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Author: Scott

Member Since: 2009-10-15 03:52:04
Website: http://www.scottfeltmann.com

Posts by Scott:

Windows 7 Phone (Want a free one?)

Posted in Microsoft Related Windows 7 Phone
April 19th, 2012 by

One of the things about working at Microsoft is getting a new Windows 7 phone.  I recently bought the Lumia 900 and I have to admit, it is pretty nice.  I’m really starting to like the interface of the Windows 7 phone.  The tiles on the screen of the majority apps I use or creating a tile for my contacts which feeds me updates about that contact.  I can see if there is a new email, text, facebook, etc.

What I really enjoy about the phone is the app list is in alphabetical order.  I just have to slide to the right and there are my apps, all listed.  No more grouping.  That was one thing that bugged me about the iPhone, the groups.  While nice I was always going to different groups to find my apps, I always asked myself, which group did I put that in?  Where is that app?  It got to be rather annoying.  I am still learning a lot about it and I may have to go to a special event to learn more about the phone.

So, if you are like me and want to learn more about the Windows 7 phone starting today at Best Buy through mid-may Microsoft is holding an in-depth, hands-on sessions at 12 Best Buys stores around the country.  Interested?  I know I am.  Check the list of stores here to see if there is one available in your area.

What’s in it for you? Well, for starters you’ll have a chance to win a new Lumia 900. You’ll also get to:

•Play with some of the latest and greatest Windows Phones

•Attend an instructor-led deep dive with the Nokia Lumia 900

•Learn more about Windows Phone’s unique Metro design and future

•Get the latest info on Windows Phone for IT pros and developers

•Mingle with Windows Phone experts and fellow fans

•Enjoy free food and drinks

These events are invitation-only and have a limited number of remaining open slots, so register now if you’re interested. (Enter mscust for the RSVP code.)

More information can be found at the Windows7 Team Blog: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archive/2012/04/18/go-behind-the-tiles-at-best-buy-win-a-new-lumia-900.aspx

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EXPTA announces Fifth Annual UC Roundtable at TechEd 2012 in Orlando

Posted in Exchange Server Microsoft Related
March 26th, 2012 by

While I will not be at TechEd 2010 this year for obvious reasons I still wanted to share that Jeff Guillet over at the EXPTA blog will be hosting his fifth annual UC Roundtable at TechEd 2012.  In years past I have always attended this event due to the amount of Exchange knowledge in the room.  The conversations and knowledge sharing from this session was priceless and I encourage anyone who works with any version of Exchange to attend.  You can find more information from Jeff’s Blog here.

Since I will not be there this year I need someone, anyone to start the conversation!  In years past people have been a bit gun shy.  Remember, there is no such thing as a stupid question and this is a great opportunity to ask your peers.  I should also point out that Jeff is an Exchange MCM and has vast knowledge of Exchange. :)

Please come back here and share your experience!  I will surely miss sessions like these at TechEd.

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Updates and New tools from the Exchange Team

Posted in Exchange Server Microsoft Related
March 14th, 2012 by

Greetings, I have been nothing but busy these last few weeks as I have started my new job as a PFE at Microsoft!  I thought I should send out an update to some exciting things happening in the community these past few weeks which I haven’t had much time to post on.

First the Exchange team has been extremely busy releasing new tools and upgrading others into the community.  These tools include:

  • Exchange Client network Bandwith Calculator BETA2  –  This tool will help reduce the risks involved in Exchange Server network bandwidth planning, the Exchange Client Network Bandwidth Calculator has been designed to help anyone planning an Exchange Server deployment to predict the network bandwidth requirements for a specific set of clients.  The prediction algorithms used within this calculator are entirely new and have been derived after significant testing and observation.  (Download)
  • Log Parser Studio – Log Parser Studio is a utility that allows you to search through and create reports from your IIS, Event, EXADB and others types of logs. It builds on top of Log Parser 2.2 and has a full user interface for easy creation and management of related SQL queries. (Download)   An Image of Log Parser Studio:

  • Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool – The Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool (OCAT ) provides a quick and easy method to analyze your Microsoft Office Outlook profile for common configurations that may cause problems in Outlook. This can be very useful for busy Help Desk personnel when end-users call for help with Outlook or when you want to identify possible issues with Outlook proactively. (Download)
  • CalCheck, The Outlook Calendar Checking Tool -  The Calendar Checking Tool for Outlook (CalCheck) is a program that checks the Microsoft Outlook Calendar and items for problems or for potential problems.  (Download)
  • Microsoft Script Explorer for Windows PowerShell – Microsoft Script Explorer for Windows PowerShell (pre-release) helps scripters find Windows PowerShell scripts, snippets, modules, and how-to guidance in online repositories such as the TechNet Script Center Repository, PoshCode, local or network file systems and Bing Search Repository.  (Download) (Support Forum).  If you do try the tool be sure to give feedback on the support forum.   Keep in mind currently this tool is only for PowerShell.  It is not designed for CBScript and other kinds of scripts.

Finally The Exchange team announced that MEC is back!  MEC is an event that contains deeply technical information on all things both Exchange Server and Exchange Online.  This will be a great place to meet other Exchange engineers and a chance to network and learn!  Check out MECisback.com for more information.

Did you like what you saw here?  Please share!

Disclaimer

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Microsoft Bound

Posted in Exchange Server Microsoft Related
February 26th, 2012 by

Tomorrow is a new chapter in my book.  Tomorrow I begin my new job at Microsoft as a Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft!  It’s been a long hiring process and I can’t believe the date is finally here.  You can only imagine how excited I am about this opportunity.

It is always nice to reach a goal.  When I first started out in IT one of my goals was to get hired on by Microsoft, and that goal has now been achieved.  Wish me luck as I begin my first week at Microsoft.  I know I am excited and I can’t wait to see what great stories I can share with you regarding issues I encounter in Exchange!

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BES losing connectivity to Exchange 2010 Databases in a DAG

Posted in BlackBerry Enterprise Server Exchange Server Microsoft Related
February 15th, 2012 by

A colleague of mine brought this to my attention yesterday.   It seems that there is an issue where BES will lose its connection to the Exchange Servers in the event where a database should failover to another node in the DAG.

The Exchange setup involves two Hub/CAS and two Mailbox Servers in a DAG.  What would occur is if a database would move to another node in the DAG the BES would simply error out trying to connect to the mailbox.  I don’t have the event ID which totally sucks because it would be helpful but the error on the Windows Server was saying that the BESAdmin account did not have permissions to access the users mailbox.

This is what my colleague got from RIM: “The issue according to RIM is that “sometimes” after any number of DBs fail over to another DAG member, the BES admin account will lose the ability to open ANY mailboxes regardless of which database they are on.  It will behave as if you never set BESadmin permissions in exchange.  If you go through and try to set the permissions again, Exchange will tell you that they are already set.”

I did ask for a log from the BES and this is what it showed in the error log for BES:

(0x8004011d) failed, MailboxDN=/o=ScottFeltmann Corporation/ou=Feltmann/cn=Recipients/cn=scottfeltmann, ServerDN=/o=ScouttFeltmann Corporation/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/cn=Configuration/cn=Servers/cn=CAS.scottfeltmann.com/cn=Microsoft Private MDB 20120213/WC_MAGT_03_20120213_0002.txt:[20400] (02/13 17:52:57.959):{0x189C} {scott@scottfeltmann.com} MAPIMailbox::MAPIMailbox

It will be repeated for every single BES enabled user, over and over again to the point where the EventID Logs will get over ridden, hence the reason I don’t have a log since it happened on Monday and a bunch of other stuff went on as well.

The fix?  Well, restart the BES controller service.  Restarting the whole BES apparently will not fix it.  My Colleague was dealing with Level 1 support for a few hours at RIM, once the issue was escalated the other Tech knew exactly what to do so apparently this is an issue with RIM.

Recommendation?  Move to ActiveSync!

Comments?  Questions?  Please Share!

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PST Capture Tool Released!

Posted in Exchange Server Microsoft Related
February 3rd, 2012 by

Over at the Exchange team blog they have released a new tool for performing discovery and importing PSTs into Exchange!  Why is this important?  Well, say for example you have a lot of users in your organization who have PSTs.  There is a problem with this scenario, you cannot manage the PSTs.  You cannot perform any discovery on users PSTs.  You also cannot archive or keep the emails in the PST in a centralized area and under your corporate control.

The PST Capture tool allows you to deploy the PST Capture application on a centralized server or workstation, file PSTCapture.msi.  Once you have your central server setup you will then deploy the PSTCaptureAgent.msi (there is also one for x86 systems) on the computers throughout your organization.  This allows the agent to report back to the server and alert of any PSTs.

How it works:

The display screen here gives you two options, the first is Find a PST and import PST files.  You obviously will want to find the PST files first:

The tool will ask what to search by presenting you with your AD tree.  You will want to select the OUs of the computers you want to search:

Next you will want to select the location of where to search.  For this demonstration I just selected “All” and let the tool go do its thing.

Next it asked me if I wanted to setup a schedule, for this I said No.  But if you have a large environment you may want to consider setting up a schedule to collect the PSTs.  Anyway, once I came back to my screen I hit Scan Now and off it went looking for PSTs.  Keep in mind this is a lab so I’m not going to find too much data but it find the PSTAgents and reported back:

Once completed I selected the files and I did an import now.

I should also point out that you can assign the PSTs to different mailboxes.  This comes in handy if the PST file is not directed to the correct mailbox.

So in the above example I switched the test.pst to my test account “Roy”

What a great tool.  I actually have a few clients that are looking for ways to bring PSTs back into their Exchange Organization.  Before this tool there was no real easy free way of doing it.  Thank you Microsoft for giving the community such a great tool!

To get the download you can go to the Microsoft Exchange PST Capture download site.

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Updates and Outage

Posted in General
January 9th, 2012 by

I took the liberty of performing some updates to my Blog today. As a result I had a service outage and the permalinks to my articles broke. The issue should be resolved but there may be some issues when performing look up via Google and Bing. I’ll keep an eye on it and see what happens.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Just as a note, some of the search

Just as a note, some of the search enginges are inserting .com/index.php/whatever.  The new method after my upgrade changed it to .com/blog.whatever.  So if you are here looking for something replace the index.php with blog and you should get to your site.

are inserting .com/index.php/whatever.  The new method after my upgrade changed it to .com/blog.whatever.  So if you are here looking for something replace the index.php with blog and you should get to your site.

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Exchange 2010 SP2 has been released!

Posted in Exchange Server Microsoft Related
December 5th, 2011 by

The MS Exchange team has released Exchange 2010 SP2!  Yay!

Some of the new features in Exchange 2010 SP2 that I’m looking forward to are:

  • GAL Segmentation!  GAL Segmentation will allow an exchange admin to have multiple GAL that are filtered to users based on a new feature called Address Book Policy (ABP). The ABP allows an administrator to assign to a user which address books, GALs, rooms, and users they can see. I say users because if a person looks at an distribution list that contains users from different GALs and the user doesn’t have permission to see that GAL the ABP will filter out those users.  (more info on GAL Segmentation from The Exchange Team: http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2011/01/27/3411882.aspx )
  • Silent Redirection!  As it stands now when a user hits OWA and logs in to their mailbox, if that user resides in another Internet facing AD Site they will be presented with a link to click to get to their OWA URL. Once they click that link the user will need to enter their username and password again. With Silent Redirection in Exchange 2010 SP2 this will no linger be the case! Users will now automatically be logged in to the redirected site. This gives the users a single sign on experience!
  • Hybrid Configuration Wizard, which will allow organizations to deploy a hybrid deployment where some mailboxes will be on-premises while others can be on Microsoft Office 365.

For some other features of Exchange 2010 SP2 check out my old Blog Article, Exchange 2010 SP2

Looking to download Exchange 2010 SP2?  You can find it here:  http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28190

For a list of the features in Exchange 2010 SP2 you can go here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh529924.aspx

Enjoy!

Questions, Comments?  Please Share


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Exchange 2010 Servers lose connectivity with Global Catalog Servers in Domain. Event IDs logged 2102, 2103, and 2114.

Posted in Exchange Server Microsoft Related
November 9th, 2011 by

Ok, I’m sorry, I’ve been extremely busy with work and family.  The following article is one I’ve been working on since September of this year!  So here it is….

Over the past nine months I have been battling an issue in Exchange 2010 that reported “All Global Catalog Servers in forest DC=ScottFeltmann,DC=com are not responding.  I feel that I can finally say the issue has been resolved!

Some background:

This was a large Exchange deployment, two active directory sites, two Hub/CAS and two mailbox Servers in the primary site running DAG.  Secondary site had two Hub/CAS and one Mailbox Server.  The focus of the issue seemed to take place in the primary site.    The issue we were seeing initially is that users would hang, literally hang, both in Outlook or OWA.  It seemed that the Client Access Server (one of the two) was hanging, as if waiting for a response.  Rebooting the server always cleared up the issue but this was by no means a solution.

Now, what made this problem difficult is that it occurred randomly and about every three to four weeks.  There was no way I could recreate the problem and could only trouble shoot the issue when the problem was occurring.  After my initial troubleshooting and seeing the issue occur randomly.  The primary Errors in the Event Log were Event ID: 2102, Event ID: 2103, and Event ID: 2114.

Event 2102 Info:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchange ADAccess
Date:          3/2/2011 6:03:04 AM
Event ID:      2102
Task Category: Topology
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      CAS1.scottfeltmann.com
Description:
Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1364). All Domain Controller Servers in use are not responding:
DCAuth1.scottfeltmann.com
DCMAIN3.scottfeltmann.com
DCMain3008.scottfeltmann.com
DCMain2.scottfeltmann.com
DCSC1.scottfeltmann.com
DCSC2.scottfeltmann.com
DCMain1.scottfeltmann.com

Event 2103 Info:

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchange ADAccess
Date:          3/11/2011 10:46:21 AM
Event ID:      2103
Task Category: Topology
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      CAS1.scottfeltmann.com
Description:
Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1524). All Global Catalog Servers in forest DC=ScottFeltmann,DC=com are not responding:

DCSC1.scottfeltmann.com
DCSC2.scottfeltmann.com
DCMain1.scottfeltmann.com
DCMain2.scottfeltmann.com
DCAuth1.scottfeltmann.com
DCMAIN3.scottfeltmann.com
DCMain3008.scottfeltmann.com

Event 2114 Info:

Error:
Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchange ADAccess
Date:          4/14/2011 10:48:30 AM
Event ID:      2114
Task Category: Topology
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      CAS2.scottfeltmann.com

Description:

Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1480). Topology discovery failed, error 0×80040952 (LDAP_LOCAL_ERROR (Client-side internal error or bad LDAP message)). Look up the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) error code specified in the event description. To do this, use Microsoft Knowledge Base article 218185, “Microsoft LDAP Error Codes.” Use the information in that article to learn more about the cause and resolution to this error. Use the Ping or PathPing command-line tools to test network connectivity to local domain controllers.


I decided to call Microsoft support as I had never seen this type of behavior in any of my deployments.  To be honest it came down to about 5 calls into MS Support, rare case which happens once every few weeks = difficult to trouble shoot, even with Microsoft.  I spoke to both Exchange support and Active Directory support engineers.  I could go into great detail about the trouble shooting steps I took with MS support but none of these resolved the issue so what’s the point.  To give you an idea we tried to reset the Kerbos ticket, we ran DCDiag, checked Domain controller Replication, checked DNS, nothing.  Long story short after four or five calls with MS Support I finally was able to get escalated to level 3 or 4, either way, Rick (the MS Support Engineer) figured out what the issue was.

What Rick noticed was a Warning in the System Event Log, Event ID 40961 from the source LsaSrv.  This Error was never reviewed with other MS Support people as I’m not sure they thought it wasn’t a bad issue or not.  To be honest, a warning isn’t something I really turn my attention to when a bad situation is occurring (learned my lesson there).  Anyway, here is the event info

Event ID 40961 Info:

Log Name:      System
Source:        LsaSrv
Date:          4/14/2011 10:53:30 AM
Event ID:      40961
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:
User:          SYSTEM
Computer:      CAS2.scottfeltmann.com
Description:

The Security System could not establish a secured connection with the server ldap/ DCMain3008.scottfeltmann.com/scottfeltmann.com@SCOTTFELTMANN.COM. No authentication protocol was available.


Rick mentioned he sees this error when systems are having issues with Remote Desktop.  I couldn’t help to think but how does RDP tie into my problem with Exchange.  The way it ties in is because the secure channel between the source and the target is lost and causes the systems not to be able to authenticate.  Basically the CAS was trying to communicate with the DC while the user was waiting.  The DC and CAS didn’t trust each other and bam, CAS HUNG!

What is the fix?  After about 9 months of issues and calls with MS at random times, there is a hotfix, drum roll….. KB939820!  Which is located here:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939820

Once this hotfix was applied the problem stopped occurring, the Event Logs no longer showed a 2102, 2103, or 2114 error and life was good again!

While researching the issue I also found a posting on spiceworks where users were having the same problem.  Here is the URL for that: http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/134941-exchange-2010-ad-topology-failures-all-domain-controllers-unavailable?page=4#entry-847654

Talk about Crazy!   I’m just glad it is over.

Hope this helps out there!

Comments? Questions?  Please Share!

 

 

 

 

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Some Voicemail systems may not route SMTP mail to Exchange 2007/2010

Posted in Exchange Server Microsoft Related
September 13th, 2011 by

I recently had a client upgrade to Exchange 2010 for their mail system. As part of this process all applications servers, including voicemail, were configured to route to the Exchange 2010 environment.

The majority of their applications worked however the voice mail system would not work. The voice mail system was using SMTP delivery to send voice mails into the Exchange Organization. The voice mail system was configured to route to the Hub Transport server and the Hub Transport Server was configured to accept connections from the Voice mail systems IP address on a dedicated receive connector.

When looking at the Exchange logs the following information popped out:

,2011,08,01,HubSrv\VoiceMail,TargetIP,SourceIP>,501 5.1.7 Invalid address

Turning to Google I typed in the error,” 501 5.1.7 Invalid address” and came across a KB944302. Here I read that the cause states:

This problem occurs because by default the receive connector in Exchange Server 2007 does not have its default domain value set. This is unlike the behavior in Exchange 2000 or 2003 where it automatically appended the default domain to values that are submitted to MAIL FROM: or RCPT TO: in the message envelope by a sending server if no domain name is provided.

In Exchange Server 2007, the default domain value on the receive connector is not set by default. If no domain name is specified in the MAIL FROM: or RCPT TO: commands, Exchange Server 2007 rejects the message with “501 5.1.7 Invalid Address” response.

This also applies to Exchange 2010. The voice mail system was not able to send mail to the receive connector because the default domain field was blank. I was able to verify that the field was blank by doing a “Get-ReceiveConnector “HubSrv\VoiceMail” | FL Name,Default*” which returned:

Name: VoiceMail
DefaultDomain:

Seeing that my defaultDomain was blank I then ran the following command to set the field:
Set-ReceiveConnector “HubSrv\VoiceMail” –DefaultDomain “scottfeltmann.com”

Scottfeltmann.com is what I used in this example but this should be your SMTP domain name.

When I ran the Get-ReceiveConnector command again my configuration looked like this:

Name: VoiceMail
DefaultDomain: scottfeltmann.com

Once this configuration was completed the voice mail system was able to route voicemails into the Exchange 2010 environment!

Questions? Comments? Please Share.

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