Last Friday I passed the 70-663 Designing and Deploying Messaging Solutions with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Exam with 981 points.
So I am very pleased with it. Last month’s I’m working a lot with Exchange 2010. I love the product. Last Friday evening I updated a customer DAG cluster to SP1. Next moth starting moving the 2000 mailboxes from Exchange 2007 tot Exchange 2010.
Some day’s ago Microsoft Releases Exchange 2010 SP1. When you install Exchange 2010 SP1 you need to install some hotfixes. The Exchange Team have made a nice over view witch hotfixes you need for the OS.
| Hotfix | Download | Windows Server 2008 | Windows Server 2008 R2 | Windows 7 & Windows Vista |
| 979744 A .NET Framework 2.0-based Multi-AppDomain application stops responding when you run the application |
MSDN or Microsoft Connect |
Windows6.0-KB979744-x64.msu (CBS: Vista/Win2K8) | Windows6.1-KB979744-x64.msu (CBS: Win7/Win2K8 R2) | N. A. |
| 983440 An ASP.NET 2.0 hotfix rollup package is available for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2 |
Request from CSS | Yes | Yes | N.A. |
| 977624 AD RMS clients do not authenticate federated identity providers in Windows Server 2008 or in Windows Vista. Without this update, Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) features may stop working |
Request from CSS using the “View and request hotfix downloads” link in the KBA | US-English | Select the download for Windows Vista for the x64 platform. | N.A. | N.A. |
| 979917 Two issues occur when you deploy an ASP.NET 2.0-based application on a server that is running IIS 7.0 or IIS 7.5 in Integrated mode |
Request from CSS using the Hotfix Request Web Submission Form or by phone (no charge) | Yes | N. A. | N. A. |
| 973136, FIX: ArgumentNullException exception error message when a .NET Framework 2.0 SP2-based application tries to process a response with zero-length content to an asynchronous ASP.NET Web service request: “Value cannot be null”. |
Microsoft Connect | Windows6.0-KB973136-x64.msu | N.A. | N. A. |
| 977592 RPC over HTTP clients cannot connect to the Windows Server 2008 RPC over HTTP servers that have RPC load balancing enabled. |
Request from CSS | Select the download for Windows Vista (x64) | N.A. | N. A. |
| 979099 An update is available to remove the application manifest expiry feature from AD RMS clients. |
Download Center | N. A. | Windows6.1-KB979099-x64.msu | N. A. |
| 982867
WCF services that are hosted by computers together with a NLB fail in .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 |
MSDN | N. A. | Windows6.1-KB982867-v2-x64.msu (Win7) | X86: Windows6.1-KB982867-v2-x86.msu (Win7) x64: Windows6.1-KB982867-v2-x64.msu (Win7) |
| 977020 FIX: An application that is based on the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 and that invokes a Web service call asynchronously throws an exception on a computer that is running Windows 7. |
Microsoft Connect | N. A. | N. A. | x64: Windows6.1-KB977020-v2-x64.msu
X86: Windows6.1-KB977020-v2-x86.msu |
Some of the hotfixes would have been rolled up in a Windows update or service pack. Given that the Exchange team released SP1 earlier than what was planned and announced earlier, it did not align with some of the work with the Windows platform. As a result, some hotfixes are available from MSDN/Connect, and some require that you request them online using the links in the corresponding KBs. All these updates may become available on the Download Center, and also through Windows Update.
These hotfixes have been tested extensively as part of Exchange 2010 SP1 deployments within Microsoft and by our TAP customers. They are fully supported by Microsoft.
The TechNet article Exchange 2010 Prerequisites is updated with the hotfixes and install the prerequisites required for your server version (the hotfixes are linked to in the above table).
You can use the Install the Windows Server 2008 SP2 operating system prerequisites on a Windows 2008 R2 server. Only you have to run the following powershell command: Import-Module ServerManager
Installed Exchange 2010 SP1 on a Windows 2008 R2 Server with problems. I feels that the MMC is faster. Tomorrow upgrading a DAG/NLB cluster to Exchange 2010 SP1.
Microsoft has released Exchange SP1 
.
So What’s New in Exchange SP1:
New Deployment Functionality
During an Exchange 2010 SP1 installation, you can now select a new option to install the required Windows roles and features for each selected Exchange 2010 SP1 server role. For more information, see New Deployment Functionality in Exchange 2010 SP1.
Exchange ActiveSync
In Exchange 2010 SP1, you can manage Exchange ActiveSync devices using the Exchange Control Panel (ECP). Administrators can perform the following tasks:
For every user, the administrator can perform the following tasks from the user’s property pages:
SMS Sync
SMS Sync is a new feature in Exchange ActiveSync that works with Windows Mobile 6.1 with the Outlook Mobile Update and with Windows Mobile 6.5. SMS Sync is the ability to synchronize messages between a mobile phone or device and an Exchange 2010 Inbox. When synchronizing a Windows Mobile phone with an Exchange 2010 mailbox, users can choose to synchronize their text messages in addition to their Inbox, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and Notes. When synchronizing text messages, users will be able to send and receive text messages from their Inbox. This feature is dependent on the user’s mobile phones or devices supporting this feature
Reset Virtual Directory
In Exchange 2010 SP1, you can use the new Reset Client Access Virtual Directory wizard to reset one or more Client Access server virtual directories. The new wizard makes it easier to reset a Client Access server virtual directory. One reason that you might want to reset a Client Access server virtual directory is to resolve an issue related to a damaged file on a virtual directory. In addition to resetting virtual directories, the wizard creates a log file that includes the settings for each virtual directory that you choose to reset. For more information, see Reset Client Access Virtual Directories.
Exchange Store and Mailbox Database Functionality
The following is a list of new store and mailbox database functionality in Exchange 2010 SP1:
Mailbox and Recipients Functionality
The following is a list of new mailbox and recipient functionality included in Exchange 2010 SP1:
High Availability and Site Resilience Functionality
The following is a list of new high availability and site resilience functionality included in Exchange 2010 SP1:
Messaging Policy and Compliance Functionality
The following is a list of new messaging policy and compliance functionality included in Exchange 2010 SP1:
Technet Exchange 2010 SP1 info
Release Notes for Exchange Server 2010 SP1
What’s New in Exchange 2010 SP1
Downloads:
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Language Pack Bundle
Exchange Server 2010 SP1 UM Language Packs
Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Help
MailTips is a one of the new features of Exchange Server 2010. When a user sends a message, MailTips gives the some status information of the recipient and that helps to reduces unnecessary and undeliverable e-mails, as well as reduce some embarrassing things done by senders. MailTips are hosted as an Exchange Web Services on the Client Access Server.
MailTips are work with the Scenarios given below.
Configuring MailTips
Gather Organization wide configuration MailTips settings.
Get-OrganizationConfig | fl *mailtips*
Enable or Disable MailTips.
You must use “Set-OrganizationConfig” CmdLet to enable or disable mailTips. Mailtips are enabled by default.
Set-OrganizationConfig -MailTipsAllTipsEnabled $true
Configure the large audience size for MailTips.
You must use “Set-OrganizationConfig” Cmdlet to configure large audience size. With a fresh Exchange Server 2010 installation it would be 25 by default. If we decrease it to 15, then Mailtip would be display to sender if sender add more than 15 recipients. See figure 3.
Set-OrganizationConfig -MailTipsLargeAudienceThreshold 15
Large Audience Threshold MailTip will display after adding more than 15 recipients . See figure 4.
Enable or disable the External Recipients MailTips
We have some embarrassing experiences of sending some internal information to external parties. However company doesn’t want to restrict sending emails to outside domains. With MailTips at least we can give a alert to the sender before click send button. See figure 5.
Set-OrganizationConfig –MailTipsExternalRecipientsTipsEnabled $True
External Recipients MailTips displays when trying to send to an external domains. See figure 6.
Enable or disable MailTips that rely on mailbox data
Mailbox based MailTips are rely on the mailbox data. There are two Mailbox based Mailtips, The Recipient Out of Office and Mailbox Full MailTips, rely on the mailbox data.
Set-OrganizationConfig -MailTipsMailboxSourcedTipsEnabled $true
The Recipient Out of Office. You can get to know if whether the recipient is out of the office before you send the email. See figure 8.
Mailbox Full. If recipient’s Mailbox is full, you can know that before sending the email. See figure 9.
Configure Group Metrics
MailTIps relies on Group Metrics data to provide information on the the size of distribution groups and dynamic distribution groups. Exchange server normally query a lot of LDAP requests to the Active Directory to get group membership information for each message.This could affect the the performance experienced by the users. To eliminate these issues Exchange server uses the Group Metric data. Group Metric data can be scheduled to run during office hours. You should use Set-MailboxServer CmdLet to configure Group metric Data. See figure 10.
Set-MailboxServer DAGEK10-01 GroupMetricsGenerationEnabled $true
Used this article as Source for my article.
When install a Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010 Server on vSphere there are some settings that will increase de performance.
– Use de VMXNET 3 Adapter
– Use per Disk a SCSI Controller
– Store the Log & Database files on physical Lun on a SAN
– Use the LSI LOGIC SAS controller for Windows 2008 & 2008 R2
– Use the VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) Controller for Every physical Raw Device Mapping (RDM).
Another TIP. Exchange 2007 & Exchange 2010 needs a lots of Memory. When choosing the size for the OS partition, swap file need also al lot of space.
The Error that I get when I did a local move request to move a user to a another mailbox database.
The new user cannot send email & could not login to Outlook Web Access.
Error:
Failed to communicate with the mailbox database.
MapiExceptionLogonFailed: Unable to make connection to the server. (hr=0x80040111, ec=1010)
Diagnostic context:
Lid: 37053 Win32Error: 0x6A6
Lid: 23065 EcDoConnectEx called [length=48]
Lid: 17913 EcDoConnectEx returned [ec=0x0][length=48][latency=31]
Lid: 18969 EcDoRpcExt2 called [length=313]
Lid: 27161 EcDoRpcExt2 returned [ec=0x3F2][length=342][latency=46]
Lid: 41073 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 48243
Lid: 50033 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 1494 —- Remote Context Beg —-
Lid: 1238 Remote Context Overflow
Lid: 49213 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 48573
Lid: 64957 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 56253
Lid: 65085 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 40381
Lid: 56765 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 31229 Error: 0x0
Lid: 19149 Error: 0x0
Lid: 24509 Error: 0x0
Lid: 1219 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 3225 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 60049 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 49469
Lid: 65341 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 56125
Lid: 47933 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 32829
Lid: 49213 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 48573
Lid: 64957 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 31229 Error: 0x0
Lid: 19149 Error: 0x0
Lid: 24509 Error: 0x0
Lid: 1219 StoreEc: 0x8004010F
Lid: 24041
Lid: 13488 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 28780
Lid: 20076 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 57713 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 49009 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 1750 —- Remote Context End —-
Lid: 52465 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 60065
Lid: 33777 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 59805
Lid: 52209 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 19778
Lid: 27970 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Lid: 17730
Lid: 25922 StoreEc: 0x3F2
Exchange Management Shell command attempted:
‘wardvissers.local/wardvissers/wardtest2’ | New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase ‘MailStore II’
Elapsed Time: 00:00:01
Solution:
I backup the AD with Windows Backup for sure.
Then I suspend and dismounted every mailbox database.
I opened ADSIEDIT.MSC to check the value of HomeMDB and homeMTA:
Go to:
CN=Configuration->CN=Services->CN=Microsoft Exchange->CN=wardvissers->CN=Administrative Groups->CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)->CN=Servers->CN=DAGEK10-01->CN=Microsoft System Attendant
The value by my mailbox server looks a bid strange:
HomeMDB: CN=InformationStore,CN=DAGEK10-02,CN=Servers,CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT),CN=Administrative Groups,CN=wardvissers,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=wardvissers,DC=local
HomeMTA: CN=Microsoft MTA,CN=DAGEK10-01,CN=Servers,CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT),CN=Administrative Groups,CN=wardvissers,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=wardvissers,DC=local
Clear the Value bij HomeMDB & HomeMTA like the picture below. 
Important:
Clear the value by every mailbox server if you have a dag cluster
Restarted the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant Service on every mailbox server.
Mounted & Resuming the mailbox database. Now the users could login again in OWA 
.
Two weeks ago a build my first production Exchange 2010 cluster. The Exchange 2010 web services are causing a lot of issues to people, and my self not any more.
Well, let us first list the directories that are used in the Exchange web service:
EWS is used for OOF, Scheduling assistance and free+busy Lookup.
OAB provides offline address book download services for client.
Autodiscover is used to provide users with autodiscover service.
EAS provides ActiveSync services to Windows Mobile based devices.
OWA provides outlook web access for users.
ECP provides Exchange control panel feature for Exchange 2010 users only.
Issues that might be resolved using the troubleshooting steps here:
You cannot set the OOF using outlook client, you receive the server not available error.
You cannot view free/busy information for other users.
You cannot use scheduling assistance, also you might receive not free/busy information data retrieved.
You cannot download Offline Address book errors.
You cannot use autodiscover externally.
Certificate mismatch error in autodiscover, users prompted to trust certificate in outlook 2007/2010.
First let us start by settings the right virtual directory configuration required for Exchange 2010 to work correctly:
Configure External and Internal URLs for OWS, ref: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb310763.aspx
You have to configure the internal URL to be the server name. In case you have multiple cas/hub servers configured in a NLB then can use the nlb cluster name for the internal url.
External URL will be the URL used by users to access webmail e.g. https://webmail.wardvissers.nl/owa
Configure the autodiscover internal URL, ref: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201695.aspx
You will use the powershell cmdlet : Set-ClientAccessServer –Identity <CAS Server Name> -AutoDiscoverServiceInternalUri: <Internal URL>, this FQDN must match the URL included in the certificate. If you have NLB cluster then you put the internal name here like nlbek10.wardvissers.local
If you cannot use autodiscover.wardvissers.nl internally (you have a domain name of domain.local and you must use it), you will get a certificate miss match error, you will have to include the internal name in the SAN certificate if you purchase an external SAN certificate.
You cannot set autodiscover external URL since outlook will try to access https://autodiscover.wardvissers.nl/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml, this behavior is by design and cannot be changed.
Best Practice: Use SAN Certificates
Depending on how you configure the service names in your Exchange deployment, your Exchange server may require a certificate that can represent multiple domain names. Although a wildcard certificate, such as one for *.wardvissers.nl, can resolve this problem, many customers are uncomfortable with the security implications of maintaining a certificate that can be used for any sub-domain. A more secure alternative is to list each of the required domains as SANs in the certificate. By default, this approach is used when certificate requests are generated by Exchange.
Best Practice: Use the Exchange Certificate Wizard to Request Certificates
There are many services in Exchange that use certificates. A common error when requesting certificates is to make the request without including the correct set of service names. The certificate request wizard in the Exchange Management Console will help you include the correct list of names in the certificate request. The wizard lets you specify which services the certificate has to work with and, based on the services selected, includes the names that you must have in the certificate so that it can be used with those services. Run the certificate wizard when you’ve deployed your initial set of Exchange 2010 servers and determined which host names to use for the different services for your deployment.
Which Names you must include when you use a third party SAN certificate, ref http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351044.aspx:
External:
webmail.wardvissers.nl
autodiscover.wardvissers.nl
legacy.wardvissers.nl (If you migrating from 2003 to 2010)
Internal:
autodiscover.wardvissers.local
legacy.wardvissers.local
nlbek10.wardvissers.local(Internal NLB CAS/HUB Cluster)
casarray.wardvissers.local(I use this address for the casarray. It has the same ip as the nlbek10)
When you have a new installation of Exchange 2010 Server and you want to move all mailboxes, including all hidden Mailboxen (Arbitration) from the default database store to a database that you created. Here is how i did it.
When you try to delete the default database you will get this message:
The Database is not empty, even though it does look empty if you do a get-mailbox for the specific database:
get-mailbox -Database “Mailbox Database 1905367170”
There is a switch that you should use if you want to see all mailboxes, even the “hidden” Arbitration mailboxes:
get-mailbox -Database “Mailbox Database 1905367170” –Arbitration
This gives a different result.
As you can se the database is n’t as empty as we first thought. To move these mailboxes to the new database you can easily pipe the result of the get-mailbox command and create new move requests for all Arbitration mailboxes:
get-mailbox -Database “Mailbox Database 1905367170” -Arbitration | New-MoveRequest –TargetDatabase “MailboxDatabase1”
Source: msundis.wordpress.com
One of the new features of Exchange 2010 is DAG Database Availability Group. The Customer were i work now wants Exchange 2010 in a dag cluster because they have a datacenter for failback.
Because i going to implement Exchange 2010 at the customer i created a test setup.
Configuration:
Server 1 – HYPERVDC-01
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Standard x64
IP: 192.168.150.90
Roles: Active Directory / Hyper-V
Server 2 – CHEK10-01
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Standard x64
IP: 192.168.150.91
Roles: Exchange 2010 HT / CAS
Server 3 – CHEK10-02
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Standard x64
IP: 192.168.150.92
Roles: Exchange 2010 HT / CAS
Server 4 – DAGEK10-01
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise x64
IP: 192.168.150.93
Roles: Exchange 2010 MBX
Server 5 – DAGEK10-02
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise x64
IP: 192.168.150.94
Roles: Exchange 2010 MBX
Creating the DAG
Groupname: DAG01
Witness Server: CHKEK10-01 (Microsoft says use one of the CAS or Hub Servers. You cannot use a DAG Server! If you want use a non Exchange 2010 server you must at the Exchange Trusted Subsystem group at the local administrators group.
Witness Directory: C:\DAG01 
Add a MB server to a DAG
Setting a IP address on a Database Availability Group
With the following command you can set the DAG Database Availability Group an IP address. Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG01 -DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIpAddresses 192.168.150.96
The Exchange team has released Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 RTM (KB 982639)
KB 982639 lists all the fixes included in this rollup. Here are some of the product improvements and critical bug fixes we’d like to call out starting with 5 improvements we made to prevent crashes in very unique scenarios.
We corrected a few replication issues some of you encountered.
Important:
Microsoft Update does not detect Update rollups on Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox servers that are part of a database availability group (DAG).
Download Rollup 4 for Exchange 2010 HERE