Category: Microsoft

Exchange Shared Cache Service restarts frequently in Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 5

After you install Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 5, your monitoring solution indicates that the Microsoft Exchange Shared Cache Service restarts frequently.

This problem occurs because the managed availability probes that monitor this service have a time-out value that is too sensitive for standard operation. This causes the managed availability process to restart the service.

As of Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 5, this notice and the frequent restarts of the managed availability process are considered not to be a concern.
Therefore, you can safely ignore the problem.

Microsoft has published a Windows PowerShell script that you can use to disable the probes to prevent the Exchange Shared Cache service from restarting.

Download the script.

Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 5

The Exchange team is announcing today the availability of our most recent quarterly servicing update to Exchange Server 2013. Cumulative Update 5 for Exchange Server 2013 and updated UM Language Packs are now available on the Microsoft Download Center.

Cumulative Update 5 represents the continuation of our Exchange Server 2013 servicing and builds upon Exchange Server 2013 Service Pack 1. The release includes fixes for customer reported issues, minor product enhancements and previously released security bulletins. A complete list of customer reported issues resolved in Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 5 can be found in Knowledge Base Article KB2936880.

Attention for a couple of items in particular about the Cumulative Update 5 release:

  • Based upon customer feedback, Exchange Team introduced improvements to OAB management for distributed environments. You can read more about this in a post by Ross Smith IV on the Exchange Team blog. Customers who have deployed Multiple OAB Generation Mailboxes are advised to read this post to help avoid unnecessary OAB downloads.
  • Cumulative Update 5 includes a Managed Availability probe configuration that is frequently restarting the Microsoft Exchange Shared Cache Service in some environments. The service is being added to provide future performance improvements and is not used in Cumulative Update 5. More information is available in KB2971467.

Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3

The Exchange team is announcing today the availability of Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3

Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 SP3 resolves the issues that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles:

  • 2960652 Organizer name and meeting status field can be changed by EAS clients in an Exchange Server 2010 environment

  • 2957762 “A folder with same name already exists” error when you rename an Outlook folder in an Exchange Server 2010 environment

  • 2952799 Event ID 2084 occurs and Exchange server loses connection to the domain controllers in an Exchange Server 2010 environment

  • 2934091 Event ID 1000 and 7031 when users cannot connect to mailboxes in an Exchange Server 2010 environment

  • 2932402 Cannot move a mailbox after you install Exchange Server 2010 SP3 RU3 (KB2891587)

  • 2931842 EWS cannot identify the attachment in an Exchange Server 2010 environment

  • 2928703 Retention policy is applied unexpectedly to a folder when Outlook rule moves a copy in Exchange Server 2010

  • 2927265 Get-Message cmdlet does not respect the defined write scope in Exchange Server 2010

  • 2925273 Folder views are not updated when you arrange by categories in Outlook after you apply Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 Update Rollup 3 or Update Rollup 4

  • 2924592 Exchange RPC Client Access service freezes when you open an attached file in Outlook Online mode in Exchange Server 2010

  • 2923865 Cannot connect to Exchange Server 2010 when the RPC Client Access service crashes

Exchange Powershell Scripts that Every Exchange Admin need to have

The Following Powershell scripts that every Exchange Admin must have Glimlach

Test-ExchangeServerHealth
Get-DagHealth
PelNet.ps1
ADinfo.ps1
Get-VirDirInfo.ps1
CertificateReport.ps1
Get-EASdevicereport.ps1
Get-MailboxReport.ps1
Get-DailyBackupAlerts.ps1
Install-Exchange2013.ps1

Exchange 2013 RMS Shared Identity user FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042 not found

Today I was re-installing Exchange 2013 into an Active Directory forest The schema was already extended with the Exchange 2013 schema extensions.

When installing Exchange 2013, installation of the Mailbox Transport role failed with the following error:

Error:
The following error was generated when “$error.Clear();
if ( ($server -eq $null) -and ($RoleIsDatacenter -ne $true) )
{
Update-RmsSharedIdentity -ServerName $RoleNetBIOSName
}
” was run: “RMS Shared Identity user FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042 not found.”.

FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042 is a Exchange 2013 built in arbitration user account which must exist in every Exchange 2013 environment. The GUID never changes, it is always “4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042”.

The setup failed because someone deleted this user account from Active Directory!

How can we get it back?

You have two ways to get this mailbox back. If you have a computer on your network with the Exchange 2010 management tools installed, you can create the user account using powershell with the following command:

New-Mailbox -Arbitration -Name FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042 -UserPrincipalName FederatedEmail.4c1f4d8b-8179-4148-93bf-00a95fa1e042@default_accepted_domain

For more information on this see Microsoft KB978776

What happens if you do not have exchange management shell installed on any computers? Well there is another way to get this account back. This account is originally created when you prepare the domain/schema. If you run setup.com /PrepareAD on your domain it will re-create this account for you. See below:

Exchange 2013 Platform Options

For BDMs and architects, this model describes the available platform options for Exchange 2013. Customers can choose from Exchange Online with Office 365, Hybrid Exchange, Exchange Server on-premises and Hosted Exchange. The poster includes details of each architectural option, including the most ideal scenarios for each, the license requirements and IT Pro responsibilities.

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MDT Enable TPM tools from Dell, HP, and Lenovo

If you want to automate enabling the TPM chip as part of the deployment process, you need to download the vendor tools and add them to your task sequences, either directly or in a script wrapper.

Add tools from Dell

The Dell tools are available via the Dell Client Configuration Toolkit (CCTK). The executable file from Dell is named cctk.exe. Here is a sample command to enable TPM and set a BIOS password using the cctk.exe tool:

cctk.exe --tpm=on --valsetuppwd=Password1234

Add tools from HP

The HP tools are part of HP System Software Manager. The executable file from HP is named BiosConfigUtility.exe. This utility uses a configuration file for the BIOS settings. Here is a sample command to enable TPM and set a BIOS password using the BiosConfigUtility.exe tool:

BIOSConfigUtility.EXE /SetConfig:TPMEnable.REPSET /NewAdminPassword:Password1234

And the sample content of the TPMEnable.REPSET file:

English
Activate Embedded Security On Next Boot
*Enable
Embedded Security Activation Policy
*No prompts
F1 to Boot
Allow user to reject
Embedded Security Device Availability
*Available

Add tools from Lenovo

The Lenovo tools are a set of VBScripts available as part of the “Lenovo BIOS Setup using Windows Management Instrumentation Deployment Guide.” Lenovo also provides a separate download of the scripts. Here is a sample command to enable TPM using the Lenovo tools:

cscript.exe SetConfig.vbs SecurityChip Active

Important Hotfixes when running Exchange 2013 on Server 2008 R2 and Server 2012

Additional pre-reqs needed above and beyond Exchange requirements
.NET Framework 4.5.1 deployed on all Exchange servers with CAS role
If .NET Framework 4.5.1 cannot be installed, a hotfix for .NET Framework 4.5 is required

KB2745583 – Windows Server 2012 Download
KB2745582 – Windows Server 2008 R2 Download

Decreases CPU spent in .NET garbage collector
Benefits Mailbox & multi-role
Enable by installing hotfix and setting regkey:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\.NETFramework\DisableRetStructPinning (REG_DWORD) = 1

A hotfix is now available for Windows Server 2012

Adds two control codes to determine which node owns the GUM lock and which node(s) is/are stuck

KB2779069

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