Exchange Updates – Sep. 2019

Posted on September 17, 2019 by Michel de Rooij

Exchange2019Logo Today, the Exchange Team released the quarterly Cumulative Updates for Exchange Server 2019 as well as Exchange 2016. The fixes in each release, product downloads are described below:

Version	Build	KB	Download	UMLP	Schema
Exchange 2019 CU3	15.2.464.5	KB4514141	VLSC		N
Exchange 2016 CU14	15.1.1847.3	KB4514140	Download	UMLP	N

Exchange 2019 CU3 fixes:

4515257 Hash mismatch is reported for Exchange DLLs in the bin directory of Exchange Server 2019
4502159 Adding or removing mailbox permission in EAC doesn’t address the msExchDelegateListLink attribute in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515276 Room mailbox accepts a meeting as “Free” if a booking delegate is set in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515275 Enable Get/Restore-RecoverableItems to work with Purges folder in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515274 AutodiscoverV2 request returns REST API endpoint not AutoDiscoverV1 endpoint in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515269 SentToMemberOf shows every recipient type not distribution groups when you create transport rule in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515272 Message is blocked in “SMTP Delivery to Mailbox” queue if exchange server is added in groups of a child domain in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515271 Can’t convert a migrated remote user mailbox to shared in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515270 SubmissionQueueLengthMonitor shows “System.ArgumentException: Transition timeout…” in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515267 NDR occurs when you resend message from alternate journaling mailbox to journaling mailbox in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515265 Removing In-Place Hold doesn’t work for mailboxes in different domains in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515264 FindPeople request from Skype for Business on Mac fails with “Invalid Shape Specification” in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515263 Hide the “Validate-MailFlowThroughFrontDoor” command for Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515262 Enable Remove-MobileDevice to delete mobile devices after migrating to Office 365 from Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515261 Can’t copy eDiscovery search results for mailboxes with Exchange online archives in Office 365 in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515273 Mailbox auditing fails when using SHA1Managed in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515266 Infinite loop in Recurrence.GetNumberOfYearsBetween() with the Japanese calendar in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4520319 S/MIME signed reply draft behaves like the first message in conversation in Exchange Server 2019 and 2016
4515832 Description of the security update for Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 and 2016: September 10, 2019

Exchange 2016 CU14 fixes:

4515255 “X-InnerException: Microsoft.Mapi.MapiExceptionRpcServerTooBusy” error when you try to use a mailbox in Exchange Server 2016
4515254 Event 1009 frequently occurs in application logs for lagged database copies in Exchange Server 2016
4502159 Adding or removing mailbox permission in EAC doesn’t address the msExchDelegateListLink attribute in Exchange Server 2016
4515276 Room mailbox accepts a meeting as “Free” if a booking delegate is set in Exchange Server 2016
4515275 Enable Get/Restore-RecoverableItems to work with Purges folder in Exchange Server 2016
4515274 AutodiscoverV2 request returns REST API endpoint not AutoDiscoverV1 endpoint in Exchange Server 2016
4515269 SentToMemberOf shows every recipient type not distribution groups when creating transport rule in Exchange Server 2016
4515272 Message is blocked in “SMTP Delivery to Mailbox” queue if exchange server is added in groups of a child domain in Exchange Server 2016
4515271 Can’t convert a migrated remote user mailbox to shared in Exchange Server 2016
4515270 SubmissionQueueLengthMonitor shows “System.ArgumentException: Transition timeout…” in Exchange Server 2016
4515267 NDR occurs when you resend message from alternate journaling mailbox to journaling mailbox in Exchange Server 2016
4515265 Removing In-Place Hold doesn’t work for mailboxes in different domains in Exchange Server 2016
4515264 FindPeople request from Skype for Business on Mac fails with “Invalid Shape Specification” in Exchange Server 2016
4515263 Hide the “Validate-MailFlowThroughFrontDoor” command for Exchange Server 2016
4515262 Enable Remove-MobileDevice to delete mobile devices after migrating to Office 365 from Exchange Server 2016
4515261 Can’t copy eDiscovery search results for mailboxes with Exchange online archives in Office 365 in Exchange Server 2016
4515273 Mailbox auditing fails when you use SHA1Managed in Exchange Server 2016
4515266 Infinite loop in Recurrence.GetNumberOfYearsBetween() with the Japanese calendar in Exchange Server 2016
4520319 S/MIME signed reply draft behaves like the first message in conversation in Exchange Server 2016
4515832 Description of the security update for Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 and 2016: September 10, 2019

Notes:

These Cumulative Updates do not contain schema changes compared to their previous Cumulative Update.
When upgrading from an n-2 or earlier version of Exchange, or an early version of the .NET Framework, consult Upgrade Paths for CU’s & .NET.
Don’t forget to put the Exchange server in maintenance mode prior to updating. Regardless, setup will put the server in server-wide offline mode post-analysis, before making actual changes.
When using Exchange hybrid deployments or Exchange Online Archiving (EOA), you are required to delay installing at most one version (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; 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 of installation shouldn’t matter with the “every server is an island” concept, yet recommended is to upgrade internet-facing, non-internet-facing servers first, followed by Edge Transports.

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.

Advisory: Hold off deploying Exchange 2016 CU3 on WS2016 for now

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Michel de Rooij

Last Update: December 13th, 2016: The Windows team published an update for Windows Server 2016, which should fix the issue with DAG members crashing when restarted. The related article is KB3206632, and you can download it here. Be advised, the Windows Server 2016 update – which also fixes other issues – is nearly 1 GB!

About one month ago, Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 3 was released which supported deployment on Windows Server 2016. However, recently issues are being reported on various communities as well in related blog comments, where Exchange 2016 became unstable, symptoms being randomly crashing IIS application pools (which says nothing about the root cause).

Microsoft acknowledged there is an issue with Exchange Server 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016:

If you attempt to run Microsoft Exchange 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016, you will experience errors in the IIS host process W3WP.exe. There is no workaround at this time. You should postpone deployment of Exchange 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016 until a supported fix is available.

So, be advised to hold off to deploying Exchange 2016 on Windows Server 2016 until further notice.

Update: The Exchange Team has also posted a notice that an update is in the works, and to delay further Exchange 2016 deployments on Windows Server 2016 until this delay has been made available. No ETA on the update yet.

Exchange Updates – September 2016

Posted on September 20, 2016 by Michel de Rooij

Note: There are issues with Exchange 2013 CU14 and Exchange 2016 CU3 with regards to failing Content Indexing. Fellow MVP Jaap Wesselius blogged about this here. For now, recommendation is to not upgrade to CU14, until further notice. Also, there are acknowledged issues when running Exchange 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016. Don’t deploy Exchange 2016 CU3 on that OS until further notice.

Today, the Exchange Team released the september updates for Exchange Server 2013 and Exchange Server 2016.

The biggest changes are for Exchange Server 2016:

Exchange Server 2016 CU3 or later support on Windows Server 2016, which is expected to be released at Ignite next week. Windows Server 2016 Domain Controllers are supported; requirement is just Forest Functional Level at Windows Server 2008 R2 or later. Note that it is also announced Exchange Server 2013 will not be supported (as in: now, and in the future). Performance-wise, it is recommended to exclude Exchange setup and log folders, as well as the noderunner processes in Windows Defender.
Finally, Exchange Server 2016 CU3 introduces the long-awaited Read from Passive feature. This means, indexes will be generated using (local) passive databases copies, and no longer require coordination with the server holding the active database copy. The result is lower bandwidth requirements, and – compared to Exchange Server 2013 – faster fail-overs. Be advised this feature does not apply to lagged copies.
An update for the Mailbox Server Role Calculator(s) for Exchange 2016 is available now (v8.3), incorporating Read from Passive changes. This allows organizations to not only size their deployment, but also predict the positive effect on bandwidth usage for current environments as well by using numbers. You can download the calculator here.

For a list of fixes in these updates, see below.

Exchange 2016 Cumulative Update 3	15.1.544.27	KB3152589	Download	UMLP
Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 14	15.0.1236.3	KB3177670	Download	UMLP

Exchange 2016 CU3 fixes:

KB 3154387 The DFS health set is listed as “Unhealthy” in an Exchange Server 2016 environment
KB 3175080 Cannot log on to OWA when FIPS is enabled in an Exchange Server 2016 environment
KB 3176377 Links to access Exchange items in SharePoint eDiscovery search result fail with an HTTP error 500 in Exchange Server
KB 3161916 Data loss may occur during public folder migration to Exchange 2013, Exchange 2016, or Exchange Online
KB 3176540 OWA error reporting responds with a HTTP error 500 in OwaSerializationException
KB 3190887 Upgrading Exchange Server causes the server to go offline unexpectedly
KB 3191075 You can’t install Cumulative Update 2 for Exchange Server 2016 on a Russian version operating system

Exchange 2013 CU14 fixes:

KB 3132513 “The Delegates settings were not saved correctly” when you try to add a user to Exchange Server 2013 from Microsoft Outlook
KB 3172017 “NotFound Export failed with error type: ‘NotFound'” error occurs when you perform an eDiscovery search in Exchange Server 2013
KB 3176377 Links to access Exchange items in SharePoint eDiscovery search result fail with an HTTP error 500 in Exchange Server
KB 3176540 OWA error reporting responds with a HTTP error 500 in OwaSerializationException
KB 3176873 Can’t create a new profile or connect to Exchange Server 2013 when an organization contains many address lists
KB 3061079 RPC Client Access service crashes and Event 4999 is logged in Exchange Server 2013
KB 3134918 An IRM-protected message sent to an external contact isn’t returned in a search or discovery results when journaling is implemented in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
KB 3190887 Upgrading Exchange Server causes the server to go offline unexpectedly

These Cumulative Updates for Exchange Server 2016 and 2013 include the security update released last week, MS16-108. The Cumulative Updates for Exchange Server 2016 and 2013 also include DST changes.

Notes:

Exchange 2016 CU3 includes schema changes (version 15326, reference), and Exchange 2016 CU3 as well as Exchange 2013 CU14 may introduce RBAC changes in your environment. Where applicable, make sure you run /PrepareSchema to update the schema or /PrepareAD to apply RBAC changes, before deploying or updating Exchange servers. To verify this step 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. Do note that upgrading, before installing the Exchange binaries, setup will put the server in server-wide offline-mode.
Using Windows Management Framework (WMF)/PowerShell version 5 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 current.
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 of upgrading 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 TechNet forum for any issues.

Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 3

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Michel de Rooij

The long awaited Cumulative Update 3 for Exchange Server 2013 was released today by the Exchange Team (KB2892464). This update raises Exchange 2013 version number to 15.0.775.38.

This CU contains the following functional enhancements:

Usability improvements when adding members to new and existing groups in the Exchange Administration Console
Online RMS available for use by non-cloud based Exchange deployments
Improved admin audit log experience
Windows 8.1 / Internet Explorer 11 no longer requires using OWA Light

The CU contains the following fixes:

MS13-061 Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2876063)
2865161 “Errors: Failed exporting item id: from source id” when you try to copy search results in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2871980 Child domains are not displayed for selection when you create a mailbox by using EAC in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2878160 “The Active Directory user wasn’t found” error when you create or update an In-Place eDiscovery search in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2882608 Exchange Server 2013 does not share the inproxy.dll file
2886115 Retention policies are not applied to Exchange Server 2013 mailboxes when user accounts are on different domains
2888274 WebClientReadFormQueryString string and WebClientEditFormQueryString string return incorrect URLs in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2888315 Event 2112 or 2180 is logged when you try to back up a database in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2888612 Retention policy does not work after you run a cmdlet in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2889786 Sign-in format for Outlook Web App on mobile devices is not adjusted according to the Set-OwaVirtualDerictory cmdlet in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2890650 Items in the Drafts folder are not stamped with the retention policy tag in an Exchange Server 2010 or 2013 environment
2895487 “Copy Search Results” option does not work in an Exchange server 2013 environment
2895500 DBCS characters appear garbled when you run some PowerShell scripts in EMS in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2895678 “Nombre de usuario\dominio” is displayed unexpectedly on the Spanish version of the OWA and EAC logon pages in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2902929 You cannot forward an external meeting request in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2902929 You cannot forward an external meeting request in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2902933 “Generate incident report” does not display the “Bcc” field in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2902934 Korean language localization issue in Exchange 2013 OWA user interface
2902936 You cannot change SMTP addresses for distribution groups by using EAC in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2902938 You cannot preview Office documents in shared folders by using Outlook Web App in an Exchange Server 2013 environment
2902939 EMS connection error when you separately install an Exchange Server 2013 Mailbox server and a Client Access server
2883203 Exchange Server 2013 restarts frequently after Cumulative Update 2 is installed
2890814 No redirection to the Outlook Web App URL for Exchange Online users in an Exchange hybrid deployment

This Cumulative Update includes schema and AD changes, so make sure you run PrepareSchema / PrepareAD. After updating, the schema version will be 15283.

Note that Cumulative Updates can be installed directly, i.e. no need to install RTM prior to 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 3 here; CU3 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.