ForeFront TMG SP2 Rollup 1

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Michel de Rooij

A short blog on the ForeFront team releasing Rollup 1 for Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 Service Pack 2.

This Rollup fixes a “Bad Request” issue when accessing OWA through Forefront TMG. For a full list of changes, consult knowledgebase article kb2649961.

Note that along the lines of products like Exchange, cumulative updates for ForeFront TMG are now also called Rollup instead of Software Update or Update.

You can request ForeFront TMG SP2 RU1 directly from support here.

Exchange 2010 SP2

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Michel de Rooij

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2) has been released, raising the Exchange version number to 14.2.247.5.

For those still unaware, the 530Mb+ file (1,4 GB extracted) contains the full set of binaries; you can use it to upgrade existing RTM or SP1 installations or deploy new Exchange 2010 SP2 installations.

Besides the usual set of hotfixes, SP2 introduces the following features:

Address Book Policies
Address Book Policies, also known as GAL segmentation, ABPs are meant to segmentize the address book, giving users a certain view of the address book like Address List Segregation did for Exchange 2003/2007. An Address Book Policy is a combination of global address list, offline address book, room list and address lists and can be assigned to mailbox users. For more information, see Understanding Address Book Policies.
OWA mini
This will be a lightweight browser like OMA in the past, meant for simple browsers. It offers simple features, like:
- Access to e-mail, calendar, contacts, tasks and the global address list.
- Access to e-mail subfolders.
- Compose, reply to, and forward e-mail messages.
- Create and edit calendar, contact, and task items.
- Handle meeting requests.
- Set the time zone and automatic reply messages.
For more information, see Understanding the Mini Version of Outlook Web App.
Hybrid Configuration Wizard
This wizard is to streamline the process of configuring a hybrid deployment between on-premises and Office 365 Exchange organizations, reducing the steps required from 49 to 6. For more information, see Understanding the Hybrid Configuration Wizard.
OWA Cross-Site Redirection
This allow clients to be silently redirected to the proper site if they log on to a CAS server located in a site different than the site where their mailbox is hosted and externalURL has been specified there, improving the single sign-on experience for those users. For more information, see Understanding Proxying and Redirection.
Mailbox Auto-Mapping
The automatic mapping of mailboxes where end users have Full Access permissions in Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010, can be turned off using the Automapping parameter in conjunction with the Add-MailboxPermission cmdlet. Unfortunately, there’s no option to set this via the GUI when using the Exchange Management Console to grant Full Access permissions. For more information, see Disable Outlook Auto-Mapping with Full Access Mailboxes.
Mailbox Replication Service
The Mailbox Replication Service (MSProxy), used for moving mailboxes cross-forest (including cross-premise), can now be easily configured using cmdlet parameters instead of through editing a web.config file on each Client Access server. The related cmdlets are New-WebServicesVirtualDirectory and Set-WebServicesVirtualDirectory, the parameters are MRSProxyEnabled and MaxMRSProxyConnections. For more information, see Start the MRSProxy Service on a Remote Client Access Server.
Multi-Valued Custom Attributes
SP2 introduces five new multi-value custom attributes, ExtensionCustomAttribute1 to ExtensionCustomAttribute5, for storing additional information for mail recipient objects.
Disabling or Removing Mailboxes on Litigation Hold
In SP2, you can’t disable or remove a mailbox that has been placed on litigation hold, unless you explicitly specify the new IgnoreLegalHold switch.

After preparing your forest for Exchange 2010 SP2, the schema version number will have changed. Check the Schema Versions page for information on the new ObjectVersion and RangeUpper values for Exchange 2010 SP2.

Note that SP2 introduces an additional requirement, which is the IIS 6 WMI Compatibility feature; you can add this feature using the GUI or by using the Powershell cmdlets Import-Module ServerManager followed by Add-WindowsFeature Web-WMI.

The proper method to upgrade mailbox servers that are a member of a Database Availability Group is described here.

You can download Exchange 2010 SP2 here.

The UM language packs for SP2 can be downloaded here. Note that you need to uninstall previous UM language packs before you can install the SP2 versions.

Update: The Exchange 2010 Help file for offline usage was also updated for SP2. Consult the Toolkit page to download the Exchange 2010 SP2 help (CHM) file.

TechEd North America 2011 sessions

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Michel de Rooij

With the end of TechEd NA 2011, so ends a week of interesting sessions. Here’s a quick overview of recorded Exchange-related sessions for your enjoyment:

Exchange 2010 SP2 features, MCM:Exchange 2010 exam-only

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Michel de Rooij

The first day of TechEd NA 2011 brought us much exciting and some less exciting news on the Exchange frontier.

First, the announcement of changes in Exchange 2010 Service Pack 2. Besides some 500 bug fixes, SP2 contains the following new features:

Address Book Policies (also known as GAL segmentation). ABPs are meant to segmentize the address book, giving users a certain view of the address book like Address List Segregation did for Exchange 2003/2007. ABPs were already announced back in January. I wonder how this affects for instance MailTips, as MailTips might report on organization-wide figures (sending mail to X users) while the end user may only see a small fragment of the population. Also, be advised that clients bypassing the CAS server for directory lookups, e.g. LDAP queries, don’t benefit from ABPs. Think Outlook for Mac but also multifunctionals, fax solutions etc.;
OWA mini. This will be a lightweight browser like OMA in the past, meant for simple browsers;
Hybrid Configuration. This wizard is to make the configuration of an on-premises Exchange and Office 365/Exchange Online more simple, reducing the steps required from 49 to 6;
OWA Cross-Site redirection. This will allow clients to be silently redirected to the proper site if they log on to a CAS server located in a site different than the site where their mailbox is hosted and externalURL has been specified there. This greatly increases the single sign-on experience.

Be advised that Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 will require schema changes to support the new features. SP2 is scheduled for the 2nd half of 2011.

Second, starting July 2011, Microsoft announced the exam-only Microsoft Certified Master: Exchange Server 2010 certification. This is for IT Professionals with 5 years of experience who think they can do the exams without the intensive 3 weeks training. Microsoft already did the same thing to the MCM: SQL Server 2008 program last year. The Exchange MCM exam is two-fold:

MCM: Exchange Server 2010, Knowledge Exam. This exam will be offered by Prometric at select testing centers worldwide;
MCM: Exchange Server 2010, Lab. This exam will be offered by Microsoft via direct remote proctoring at select Microsoft facilities worldwide.

I think while its great to have the option to take the exam in a facility in the region, but the absence of 3 week intensive training including meeting and being tutored by some people of the Exchange team and meeting Exchange fellows from all over the world seems a big miss. Also, how will the market respond to MCM’s who did the 3-week training versus MCM’s who didn’t; would the latter be considered inferior or less knowledgeable? If I had the choice, I’d go through the additional 3 weeks of training, extending your network and having a chance to ask your questions at the source.

Thanks to people like Dave Stork and Jeff Guillet for live reports through Twitter (#msteched).

You can watch a recording of Greg Taylor’s session on SP2 features here. The official related Exchange team blog is here. More information on the new Microsoft Certified Master: Exchange Server 2010 program here; the original announcement is here.

Besides all this, a recording of Scott Schnoll’s session on Exchange 2010 Tips & Tricks can be viewed here.

(Updated on May 17th with session links)