Exchange SP1 out!!!

Folks Exchange SP1 is available for Download, this really is a exciting news as SP1 packs the power punch in it(literally) for the Administrator.

There are tons of new features added and improvised compared with Exchange 2007 RTM.

The release notes is available here.

All the new features included in SP1 are published in Technet

Enjoy SP1!!!

Unavailable Offline Address Line (OAL) information

A user reported that he is getting erratic information in the Address List, below is the problem:

• User’s outlook runs in Cached Exchange mode
• User’s outlook in few instances is not showing the “Organization” information of any user in Global Address List.

This is basically to do with how the Global Address Lists works.

When a user is working in Cached Exchange Mode, the Outlook downloads the Offline address book for offline viewing of exchange user information. This offline address list does not have the following information of Exchange users:

• “Organization” tab information.
• “Member of” tab information.

Since this information is retrieved online from a Global Catalogue server, they will not be available for offline viewing.

Mailbox permissions and Active directory permissions

When a beginner starts working with the Exchange Mailbox permissions, they have two places to work with:

• The Mailbox permissions in “Exchange Advanced tab” and
• The “Security” tab which is AD permissions of that mailbox.

Usually a question arises as to why classify “Send As” and “Receive As” permissions in the Active directory (Security tab). This has to do with the way in which the mails flow and mail handling works in Exchange server 2003.

Exchange Mail handling diagram shows the advanced queuing engine and other Exchange 2003 mail handling components.

Let’s take this scenario of mail delivery to an exchange recipient User1 (say he is a CEO). Let’s assume that User2 (his P.A) has ‘Receive As’ and ‘Send As’ permission on the mailbox of User1.

When User1 receives a mail, who is in Exchange server EX1, the categorizer of EX1 looks up User1’s information in AD to determine which all accounts have Exchange specific permissions(Send As and Receive As permission in this case) and stamp mail for appropriate delivery, both User1 and User2 receive the mails sent to User1. Similar scenario applies for User2 sending on-behalf of User1.

All said and done but why classify these permissions as AD?

Because the categorizer looks up only AD information to route mails to the user’s mailbox store and not the user’s mailbox permissions.

Mailbox permissions are processed only when the mails are moved to the mailbox of the user.

Google Desktop search and Outlook Problems

We came across a interesting issue with users having performance issues accessing their Exchange server 2003 mailbox using Outlook 2k3 and 2k7.

And the problem as it turned out to be, users were using Google Desktop search, which searches and indexes the mailbox and Public folder, creating a lot of RPC requests resulting in poor Outlook performance.

There are a lot of interesting articles relating to various issues, they are Public folder issues , Cross desktop search , Exchange server performance issues!. It's worth reading these articles to make sure the performance issue is not relate Desktop search Engine!

In the KB article Exchange server performance issues! they have given a tool called EXMON.exe to identify which all users have installed the desktop search software, cool isn't it.

Calendar sharing and reminders in outlook

• We all know that user can share his/her outlook resources with other users through delegates tab, but the point to note is that the user can only share the default system calendar container and not the user created custom calendar.
• Outlook reminders will work as long as the mails received is in it's original container, in other words if a item received in Inbox folder is moved another folder, the remainder feature won't work, as the exchange server generates remainders for only items in their received folder.

Windows server 2008 - The next big thing!

As all of the Exchange Administrators would have been aware that Exchange 2007 is making ripples in the IT industry for the advanced features and simple design, Microsoft is ready with the release of the next big server lines

• Windows 2008
• SQL 2008 and
• Visual Studio 2008

Find the details in Windows server 2008 home page and the countdown clock indicating the launch date.

Windows 2008, incorporates some amazing features like:

• Option for Windows core installation.
• Installation of server roles as opposed to default installation in 2003.
• Windows fail-over clustering.
• Virtualization support.
• Stoppable Domain services.
• Federation service.
• Rights management service.
• New backup tool (not pre-installed).
• Read only Domain controller for unsecured office locations.
• 32 installable features and 16 installable roles in total.
• Ease of administration through Server manager console.
• Reduced attack surface.

The list goes on, so why not go to the Technet Windows 2008 site and check it out.

Windows 2008 guide by Mitch Tulloch is an excellent book to start with Windows 2008 and adopt early for the technology.

 

Enjoy learning!

Creating Calendar public folders

We can create a calendar public folder only through Outlook under the public folder in which you have permissions to create a folder.

To create a Calendar PF:

1. Select the Public Folder in which you have "Create Sub-folders" permission on.

• Right-click and select New folder
• In the Pop-up dialogue box Give the name of the folder you want to create.
• In the drop down list below, select the type of the folder you want to create (Calendar PF in this case) and click OK.