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Gatt's Ramblings

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Tag: 2010

Service pack 2 for Exchange 2010 has now been released

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/05/17/announcing-exchange-2010-service-pack-2.aspx

One feature that has been long overdue is the ability to segment the GAL so that only certain elements of the GAL are visible to specific groups of users (EG: Only let System Administrator’s see Administrative Accounts…..)

I’ll post a full update once I have applied it to my Lab environment…

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So I had recently installed Exchange 2010 SP1 on my Lab Domain and was struggling to get OWA working – all I got was a blank page and no Form-Based Authentication logon..

After a lot of suggestions about recreating OWA to redirects in IIS and a Web.Config file, i eventually stumbled across this post..

http://www.msexchangeblog.nl/2010/05/11/blank-page-in-owa-fix-for-exchange-2010/

Which basically says to run a powershell script buried within Exchange to update the CAS

 

Voila! All now up and running..

 

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So today I was trying to get Threat Management Gateway to act as a URL filter for the school. Boy is it an up hill struggle..
It just wont do as it’s told..

I created a test rule so that the Test Use was denied access to this site..

Nothing.. Checked the logs and its not reading the rule at all and going to the default Allow All  Users rule instead..

Spent most of the afternoon tinkering with it, to no effect..

Oh well, will try again tomorrow…

 

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Yesterday, I too the plunge and upgraded my Exchange 2010 server from Windows Server 2008 SP2 to Server 2008 R2 SP1

All went well, and everything appeared to be working, it only took a few hours which was good.

However, when I checked my databases, I found that the System Mailbox DB (The one called “Mailbox Database xxxxxxx”) was dismmounted, and was refusing to remount itself..

After about an hour of checking, and failing, I eventually had to do a hard repair with eseutil /p and remove all the log files.

Fortunately, despite the copious warnings about data loss, I eventually got the thing mounted and all is well again.

 

So, if ever you decide to do this can I make one helpful suggestion to you all..

DISMOUNT ALL YOUR DATABASES FIRST TO ENSURE THEY ARE CLEANLY SHUTDOWN!

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Microsoft have again proven that they don’t thoroughly test their updates before releasing them.

Last week as part of the bumper Patch Tuesday, they released KB2449742

So after I deployed this to my servers, imagine my surprise when I rebooted my Exchange 2010 server and discovered that all attempts at connecting to the Management Console resulted in the MMC crashing out, along with the event viewer and a few other MMC’s as well

I couldn’t even connect via a remote EMC either..

Typically, I had a lot of change to make with new mailboxes to create and old one needing removing..

Time to hit Google and fortunately came across this article which pointed me in the direction of the update in question

It suggested that I remove KB2449742 and reboot the server.

Thankfully this has indeed resolved the problem and I can now manage Exchange again!

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Really wishing I hadn’t started to look into this..

Works great inside, but now getting all sorts of problems with it externally…

TMG just doesn’t want to publish it properly.. and now changed that many settings that I think I’ve broken TMG!

All I want is a solution to this error

Windows cannot start the RemoteApp program.

The following RemoteApp program is not in the list of authorized programs:
Calc

For assistance, contact your system administrator

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If you go into Chorley today, you’re sure of a big surprise, because today’s the day the EduGeek’s have their conference..

Yes folks, today the (3rd?) Annual connference fall all things geeky in the world of IT in Education takes place in Chorley..

It may be a bit of a foggy start to the morning here, but I am sure the day will be bright and cheerful and, errr geeky!

For more info, pop along to Edugeek’s website

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Well I finally have this installed and up and running

it is really easy to configure it as well, It scans your current domain and imports all your PCs into the console, then starts top deploy the agents out to all the clients automatically and quietly so the users don’t even know whats happening!

The big issue came with WSUS, as i already had it installed on another server which SCE doesn’t like, so I had to remove the existing installation and the attached GPO’s that I had created, then configure SCE to act as my new WSUS server.. It creates its own GPO which is domain wide which unfortunately started rebooting all my servers as updates were being installed automatically – which I didn’t want I wanted them to download and install but not reboot until I said so
An easy way to solve that is to create a few new GPOs for Server’s and Clients which can then customise the SCE -managed policy, allowing Clients to reboot, but not servers…

Most of the Computers now show green for agents and updates now, though there are a number with various errors which I am now in the process of resolving.

This is the real power of SCE – the ability to see errors in one single place and be able to deal with the majority of them from the SCE console.. The agent that gets installed, directs all error reports to SCE, which can then forward events to Microsoft – a feature MS have already made available but required a GPO configuration as well as client configuration as well…

One other aspect i have not yet looked into is the ability to deploy software via SCE – this is next on my list and I shall report about that in due time.. I might even get some screenshots uploaded!!

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Ever since I upgraded us to Exchange 2010 I have had numerous complaints from staff who use Blackberry’s and how they are unable to get their emails from the server via IMAP4

I have no idea why as the iPhone works perfectly via IMAP and WiMo’s work fine too.. There are no issues with IMAP4 at all its all configured correctly as it was with Exchange 2007

Anyway i dismissed it for a while, unti a recent post on the EduGeek forums mentioned a free “Express” version of BES  suitable for up to 200 users

Perfect I though since we only have about a dozen or so users at most who use Blackberry’s

So I register and download the edition and start to install.

First iassue was that it complained that MAPI and CDO were not present, but it did allow me to continue the installation..

Now for the next, and as yet unresolved, hurdle – connecting to the SRP Address…

I am behind a Forefront TMG 2010 firewall, so I open the required port and try again.. same error (something about the name resolved but there being no data returned).. It will not let me get past this screen… I have googled the error numerous times, but with no solution other than what I have already done – which is to open up Port 3101 on the firewall.

So I am now left with a partly installed service that refuses to work as it is suppose to do…

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This is a nice feature for Exchange and Outlook 2010 – add a users mugshot directly to the GAL – so everyone can see it!

Its actually an easy process, but does involve a very minor AD Schema Edit

Details are here -> http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2010/03/10/454223.aspx 

One thing it deosn’t really mention is that the picture must be a set file size (10 Kilobytes or less) or EMS will complain and fail.. To get round this I used Adobe PhotoShop and edited the JPEG file by simply using the “Save for Web” option and then reducing the quality down until the file size was under the 10 Kilobyte limit.

As this only does it for one person at a time, the next step is to create a  Bulk upload PS script….

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