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Exchange 2010 SP2 RTM

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

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.

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-premise 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.

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.

The releases notes are not available at time of writing; we’ll update this post when they become available.

Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1

The Exchange CXP team released Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1 to the Download Center.

This update contains a number of customer-reported and internally found issues since the release of SP1. See ‘KB 2608646: Description of Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1’ for more details.

This update contains a number of customer reported and internally found issues since the release of RU5.

The most Important Fixes:

2627769 Some time zones in OWA are not synchronized with Windows in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
2528854 The Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication service crashes on a computer that has Exchange Server 2010 SP1 installed
2544246 You receive a NRN of a meeting request 120 days later after the recipient accepted the request in an Exchange Server 2010 SP1 environment
2616127 "0x80041606" error code when you use Outlook in online mode to search for a keyword against a mailbox in an Exchange Server 2010 environment.
2549183 "There are no objects to select" message when you try to use the EMC to specify a server to connect to in an Exchange Server 2010 SP1 environment

Other Fixes:

2431609 An update is available that updates the message of a retention policy in OWA for Exchange Server 2010
2449266 EWS drops the TCP connection to the EWS client application without any error message in a Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 environment
2480474 A Users do not receive quota warning messages after applying SP1 for Exchange 2010
2514820 An incoming fax message is not delivered to the recipient in an Exchange Server 2010 SP1 environment
2521927 Disabling the Exchange ActiveSync Integration feature for OWA does not take effect in OWA Premium clients in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
2535289 The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service crashes occasionally when you run an antivirus application on an Exchange Server 2010 Mailbox server
2536313 Slow message delivery and mailbox access for journaling mailboxes on an Exchange Server 2010 server
2548246 The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service crashes occasionally when a folder view is corrupted on an Exchange Server 2010 mailbox server
2549289 A RBAC role assignee can unexpectedly run the Add-MailboxPermission command or the Remove-MailboxPermission command on an Exchange Server 2010 server that is outside the role assignment scope
2555851 A mailbox does not appear in certain address lists after you run commands on the mailbox in an Exchange Server 2010 SP1 environment
2559814 A user cannot add or remove delegates from a mailbox by using Outlook in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
2561514 Exchange Server 2003 user cannot view the free/busy information of a user in a different federated organization
2563860 You cannot create a new mailbox database if you already have 1000 mailbox databases in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
2567409 Certain free/busy messages are not replicated from an Exchange Server 2010 server to an Exchange Server 2003 server
2571791 Retention policies are applied to Contact items unexpectedly in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
2572052 Certain properties of a recurring meeting request from external email accounts are missing in an Exchange Server 2010 SP1 environment
2575005 You cannot start the EMC or the EMS in an Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 environment
2578631 Certain users cannot send email messages to a mail-enabled public folder in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
2579172 Items that are deleted or moved still appear in the original folder when you use Office Outlook in online mode to access an Exchange Server 2010 mailbox
2579671 No results returned when you use the ExpandGroup method in EWS to retrieve a list of members of a Dynamic Distribution Group in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
2582095 The SmtpMaxMessagesPerConnection property of a send connector is not replicated to the subscribed Edge Transport server in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
2600835 The RPC Client Access service crashes when you delete an attachment of an item by using Outlook in online mode in an Exchange Server 2010 SP1 environment
2601701 The memory usage of the MSExchangeRepl.exe process keeps increasing when you perform a VSS backup on Exchange Server 2010 databases
2617126 The Store.exe process crashes when you send an email message that has attachments in an Exchange Server 2010 SP1 environment

General Notes

An issue with management of RBAC roles when RU6 is partially deployed in the organization: Due to changes shipped in this update, certain warnings can be displayed when managing RBAC roles, if RU6 is not yet deployed to all servers in the organization. Please see the following KB article for more information:

Managing RBAC roles might display warnings or errors if Exchange 2010 SP1 RU6 is partially deployed in the organization
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2638351

Note for Forefront users: For those of you running Forefront Protection for Exchange, before installing the update, stop all Forefront services.

Exchange Management Console & IE9 issue fixed

The Exchange team made a fix available a fix to solve the issues when using the Management Console of Exchange 2007 or 2010 in conjunction with Internet Explorer 9.

As you probably know, when using Internet Explorer 9 you can’t close the Exchange Management Console properly as it gives you the error “You must close all dialog boxes before you can close Exchange Management Console” having no dialogs open.

To solve this issue, you had to use the Task Manager to force closing the EMC process using

To properly install the hotfix:

Request hotfix ID 2624899 from support here. For a direct download link click here.
Download and install MS11-081 (2586448). You can retrieve this update here.
Install the hotfix ID 2624899.

Microsoft states it expects to incorporate this fix in a future update of Internet Explorer 9.

While releasing a fix for the IE9 issue is great after all these month, I can’t help but wonder why the fix has not been made public.

Migrate from Exchange Public Folders to Microsoft Office 365

Exchange public folders are widely used in on-premises Exchange environments. However, Microsoft® Exchange Online does not support customer usage scenarios of public folders. If you or your customers are using Exchange public folders, there are special considerations for migrating to Microsoft Office 365. This document outlines these considerations, discusses the most common public folder scenarios and how they are represented in Office 365 services. It also provides the information you need to decide whether Office 365 is a good match for you based on your current public folder usage.

Download: Migrate from Public Folders to Office 365.docx

Really Nice Overview What’s New in Exchange Server 2010

The Exchange Team created a really nice overview about What’s New in Exchange Server 2010.

Just Click on the Picture go to the Exchange Team site about What’s New in Exchange Server 2010.

Exchange 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 5

Today the Exchange Team released Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3 (KB2602324). This update raises Exchange 2007 version number to 8.3.213.1.

Here’s the list of changes included in this rollup:

981820 New X-headers of a message item do not appear when the message item is retrieved by IMAP4 or by POP3 in an Exchange Server 2007 SP2 environment

2292150 A deleted hyperlink remains in the HTML source of an email message if you create the email message by using OWA in an Exchange Server 2007 environment

2411423 The Msftefd.exe process constantly consumes up to 100 percent of CPU resources when your mailbox language is set to German on an Exchange Server 2007 server

2450078 The sent time in an email message body is incorrect when you reply or forward the email message by using an EWS application in an Exchange Server 2007 environment

2451415 “There was a problem logging onto your mail server” error message when you use a POP3 client to access a mailbox in an Exchange Server 2007 SP3 environment

2536652 EdgeTransport.exe randomly stops responding on a Hub Transport server after you configure public folder replication in Exchange Server 2007

2536695 “Some items cannot be deleted” error message when you try to delete or modify an email message in a public folder in an Exchange Server 2007 environment

2536697 DBCS characters in a rule name are converted to question marks after you move a mailbox from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2007

2537783 The EdgeTransport.exe process crashes occasionally after you install Update Rollup 2 for Exchange Server 2007 SP3

2538958 Extended Protection Warning Displayed in Exchange Management Console and Exchange Management Shell After Installing RU2 for Exchange 2007 SP3

2554575 Items accumulate in the MRM submission folder when managed folder assistant journal items in an Exchange Server 2007 environment

2556751 The EdgeTransport.exe process crashes when processing certain email messages on an Exchange Server 2007 Hub Transport server

2557304 The Store.exe process may consume excessive CPU resources and memory resources intermittently when a user opens a calendar item by using OWA in an Exchange Server 2007 SP3 environment

When running ForeFront Protection for Exchange, make sure you disable ForeFront before installing the rollup and re-enable it afterwards, otherwise the Information Store and Transport services may not start. You can disable ForeFront using fscutility /disable and enable it using the fscutility /enable command.

Note that update rollups are cumulative, i.e. they contain fixes released in earlier update rollups for the same product level (RTM, SPx). This means you don’t need to install previous update rollups during a fresh installation but can start with the latest rollup available right away.

You can download Exchange 2007 SP3 Rollup 5 here.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Performance on vSphere 5

A white paper has been published that examines how Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 performs on vSphere 5 in terms of scaling up (adding more virtual CPUs) and scaling out (adding more VMs). Having the choice to scale up or out while maintaining a positive user experience gives IT more flexibility to right-size system deployments and maximize total cost of ownership with respect to licensing and hardware purchases.

Testing shows the effectiveness of vSphere 5 to add compute power by scaling up Exchange Server VMs, in increments, from 2 to 12 virtual CPUs. This allowed the total number of very heavy Exchange users to increase from 2,000 to 12,000 while sendmail latency remained well within the range of acceptable user responsiveness. Processor utilization remained low, at about 15% of the total host processing capacity for 12,000 very heavy Exchange users.

Testing also shows that scaling out to eight Exchange Server VMs supports a workload of up to 16,000 very heavy users, with the load consuming only 32% of the ESXi host processing capacity.

Additional tests were undertaken to show the performance improvements of vMotion and Storage vMotion in vSphere 5. vMotion migration time for a 4-vCPU Exchange mailbox server VM showed a 34% reduction in vSphere 5 over vSphere 4.1. Storage vMotion migration time for a 350GB database VMDK showed an 11% reduction in vSphere 5 over vSphere 4.1.

For the full paper, see Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Performance on vSphere 5.

HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

At the moment I am busy to design a Exchange 2010 environment.
The customer where I going to implement Exchange 2010 use only HP equipment.

A great tool is the HP sizer for Exchange 2010.

About the HP Sizer tool:
Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 is a complex application that requires intensive knowledge of deployment strategies, interdependencies, server and storage performance related issues.HP has developed the HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to assist customers with proper server and storage sizing for their Exchange Server 2010 deployments. The algorithms developed and implemented in this tool are based upon extensive testing of Exchange Server 2010 server roles and technologies, HP’s deep experience with Microsoft Exchange, and intricate knowledge of server CPU, memory, and I/O subsystems. This tool is free to download and use, and is designed to simplify configuration across a broad range of deployments. This newest Microsoft Exchange Server Sizer provides support for multiple site deployments, varied client types and access methods, all Exchange Server 2010 server roles, Database Availability Group (DAG) high availability options, choice of tower, rack mounted, or HP BladeSystem server platforms, and either direct attached or SAN-based storage solutions. Based on your input, the tool provides a comprehensive bill of materials along with a deployment overview of the Exchange Server 2010 server roles and storage configurations. Once this Sizer is installed, updates can be downloaded automatically to the underlying software engines that are necessary to provide support for HP server and storage product information details.

Please see the ‘What’s new” link on the home page of the Sizer (when installed on your system) for the most recent information.

Download: HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

The Microsoft TechNet Gallery

The Microsoft Technet Gallery is the place where not only just scripts but many other technical resources for Microsoft products including App-V, Exchange, and System Center.

If you like scripts, management packs, utilities, and extensions are important for your success, you’ll definitely want to bookmark this one.