MS Exchange Blog

Microsoft Announced Exchange Hosted Services

Microsoft recently annouced the availability of Exchange Hosted Services (EHS).  The concept is not new, as many enterprises have provided hosted Exchange solutions over the years, however, the methods for Microsoft are more refined as they both learn from their mistakes and leverage acquisitions, such as Frontbridge Technologies.

EHS is an option, but not one that fits everyones needs.  It may not be sufficient for enterprises under strict compliance guidelines, or companies that experience frequent internet connectivity issues, for example.  The main EHS Microsoft website is here.

William Lefkovics

Microsoft Office System 2007 RTM expected October 2006

Microsoft confirmed that the 2007 Microsoft Office System (1), which will surely be known as just Office 2007, is on track to be RTM in October 2006, with retail and OEM to "coincide with the retail and OEM availability of the Windows Vista operating system in January 2007."  Of course this includes "Outlook 12".

(1) Why do they keep moving the year around in the name?

William Lefkovics

Exchange 2003 SP2 & MSFP Paper

Jason Langridge has, on his blog, a copy of the very latest document on deploying mobile messaging with the Messaging and Security Feature Pack on Exchange 2003 SP2.  This is before the document gets released on Microsoft's download site, so grab a copy here for an early read....

ExBPA v2.6 - coming in April

Apparently, Microsoft has released the final XML update for ExBPA v2.5 today.  In early April, it will release ExBPA v2.6 which will include some 'cool reporting enhancements'.  The English version will be released first, followed by localised versions in June.  Keep an eye out for this update.

Exchange 12 Preview Webcast Week

There is a set of Exchange 12 Technet webcasts being presented this week.  They are all Level 200 presentations, so it should not be marketing fluff, but some in depth content. 

Webcast: An Overview of Exchange “12” (Level 200)
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
1:00 P.M.–2:30 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Giving the Administrator More Control in Exchange “12” (Level 200)
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
1:00 P.M.–2:30 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Client Access and Web Services in Exchange “12” (Level 200)
Thursday, March 16, 2006
11:30 A.M.–1:00 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Message Security and Active Protection in Exchange “12” (Level 200)
Friday, March 17, 2006
9:30 A.M.–11:00 A.M. Pacific Time

The library of Exchange Technet Webcasts continues to grow.

William Lefkovics

RIM announces Blackberry Enterprise Server 4.1

Shortly after millions of Blackberry addicts users breathed a collective sigh of relief, Research In Motion (RIM) announced the availability of Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) 4.1. 

BES 4.1 works with Exchange 5.5 through Exchange 2003 sp2 (as well as Lotus Domino 5.0 through 7.0). They also promise tighter integration with Live Communication Server and IBM Lotus Sametime.

There are also gains for the developers among us:

“This release will also provide developers with a new and powerful visual tool to create mobile applications based on the open standard of Web Services.” - Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion

William Lefkovics

Redmond Mag Article: Message Hygeine

Redmond Magazine, a self-proclaimed independent voice of the Microsoft IT Community, has a great 2 part article on Message Hygeine with Exchange Server 2003 written by Joern Wettern.

The articles appeared in January and February 2006:

• Message Hygeine: Microsoft Style Part 1
• Message Hygeine: Microsoft Style Part 2

William Lefkovics

Sony Ericsson Licenses ActiveSync

Sony Ericsson has now joined the many wireless device manufacturers to license Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol.

"The first implementation will be on the new Sony Ericsson P990 and M600 phones, which will be available in the second quarter of this year."

William Lefkovics

Exchange is Now Part of the Unified Communication Group at Microsoft

In a reorganization move Microsoft announced that the Exchange Server product group joins the Real-Time Collaborations (RTC) team in the newly formed Unified Communications Group (UCG).

"The merger of these two groups simply ensures our customers will see even deeper, more seamless experiences among our products in future releases." - Anoop Gupta, Microsoft VP/Head of UCG.

I wonder if this means we will see Instant Messaging merged back into the Exchange product in the future.

Now if we can only get them to stop using the term 'silo'. 

William Lefkovics

Best Exchange Killer of 2005

You know you're good when they have a performance category based on dethroning you.  Back in January, InfoWorld Magazine, as part of their InfoWorld Technology of the Year awards declared Gordano Messaging Suite as the Best Exchange Killer of 2005.

William Lefkovics

Exchange Lotus Notes/Domino Migration Tools To Be Updated

In January, Microsoft announced they would be updating their Lotus migration tools to ease the burden of migrating from Lotus Notes/Domino to Exchange Server 2003.

The toolset includes the following:

       Microsoft Application Analyzer 2006 for Lotus Domino. This tool,
       available in the first quarter of 2006, will significantly improve the
       process of analyzing a Notes/Domino application environment and provide
       a framework for making recommendations to transition those applications
       to the Microsoft platform.

       Microsoft Data Migrator 2006 for Lotus Domino. This new tool, available
       in the second quarter of 2006, will allow organizations to migrate data
       from Lotus Domino template-based applications to Windows SharePoint
       Services Application Templates.

       Additional Windows SharePoint Services Application Templates. Building
       on the success of 30 application templates released in August 2005,
       Microsoft announced three new application templates available today
       developed for customers using similar Lotus Notes/Domino templates
       today: Discussion Database, Team Work Site and Document Library.

       Updated Messaging and Coexistence Tools. To assist companies with the
       transition from Lotus Notes/Domino messaging to Microsoft Exchange
       Server, Microsoft is providing enhanced functionality and increased
       stability for Exchange Calendar Connector for Lotus Notes/Domino,
       Exchange Connector for Lotus Notes/Domino and Migration Wizard for
       Lotus Notes/Domino.

Migrating the data is not too difficult, in either direction, actually.  But where there exists custom applications, migrating application logic is another issue.  Historically, the Application Analyzer, and the Application Converter did not do a very thorough job, and were only helpful for the most basic applications.  Hopefully the updated version improves greatly on that.

I would expect these tools to be made available along side their other interoperability and migration tools for Exchange

Also note Microsoft's support policy for Exchange for migration and coexistence with Lotus Notes.

William Lefkovics

MS06-003 TNEF Encoding Vulnerability Patched

Included in the January 2006 patches released on January 10, 2006, is a critical patch to fix a TNEF decoding vulnerability: "Vulnerability in TNEF Decoding in Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Could Allow Remote Code Execution (902412)"

The affected Exchange systems, for which patches are available, are:

•	Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 Service Pack 2
•	Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 4
•	Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 Service Pack 3

Hopefully this is not lost in the aftermath of the WMF scare.

William Lefkovics

Microsoft Announces Exchange “12” Beta 1

"Beta 1 of Exchange 12 is a private one that will be released to a mix of 1,400 customers and partners worldwide"

Thankfully, Beta 1 will be available to testers in both 32bit and 64bit.  Obviously, the benefits of 64bit will not be realized by the testers who deploy the 32bit version, but there is still plenty of opportunity to run the product through its paces and report on the new features.

Beta 2 is anticipated in mid-2006 and the final release in early 2007, according to Sr Product Manager Megan Kidd, as referenced in this ARNNet article.

William Lefkovics

Exchange 12 to be Exclusively 64 bit

As announced at the sold out Microsoft IT Forum 2005 in Barcelona, Spain, Exchange 12 will ship exclusively for 64 bit hardware.

"To help customers take full advantage of the power of 64-bit computing, products including Microsoft(R) Exchange Server "12", Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Windows Server(TM) "Longhorn" Small Business Server, and Microsoft's infrastructure solution for midsize businesses, code-named "Centro", will be exclusively 64-bit and optimised for x64 hardware."

William Lefkovics

Exchange 2003 SP2 Database Improvements

I guess most people would state that the main new features of Exchange 2003 SP2 are the improvements to mobility services, although the increase in database storage size up to 75GB has certainly grabbed most people’s attention.  There are many other things to know regarding the database improvements within Exchange 2003 SP2 so I decided to have a closer look.

Goodbye 16GB
As I’m sure you are all aware, prior to Exchange 2003 SP2, the maximum permitted size of a single database on the Standard Edition of Exchange was 16GB.  Furthermore, I’m sure you are all aware that Exchange 2003 SP2 brings with it the ability for the Standard Edition to have databases up to 75GB.  Now that’s twice I’ve written ‘up to 75GB’.  Why?  Well, if you apply Exchange 2003 SP2 to your Standard Edition server, the database size limit is initially increased to 18GB.  Whilst you can go on to change this figure to a value up to 75GB, it’s important to note that 18GB is the default setting.

Controlling the size of the database is set via the registry.  For all the registry settings that I detail below that relate to making changes on a mailbox store, note that we’ll be working in the following registry key:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\{server name}\Private-{GUID}

It therefore follows that for registry settings that relate to making changes on a public store, you’ll need to work in the following registry key:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\{server name}\Public-{GUID}

Obviously in both cases {servername} means the name of your server and {GUID} is, well, the Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) of either the mailbox or public stores.  For example, in Figure 1 below, you can see that my server DCEXCH1 has three mailbox stores and a public folder store.  Obviously this is an Enterprise Edition server since there is more than one mailbox store.  Therefore, any registry changes you make will only affect that specific store.

Figure 1 – Mailbox & Public Store Registry Samples

Now back to controlling the size of a database.  Under the relevant database, create the following registry information:

Value type: REG_DWORD
Value name: Database Size Limit in GB

Set the value data to be the maximum size in gigabytes that the database is allowed to grow to.  For the Standard Edition of Exchange, you can enter numbers between 1 and 75.  For the Enterprise Edition, you can enter numbers between 1 and 8000.  Yes, that’s right, between 1GB and 8000GB or 8TB.  Therefore, even if you are running the Enterprise Edition of Exchange, you can still enforce overall database size limits of, say, 150GB if you so desire.

Let’s assume I set the first mailbox store with a 25GB limit.  To get this mailbox store to recognize the change, you simply need to dismount and remount the store.  When you do this, you’ll see event ID 1216 logged informing you of this fact.  For example, Figure 2 below shows the resulting information.  We will talk about physical database sizes and logical free space later on.  Additionally, it’s interesting to note that you will get event 1216 logged on an Enterprise Edition server for any database that has had a size limit configured.  Previously, all databases on an Enterprise Edition server would have been unlimited and therefore logged the event ID 1217.

Figure 2 – Event 1216 Showing Mailbox Store Limited to 25GB

Why 18GB?
So we’ve said that the default database size for the Standard Edition is 18GB.  Like me, you’ve probably wondered where this 18GB figure came from.  Well, to fully understand this, you have to understand something called the Database Size Buffer.  This is essentially a setting that informs Exchange to log an event in the Application event log if a database nears its maximum size.  However, how near is near?  The answer to that is 10% by default.  Now we can understand the thinking behind the 18GB default limit, since 10% of 18GB is approximately 2GB, which therefore means that the warning event log entry will be logged at about 16GB, the old Standard Edition limit.

Controlling the database size buffer is also achieved via the registry.  In the same manner as previously described above, create the following registry information under the relevant database:

Value type: REG_DWORD
Value name: Database Size Buffer in Percentage

Set the value data to be the desired percentage.  Therefore, if you enter 20 here, you’ll receive the warning event log entry when your database has 20% capacity left before it hits the maximum permitted size.  What event log entry is actually logged?  Well, it’s event ID 9688 as shown below in Figure 3.  In this example, I set a database size limit of 1GB and waited until the database grew to within the specified percentage.

Figure 3 – Event ID 9688 Warning of Database Size

Physical vs. Logical
As I mentioned earlier, we need to take a look at what is meant by the terms physical and logical as they relate to these event logs.  It’s simple really; the physical size of the database refers to the size of the EDB and STM files added together as seen in Explorer.  The logical size of the database is the physical size of the database minus any whitespace.  As I’m sure you all know, whitespace is the term used to describe the areas of the database that are not currently in use and will be re-used before the size of the database is expanded.  The amount of whitespace within a database can be determined by looking for event ID 1221 in the Application event log.

You will see from Figure 2 above that Exchange now calculates the size limit restrictions based on the logical space within a database.  For example, imagine I set my maximum permitted database size to 25GB and my database is now showing in Explorer as being 25GB in size.  However, if I have 2GB of whitespace within the database, my database will not currently hit the size limit since its effective logical size is 23GB.  This is good news.

By default, these limit checks are performed daily at 5am but you can change this via the registry by creating the following information under your chosen database as before:

Value type: REG_DWORD
Value name: Database Size Check Start Time in Hours From Midnight

Set the value data to be the number of hours past midnight to elapse before the size check takes place.  For example, if you want the checks to take place at 6pm (18:00) each day, you’d enter 18 here.

A Helping Hand
In the days before Exchange 2003 SP2, a Standard Edition database that exceeded the 16GB size limit would be dismounted.  Of course, there were several little tricks that you could play, like temporarily increasing the store size to 17GB via a registry tweak.  However, you now have a helping hand in Exchange 2003 SP2.  Now, when the specified database size limit is reached and the first database size check has been performed by Exchange (remember, this is once every 24 hours at 5am by default, unless you’ve used the registry change above) the database is NOT dismounted.  Instead, event ID 9689 will be logged as shown below in Figure 4.

Figure 4 – Event ID 9689 Showing Database Size Exceeded

You then have 24 hours to rectify the problem, otherwise, when the next database check is performed 24 hours later, the database will be dismounted and event ID 9690 will be logged as shown below in Figure 5.

Figure 5 – Event ID 9690 Showing Database Dismounted

But wait!  You can still mount the stores again even after event ID 9690 has been logged.  Unfortunately, it will be dismounted again after the next database size check is performed 24 hours later but at least you now have time to rectify the problem.  Despite this, I’m sure you’ll agree that Microsoft has made life much easier for Exchange administrators. 

Outlook 2003 Junk E-mail Filter update: November 2005

"This update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail."

ONTRACK DATA RECOVERY INTRODUCES POWERCONTROLS™ VERSION 4.0

"Ontrack Data Recovery™, the industry’s leading data recovery provider, today announced the availability of Ontrack® PowerControls™ 4.0 software, the newest version of its widely used mailbox recovery tool. This upgraded version helps Microsoft® Exchange administrators save time and deliver better recovery performance with more powerful searching and reporting capabilities, and expanded backup format support for CommVault® Galaxy™ and UltraBac Software.

“Email management continues to be a challenge for storage administrators as storage requirements increase in both volume and complexity,” said Jim Reinert, senior director of Software and Services for Ontrack Data Recovery. “PowerControls 4.0 helps simplify email management by giving administrators more control over their storage environment. The Advanced Searching capabilities in the newest version of PowerControls allow for quicker response to restore requests, translating to faster support for end users.”... press release

BL-Monitor

"Every spam filtering software, appliance, or outsourced service uses DNS Black List (DNSBL) servers as a first line of defense, but how effective are the servers you use?

BL-Monitor is a free visual tool analyzing response times and effectiveness of DNSBL servers and returns the answers to these questions:

   How responsive are the DNSBL servers used by my site?
   How complete is the DNSBL IP database for the spam my mail server actually receives?
   Are there more complete and more responsive DNSBL servers than what my site currently uses? 
   Does a paid DNSBL service give better performance than free DNSBL servers?
   Do I need the blacklist IP database on my local DNS server?"

ExBPA 2.5 Changes

Here's some information from Paul Bowden, the Program Manager for the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer, on the differences between ExBPA v2.1a and v2.5:

"As for the differences between ExBPA v2.1a and v2.5, the release is mainly about some underlying engine fixes and getting all languages back in sync.  As you probably know, we released ExBPA v2.0 in nine languages, but the v2.1 update was only for U.S. English. So, v2.5 is back at nine languages.  Because there's a visual freeze process that we go through for localization hand-off, the Config XML file in the MSI is at the level of the hand-off date.  Within the non-U.S. English MSI's you should find that all text strings display in the local language. However, when you start the tool it will detect updates from the web, and give you the option to download them.  The only caveat is that any updates downloaded may display English strings, so you'll see a mix of content.

The final Config XML for v2.1 was 2.7.0.1 and v2.5 has that same level if you choose to receive updates from the web.

The user interface enhancements made between v2.1a and v2.5 are as follows:

- Select/Unselect All link in scan options
- Ability to rename existing scans in the scan list
- In the tree view reports (e.g. Detailed View) all rules are hyperlinked to the corresponding content

There's nothing earth shattering here, but there are some fairly fundamental changes in the engine that we wanted to get out there.  First of all, it's more efficient and should yield better performance.  Secondly, the engine now supports a type/reference structure which means that we can load multiple Config XML fragments.  We'll be taking advantage of this soon."

Exchange Tools Update

Yesterday Microsoft released several updates to important tools for Exchange:

First, the PFDAVAdmin tool has been updated to version 2.4 and finally been made a supported tool, which it wasn't before.  You can get the latest version here.

Also, you can download the latest version sof the Exchange Server Analyzer tools.  These include the Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool (ExBPA) v2.5, the Exchange Server Performance Troubleshooting Analyzer Tool v1.0 and the Exchange Server Disaster Recovery Analyzer Tool v1.0.

For those of you running Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM), note that the Exchange Server Management Pack and Exchange Server Management Pack Configuration Wizard were also updated on the download site.  I'm not clear on what changes were made yet so I'm off to have a look.

Update 7th November 2005:

Scott Schnoll of Microsoft has kindly provided some information on the changes within the Exchange 2003 Management Pack.  Scott writes:

"The following list of rules highlights some of the changes that were added in this update to the Exchange Server 2003 Management Pack for MOM 2005.  Some of the rules added in this release of Exchange Server Management Pack relate to features added in Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2). For information about Exchange Server 2003 SP2 features, see What's New in Exchange Server 2003.

Note: Exchange 2000 Server Management Pack has not been updated

Rules have been added to provide enhanced monitoring in the following areas:

Exchange database size limits

Exchange ActiveSync configuration settings

Exchange ActiveSync Up-to-Date Notifications performance

Exchange ActiveSync errors

Monitor intelligent message filtering performance

Intelligent message filtering for errors

Sender ID configuration errors

Sender ID errors

Disk read/write performance

DSAccess settings

Public folder replication"

"Quest Software Offers New Product to Ensure Continuous Availability of Exchange, Even During System Outages"

"New Availability Manager for Exchange Automatically Detects Outages, Moves Traffic to Alternate Servers with No Disruption or Data Loss

IRVINE, Calif. (Oct 31, 2005) – Quest Software Inc. (Nasdaq: QSFT), a leading provider of application, database and infrastructure management solutions, today introduced Availability Manager for Exchange 1.0, a new product that ensures the continuous availability of e-mail send/receive functionality by automatically moving users to a defined Exchange server, where they will continue to receive uninterrupted service during the outage.  Once service is restored, they are switched back to their original server with no data loss.  The designated backup server can be any Exchange server in the enterprise, so no dedicated backup servers are required." ... read on...

Exchange 2003 on Hardware Virtualization Software

Late last week Microsoft released the following information:

"One of the most commonly requested Microsoft applications that people want supported on Virtual Server is Exchange.  Until today Microsoft has stated that Exchange is not supported on Virtual Server.  Today is a new day.  We have officially introduced support for Exchange 2003 SP2 and later on Virtual Server 2005 R2.  The complete details are located at the link below.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=320220

The article below will be updated with the new info.  It has not yet been updated to reflect the change but is being worked on and should be updated shortly."

KB: 897614 Windows Server System software not supported within a Microsoft Virtual Server environment

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=897614

"BBC suspends Blackberry network after mixed-up emails"

"The BBC has suspended its Blackberry email service after a bug in Research In Motion's server software mixed to gether snippets from different messages between senior executives... "... read on...

WaxMail - Voice over Email

From the makers of Skylook comes WaxMail. "WaxMail lets you talk instead of type! Your voice messages are attached to Outlook emails (as MP3s) ready to send to any email address. Recipients do not need WaxMail in order to hear your message."

Exchange 5.5 UK Unplugged Tour

In the UK and considering upgrading from Exchange 5.5? If so, the Exchange 5.5 Unplugged Tour taking place in eight locations across the country could be for you...

Don't Forget... "Microsoft to retire Exchange Server 5.5 by year's end"

"Microsoft Corp. will be retiring Exchange Server 5.5 and support for the product at the end of the year and is recommending users upgrade to the latest version, the company said Wednesday...."

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.2.1 Update

"This update fixes a synchronization issue in versions of Microsoft Entourage that have been updated with Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Service Pack 2 (11.2.0). The issue might cause data loss when Entourage attempts to synchronize with an Exchange mailbox that was moved to a different server running Microsoft Exchange Server. This update also resolves issues with setting Exchange server permissions and printing calendars. We strongly recommend that all Entourage users who have installed Office 2004 Service Pack 2 (11.2.0) install this update."

Exchange Server 2003 Case Studies

Read and watch case studies on Exchange 2003, including one on HP's improved mobile-messaging experience using Exchange 2003 service pack 2.

Microsoft Exchange Insider Articles

Nino Bilic's world famous Exchange Tech Bulletins are now public Exchange Insider Articles!

William Lefkovics

Issues that are fixed in Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2

New KB.. "This article contains a current list of Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles that describe the problems that are fixed in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2)"