Exchange 2016 Preview here

Client Message Size Limits

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

Last Update: Version 1.4, July 19th, 2019

Exchange Server 2013 and Exchange Server 2016 enforces certain message size limits when it comes to client messages. These limits are in-place so clients can’t generate excessive load on your Exchange environment. These limits are determined for various access methods in multiple web.config files on Exchange Client Access Servers as well as Mailbox Servers.

Sometimes you may have good reasons to increase those limits. For example, when migrating to Office 365 using a product like MigrationWiz, you may want to increase the limit for Exchange Web Service (EWS) requests to allow for migration of larger items. Another example is when you want to allow for bigger attachments in Outlook WebApp (OWA). On TechNet, there’s an article on how to reconfigure these limits. However, the process consists of editing multiple web.config files, replacing multiple values in the same file, and following this process on each Exchange 2013/2016 server in your environment. This is not only labor intensive and prone to error, but becomes tedious when you consider that each Cumulative Update will overwrite your web.config files.

But do not despair. To execute these changes for OWA and EWS, I have created a PowerShell script which will perform these tasks for you.

Requirements
Using the script requires Exchange 2013. You need to provide the server name (default is local server) or AllServers to apply to all Exchange 2013/2016 servers in your environment. The script will modify the web.config remotely using the system share (e.g. C$), using the location of the Exchange installation, and uses IISRESET tool to restart IIS. It will create a backup of the web.config before modifying it.

Notes:

The script checks for running in elevated administrator mode when running against the local machine.
Current version of the script requires Exchange Management Shell, to run Exchange cmdlets for checking installed roles a.o., as the web.config files which require editing depend on the installed roles.
For OWA, add ~33% to the value you want to specify to compensate for encoding overhead.
When connected to an Exchange server, the script processes the server hosting the EMS session last to prevent abortion caused by IIS reset.
Script currently runs against Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2016.

Usage
The script Configure-ClientSizeLimits.ps1 uses the following syntax:

.\Configure-ClientSizeLimits.ps1 [-Server |-AllServers] [-OWA <size>] [-EWS <size>] [-EAS <size>] [-Reset] [-NoBackup]

A quick walk-through on the parameters and switches:

Server specifies the server to configure. When omitted, it will configure the local server. This parameter is mutually exclusive with AllServers.
AllServers switch specifies to configure all Exchange 2013 servers. This switch is mutually exclusive with Server.
OWA configures the message size limit for Outlook Web Access. Value is in bytes.
EWS configures the message size limit for Exchange Web Services. Value is in bytes.
EAS configures the message size limit for Exchange ActiveSync. Value is in bytes.
NoBackup tells the script not to make backup copies of modified web.config files.
Reset switch specifies to perform an IISRESET against servers after reconfiguration of client-specific message size limits.

So, suppose you want to configure OWA, EWS and EAS client message size limits on the local Exchange server, you can use:

.\Configure-ClientSizeLimits.ps1 -OWA 15MB -EWS 15MB EAS 15MB

If you want to configure EWS limits for all servers, resetting IIS, you could use:

.\Configure-ClientSizeLimits.ps1 -AllServers -EWS 10240 -Reset

Download
You can download the script from the TechNet Gallery here or GitHub.

Feedback
Feedback is welcomed through the comments. If you got scripting suggestions or questions, do not hesitate using the contact form.

Revision
See TechNet Gallery page.

Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator 7.6

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

The Exchange team published an update for the Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator as well. The new version number is 7.6.

Changes since version 6.6:

Added support for ReplayLagManager
Added support for PreferredMaximumActiveDatabases
Added new table that exposes theoretical CPU utilization for each mode (normal runtime, first server failure, second server failure, site failure, site failure + 1 failure)
Added Restore-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup scenario support in Distribution algorithm
Added warning about designs that include more than24 processor cores / server and 96GB of memory
Added support for DAGs without Administrative Access Point (default behavior is no administrative access point) in the CreateDAG script
Changed default for Deleted Item Retention in export file to be the highest profile value for Deleted Item Retention
Changed default for Circular Logging in export file to be true when using Exchange Native Protection
Added ability to save scripts and CSV files to OneDrive for Business
Fixed CreateDAG.ps1 script error for DAG creation without administrative IP address
Modified CreateMBDatabases.ps1 to ignore CircularLogging choice and modified CreateMBDatabaseCopies.ps1 to enforce CircularLogging choice
Fixed Export DAG list function to use the correct value for MaximumActiveDatabases
Added support for MaximumPreferredActiveDatabases and AutoDatabaseMountDial in Export DAG List function and createdag.ps1
Modified CreateMBDatabaseCopies.ps1 to remove sleep timer, improving copy creation significantly
Fixed createdag.ps1 to not generate an error when there is no alternate witness server provided

Fixes since version 6.6:

Fixed an issue that prevented the calculator from displaying results when site resilience was disabled while Active/Active (Single DAG) was selected
Changed Processor Cores/Server to not use a list drop down, thereby enabling customers to enter in configurations they are deploying.
Fixed bugs in Diskpart script with PrepareAutoReseedVolume switch and WhatIf processing
Fixed bug in Diskpart with escaping quotes in some languages
Fixed bug with display of lag copies in single site design
Fixed multiple databases / volume calculation to take into account symmetric designs that utilize an odd number of servers in a single site
Fixed scenario to count number of servers in A/P scenario where the only copy deployed in DR is a lagged copy
Fixed #NAME error in Database Copy Configuration table for standalone configurations
Updated DC1 memory sizing to take into account site failure mode for A/A (Single DAG) designs involving a 2 copy architectures
Updated Distribution Tab error reporting and Lastrow calculation
Fixed copy count validation formula for site resilient scenarios to not allow more copies in the primary datacenter than the number of servers
Added support for 10TB and 12TB capacity disks
Fixed run-time error on distribution tab when disabling site resilience
Fixed distribution error when disabling cross-site failover
Fixed bug in Distribution tab ActiveServer formula when modeling Cross Site Failover behavior
Fixed an issue with the distribution tab throwing an error when two files were opened at the same time
Fixed distribution algorithm where lagged copies were not always represented correctly
Blocked unsupported A/A (Single DAG) scenario where copy count is not the same in both datacenters

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

Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 9

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

The Exchange Team released Cumulative Update 9 for Exchange Server 2013 (KB3049849). This update raises Exchange 2013 version number to 15.0.1104.5.

Cumulative Update reintroduces configuration of sent items for shared mailboxes, as was possible in Exchange 2010 but wasn’t available in Exchange 2013 yet. More information here.

Next to a security fix for MS15-064, this Cumulative Update contains the following fixes:

KB2983216 Category setting on an item in Outlook jumps the selection to the top of the list in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
KB2988660 Role assignment with custom write scope fails in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
KB3003978 Email messages are displayed with incorrect format in Outlook in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
KB3006849 GSSAPI-based Kerberos authentication protocol is not offered to IMAP clients in Exchange Server 2013
KB3009631 Advanced Find against the Sent Items folder in Outlook returns no result in Exchange Server 2013
KB3032153 Recurring events in Calendar over DST are not adjusted on all ActiveSync devices in all Exchange Server environments
KB3040681 MapiExceptionTimeout error during a hierarchy synchronization process of multiple public folders in Exchange Server 2013
KB3040683 System WLM overrides do not work when you do on-premises installations in Exchange Server 2013
KB3049081 OwaDeepTestProbe probe fails intermittently on a server that installs the Mailbox server role in Exchange Server 2013
KB3049771 Outlook Web App logon page takes longer time than expected to time out in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
KB3050825 EdgeTransport.exe starts to crash when PriorityQueuingEnabled is set to “True” in Exchange Server 2013
KB3050877 Emails that are sent as a secondary mailbox are not saved in the delegate’s Sent Items folder in Exchange Server 2013
KB3055940 “Object reference not set to an instance” error when you install cumulative update in Exchange Server 2013
KB3056045 “Cannot find Template User object” error when you find contacts that use a consumer domain in Exchange Server 2013
KB3056133 Exchange Server 2013 Activation time of transport rule is not displayed in UTC time
KB3056413 SMTP connection fails when you log on with a child domain account and use NTLM authentication in Exchange Server 2013
KB3056817 Update adds the Let me select the message option in Outlook Web App in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
KB3056822 Dynamics CRM 2013 stops synchronizing items from mailbox in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
KB3060825 The MSExchangeDelivery service crashes when you receive an email message from a specific sender in Exchange Server 2013
KB3064393 “Bad Command. 12” error and IMAP CAPABILITY commands are not offered in an Exchange Server 2013 co-existence environment
KB3068681 RPC encryption requirement is re-enabled for RPC Client Access Service after you upgrade server in Exchange Server 2013
KB3069060 Recurring meetings are accepted when their time conflicts on the same room mailbox in Exchange Server 2013
KB3069501 Duplicate folders are created after a mailbox move in Exchange Server 2013 Enterprise
KB3071427 Outlook Web App still downloads web beacon contents when you forward email messages in Exchange Server 2013

Notes:

If the new Set-Mailbox parameters for Sent Items configuration, i.e. MessageCopyForSentAsEnabled and MessageCopyForSendOnBehalfEnabled, are not available after installing this CU, run Setup /PrepareAD /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms explicitly.
When using Exchange hybrid deployments or Exchange Online Archiving (EOA), you are required to stay current.
Previously released CU7 introduced changes to prevent restoration of pre-CU7 databases. Pre-CU7 users are advised to perform a full backup post-upgrade to CU7 or later.
Previously released CU7 added support for hierarchies containing 250,000 modern public folders. Consult this article for co-existence scenarios.

This Cumulative Update does not include schema or Active Directory changes when compared to Cumulative Update 7. If you have deployed a version earlier than CU7, make sure you run PrepareSchema /PrepareAD. If you want to speed up the Cumulative Update installation process, you can temporarily disable certificate revocation checking as described here.

Note that Cumulative Updates can be installed directly, i.e. no need to install RTM 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 8 here; UM Language Packs can be found here.

Exchange 2010 SP3 RU10 & Exchange 2007 SP3 RU17

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Michel de Rooij

The Exchange Team released Rollup 10 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 (KB3049853) as well as Rollup 17 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (KB3056710). These update raises the version numbers to 14.3.248.2 and 8.3.417.1 respectively.

Rollup 10 contains the following fixes for Exchange Server 2010 SP3:

KB 3069055 Various DAG maintenance scripts do not work in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
KB 3057422 “MapiExceptionNoAccess: Unable to query table rows” error and some mailboxes cannot be moved
KB 3056750 Exchange ActiveSync application pool crashes in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
KB 3054644 “The item no longer exists” error when you access an archive mailbox in Outlook Web App in Exchange Server 2010
KB 3051284 Event ID 4999 is logged and MSExchangeServicesAppPool crashes in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
KB 3049596 Event ID 4999 is logged and remote procedure call Client Access service crashes in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
KB 2964344 MSExchangeRPC service stops working intermittently in Exchange Server 2010
KB 3055764 Exchange Server 2010 Address Book Service crashes with event ID 4999

For Exchange Server 2007 SP3, the Rollup 17 contains the following fix:

KB 3057222 “InvaIidOperationException” error and cannot open digitally signed or NDR messages in FIPS-enabled Exchange Server 2007

Notes:

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.
If you got an Exchange 2010 DAG, and want to properly update the DAG members, check the instructions here.

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 don’t need to install previous Rollups during a fresh installation but can start with the latest Rollup package.

You can download Exchange 2010 SP3 Rollup 10 here and Exchange 2007 SP3 Rollup 14 here.