Welcome New Baby Girl
Posted on July 1st, 2008
Off Topic; but I cannot go without mentioning…
My wife “Allison” gave birth to a new baby girl this past weekend.
We are now the proud parents of “Anna Elizabeth Kinahan” & she is now a baby sister to Evin.
Born on 6/28/08 weighing 7lbs 12oz & 18.1? long.
Welcome to the world sweetheart!
Tags: Baby
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Do you iSkoot??
Posted on April 19th, 2008
I only came across this product today;
http://www.iskoot.com/index.php
A great utility for any skype user.. VOIP on your cell phone! You can install right to your cell phone (they give a complete list of all supported cell phones on their website) and make skype calls from your cell no matter where you are!
Check out all the details on their website…
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I’m Back
Posted on February 21st, 2008
Its being a while… crazy work schedule…
Now getting ready to leave again for 3 weeks in London.
Once that is complete i will working on forming the new South East Microsoft Messaging User Group. If you are interested in being part of this venture please let me know. Right now (thanks to the support of Nathan Winters from www.mmmug.com) we are hopeing to get support or backing from Microsoft in the South East to get this of the ground.
Let me know if you are interested in helping or being part of the group by leaving a comment here.
Thanks!
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Happy Holidays
Posted on December 23rd, 2007
Happy Holidays everyone. I hope you all have a safe & healthy Christmas.
Don’t forgot your Microsoft gift guide…
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/nov07/11-20GiftGuide.mspx
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Installing Exchange 2007 (Part 1)
Posted on December 2nd, 2007
Installing Exchange has been a pretty straightforward task; however there have been some changes in the install process for Exchange 2007. Part one of this series will cover the prerequisites required and preparation of Active Directory.
Introduction
Installing previous versions of Exchange was never a difficult task as long as you were prepared. You would install the required IIS components then prep the domain and you were ready to go. Exchange 2007 changes the installation procedure, but it is still as easy as previous versions, as long as you understand the differences.
System-wide Requirements
As with any application, Exchange 2007 has a certain set of requirements that must be met before you can proceed with the installation and these requirements can be spilt into two types, system-wide and server-specific. System-wide requirements ensure that your Active Directory is ready to accept Exchange 2007 servers and server-specific requirements ensure that the server that Exchange 2007 will be installed on can support it.
One of the bigger requirements is that Exchange 2007 requires the domain functional level to be at Windows 2000 native mode or higher (see figure 1). On top of that Exchange 2007 also requires that the Schema master and the Global Catalog servers run Windows Server 2003 with SP1 applied. It goes without saying that you also need a functional DNS infrastructure in place. If you are installing Exchange 2007 into an existing organization, the Exchange mode must be set to native-mode. This means no Exchange 5.5 servers anywhere in the Exchange organization. If you still have any Exchange 5.5 servers, you will need to upgrade them to Exchange 2000/2003 or remove them completely before proceeding with the installation of Exchange 2007.
Figure 1: Domain Functional Levels
As with Exchange 2000 and 2003, the forest and domain needs to be prepared with schema extensions. However, unlike the previous versions, Active Directory does not need to be prepped beforehand, it is done automatically during setup, but the option does exist to allow for manual schema upgrades. During the setup process the server will connect to the Schema Master in an effort to update the schema and this requires that the Schema Master is available and that the account you are running setup with has permissions to modify the schema.
If you wish to prep the domain manually, you can do so with the /PrepareAD switch on any server in the same domain that the Schema Master is in but it is recommended to do this on the Schema Master. Once you have completed this, you will have to wait for the schema updates to replicate throughout the forest before you install any additional Exchange 2007 servers in the organization.
Finally, as with all Exchange installations, you require certain administrative rights in order to install an Exchange 2007 server. The following is a list of required permissions required to install an Exchange 2007 server into a new, or existing organization.
- Local Administrator on the server
- Enterprise Administrator
- Domain Administrator
- Schema Administrator (only required for first install to extend the Schema)
Server-specific Requirements
Server-specific requirements for Exchange 2007 include both hardware and software. In order to install Exchange 2007 the server must be running Windows Server 2003 x64 and have SP1 installed. You must also install the .NET 2.0 Framework and MMC 3.0 but if you do not have these two components installed, you can install them during setup.
Exchange 2007’s hardware requirements have been upgraded from Exchange 2003 with the biggest change being the requirement for x64 CPUs. The minimum hardware requirements are as follows:
- Any Intel Xeon or Pentium 4 64-bit processor
- Any AMD Opteron or Athalon 64-bit processor
- 1GB of RAM plus 7MB per mailbox
- 1.2 GB of available disk space on the drive on which you install Exchange
- 200 MB of available disk space on the system drive
- DVD-ROM Drive
- SVGA or higher-resolution monitor
- NTFS File System
Note: Exchange Server 2007 Beta 2 includes 32bit builds but the RTM will be x64 only. You also need KB904639 (for x64 systems) and KB868060 installed.
Exchange has always relied on IIS services, but Exchange 2007 requires less out of IIS and in some cases, IIS is not required at all.
Exchange 2007 no longer requires the IIS SMTP and NNTP services installed as it has its own built in SMTP server and, for messages being transported between Exchange 2007 servers with the organization, uses MAPI. Depending on the role or roles installed on the server, different components are required. The following chart shows which additional services each role requires.
Role
Additional Components
Edge Transport
None
Hub Transport
None
Mailbox Server
Network COM+, IIS, World Wide Web
Client Access Server
World Wide Web
Unified Messaging Server
Speechify (installed by E2007 Setup)
Preparing Active Directory
As previously mentioned, the installer will do all the AD preparation automatically. That does not mean that you cannot do it manually, in fact I’d suggest doing it manually on the Schema Master while it is disconnected from the domain. That way, if something goes wrong while the schema is being extended you can simply blow away the server and seize the role on a different server.
Preparing Active Directory manually offers more options than before and there maybe more commands for you to run, depending on your current environment. If you are currently running any Exchange 2000 or 2003 server the first command you must run is
Setup.com /PrepareLegacyExchangePermissions
This command must be run under an account with Exchange Admins permissions and the domain must be able to communicate with all other domains in the forest while being run. Finally, you will need to wait for the permissions to replicate before continuing.
The next command will prepare the schema, and this means the account you run this command from, must be a member of the Schema Admins group as well as the Exchange Admins group.
Setup.com /PrepareSchema
Figure 2: PrepareSchema
This command must also be run in the domain that contains the forests Schema Master, and again, you should wait for the changes to replicate throughout AD before continuing. Replmon, from the Support Tools, is a great tool you can use to determine when the changes have been replicated.
The third command that you need to run preps the current domain, adds the Exchange Universal Security Groups and configures the Exchange objects with AD. The command
Setup.com /PrepareAD
Figure 3: PrepareAD
This command requires different permissions, depending on your current configuration. You need to run this with Enterprise Admin privileges, and if you have any Exchange 2003 servers within your current organization, you need to be a member of the Exchange Organization Administrators group. Again you will need to wait for the changes to replicate before proceeding. You can check for this by looking for the following new Security Groups in the root domain in an OU called Exchange Universal Security Groups (EUSG).
- Exchange Organization Administrators
- Exchange Recipient Administrators
- Exchange View-Only Administrators
- Exchange Servers
- Exchange2003 Interop
The final step is optional and is only required to run if you have multiple domains within the forest. This command configures the other domain, or domains, in the forest. It does not need to be run on the domain that you run /PrepareAD in, but any additional domains will need this command run. You have three command line options with this command.
Setup.com /PrepareDomain – Prepares the current domain
Setup.com /PrepareDomain:FQDN of target domain to be prepped
Setup.com /PrepareAllDomains – Prepares all domains in the forest.
Once you have completed all the commands, you can verify that you are ready to start installing Exchange 2007 by looking for the following.
- The Microsoft Exchange Systems Objects container contains a global group called Exchange 12 Domain Servers
- The ESUG has the Exchange 12 Domain Servers global group as a member.
- The ESUG will have permissions to the Manage Auditing and Security Log settings on all DCs in all domains that the commands were run against.
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Installing Exchange 2007 (Part 2)
Posted on December 2nd, 2007
Introduction
Installing Exchange 2007 is just as easy as previous versions, and once you have prepped AD, the rest is pretty straight-forward. That doesn’t mean you should throw in the CD and start clicking Next! Be sure to review the prerequisites in the first part of this series to reduce any confusion that may lead to errors or worse.
GUI Installation
With all the prerequisites taken care of we can begin the Exchange 2007 installation. The GUI-based installation is pretty straightforward. Insert the CD and run Setup.exe from the root of the disc. You will need certain permissions depending on your current configuration and how you prepared the domain. You will need Enterprise and Local Administrator privileges, and if you have not already prepared the domain you will also need Schema Administrator permissions as well. If you already have an Exchange 2007 server in the domain you will also need to be a member of the Exchange Organization Administrator group.
The Welcome screen will appear and you will see right away if you have the required software prerequisites. Figure 1 shows that the .NET Framework 2.0 is installed (it is grayed out) and MMC 3.0 is also installed but Microsoft Shell (MSH) is missing. If you are missing either of these components, you can simply click on the item to install it.
Figure 1: Prerequisites
Once the install wizard starts you can read over the Introduction then read and accept the EULA. Next you have the option of enabling Error Reporting, make your choice and then click next. You will be given two install choices; Typical and Custom (see Figure 2). The typical install will install all the roles with the exception of the Edge Transport role. If you wish to customize the installation, choose the Custom install option. Here you can also change the install location if you wish to do so.
Figure 2: Install Options
When you choose the custom option and click next you will be given a number of selections and you can choose which role, or roles, to install. You can also select to install Active or Passive Mailbox server clusters, or just install the Management Console (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Server Roles
Before you can continue, you will have to provide the name of the Exchange Organization and be asked if you have any computers running versions of Outlook 2003 or earlier (see Figure 4). This option will create Public Folders if you select yes, but choosing no will not create any Public folders.
Figure 4: Outlook Versions
You will need to be aware of a few things when choosing what roles to install where. If you are running a multi-site AD environment you need to install a Hub Transport and Mailbox server in each AD Site. You also must install a Client Access server in each site that contains a Mailbox server. Finally, all the roles can be installed on the same server (except Edge Transport) or on individual servers.
The installation will now run a set of pre-checks to determine if the domain and server are ready to accept an Exchange 2007 server. Figure 5 shows an example of some common errors you will see if IIS is missing, or if the domain is not at the required functional level (notice the Install button is grayed out).
Figure 5: Failed Readiness Check
When all of the Readiness Checks pass, the Install button will appear and you can press it to start the installation (see Figure 6).
Figure 6: Successful Readiness Check
You can watch the install progress and depending on the roles installed it can take a while. Once complete, click Finish and you are ready to begin configuring your Exchange 2007 server (see Figure 7).
Figure 7: Install Progress
CLI and Unattended Installation
Exchange 2007 also supports installation from a command line interface (CLI), which can be used to perform unattended installations as well. There are a number of switches that are required depending on the type of Exchange 2007 installation you are performing.
- /roles – specifies which server roles will be installed. Can be substituted with /r
- ET or E – Gateway Server
- HT or H – Bridgehead Server
- CA or C– Client Access Server
- MB or M – Mailbox Server
- UM or U – Unified Messaging
- MT or T – Admin Tools
- /PrepareAD – is used to prep the Active Directory schema manually. This switch is optional as the schema is extended automatically during installation. Can be substitued with /p
- /TargetDir – specifies the directory in which to install Exchange 2007. Can be substituted with /t
- /SourceDir – specify the location of the install files
- /DomainController – allows you to specify a DC to use. Can be substituted with /dc
- /AnswerFile:filename
- /mode – Determines if the install is a default install or a recovery install. Required if you wish to use the /RecoverServer switch
- Install – this is the default mode used when no /mode switch is provided
- Upgrade – this mode is used when upgrading an Exchange 2007 installation
- Uninstall – this mode is used to uninstall Exchange 2007 or one of its roles
- RecoverServer – this mode is used when recovering a failed Exchange 2007 server
The basic syntax of a CLI or unattended installation is as follows:
Setup.exe /console /roles:<server roles to install> /mode:<setup mode> [/targetdir:<destination folder>] [/prepareAD] [/RecoverServer] [/?]
To install Exchange 2007 with the Bridgehead, Client Access and Mailbox server roles, you would use the following from a command prompt:
Setup.exe /roles:ET,MB,CA or
Setup.exe /r:E,M,C
Let’s say you wanted to install a Gateway server and put the program files in a directory on the D drive called E2007 and you wanted to read and write from DC1; you would use the following switches with Setup.exe:
Setup.exe /r:E /targetdir:D:\E2007 /dc:dc1.thelazyadmin.lab
This last example demonstrates what command you would use to install a new Exchange 2007 server during a disaster recovery operation.
Setup.exe /mode:recoverserver
Once the command is executed, setup will proceed to determine if .NET 2.0 Framework, MMC 3.0 and the Microsoft Shell is installed. If any of the other prerequisite checks fail, setup will stop and display an error message.
Verifying Installation
Once you have completed the installation, you should verify that everything completed successfully. To do this there are a few things you can check out. The first thing you can do is open up MSH and run the following command which will list the roles installed (see Figure 8)
Get-ExchangeServer
Figure 8: MSH Get-ExchangeServer
Next look in the Application Log in Event Viewer for event ID 1003 and 1004 which verify that install was successful. Finally there are a number of log files created that you can browse to verify that the install was successful and if it was not, what might be wrong.
- %SystemDrive%\Exchange\ExchangeSetupLogs\Setup.log – will tell you if the prerequisite checks passed and what roles were installed.
- %SystemDrive%\ExchangeSetupLogs\ExchangeServerMSI.log – will tell you if the file extraction was the cause of any errors.
- %SystemDrive%\ExchangeSetupLogs\Exchange Server Setup Progress.log – will tell you what system changes were made during the installation.
- %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ Logging\SetupLogs\setup.log – tracks operations during install, look here when an install fails.
Conclusion
There are many possible configuration and installation options in Exchange 2007. The command line interface offers a powerful and scriptable option to deploy Exchange 2007 servers with minimal administrative interaction. Both install options also perform a number of prerequisite checks to ensure your Exchange 2007 installation starts off on the right foot.
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Why-64-Bit-Good-E12.html
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Exchange-12-Monad-based-Exchange-Management-Shell.html
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=56642
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Support for Logical Units Larger than 2 TB
Posted on December 1st, 2007
An important piece of info for anyone looking to attach storage to a server in excess of 2TB;
With Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows XP 64-bit Edition (x64), these limits have changed.
Microsoft added support for 64-bit block numbers in the disk/class layer, using the new SCSI Commands included in the SCSI-3 Block Commands-2 command set. Microsoft also enabled GPT support for all Windows Server 2003 SP1 platforms. With this change, for example, a snapshot of a GPT partition on an Itanium-based machine can now be transported to a 32-bit machine for data mining or archiving purposes.
The new limits are as follows:
- Basic or dynamic volume size: 264 blocks = 273 bytes (too big to pronounce)
- Maximum NTFS file system size that can be realized on Windows: 256 TB
Note: Disk devices with more than 2 TB of disk space must be converted to GPT format for all of the disk space to be usable. If the device uses MBR format, the disk space beyond 2 TB will be unusable.
See more at: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/LUN_SP1.mspx#EFB
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Exchange 2007 SP1 is here…
Posted on November 29th, 2007
On November 29 (it was meant to be the 30th), you will be able to download Exchange Server 2007 with Service Pack 1. The list of new features in SP1 is long, including new deployment options, new features and improvements for each server role, improved integration with other applications, and even a new, third type of continuous replication. There are also general updates to almost all of the high availability topics for SP1, as well as significant updates in other content areas, such as those related to the Mailbox, Client Access, Hub Transport and Edge Transport, and the Unified Messaging server roles. You can find documentation on the new features by browsing or searching the Exchange Server TechCenter Library. If you’re in evaluation mode, you can now download the Exchange Server 2007 with Service Pack 1 trial software and see how secure, anywhere access can enhance operational efficiency.
And once you’ve deployed Exchange Server 2007 Edge Transport servers to control spam and other unwanted e-mail messages, you’ll want to implement logging and tracing and configure Edge Transport agents to perform the tasks you need. Check out the November issue of TechNet Magazine to see how to analyze Edge Transport agents in action by using the standard agent logging and tracing features of Exchange Server 2007.
The 2007 Microsoft Office release includes hundreds of security and privacy settings. Download the 2007 Microsoft Office Security Guide for best practices and automated tools to help strengthen the security of computers that run either Windows Vista or Windows XP SP2 and applications in the 2007 Microsoft Office suite.
Windows Vista is the first PC operating system designed with infrastructure management as a core focus, and Microsoft has launched a new resource for IT pros to make the adoption process smoother and better guided. The Springboard Series for Windows Vista is now available on a new TechNet destination. This offers monthly articles based on community feedback and helps answer key questions around how and why to get going with Windows Vista adoption. The Springboard Series itself is designed to more simply guide you through the entire adoption process, from early exploration of new management capabilities through piloting and finally rolling out through your organization.
Here is the link to the download; you may need to log in first:
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Bulk Create Managed Folders and Associate them with a Managed Folder Policy and All Users
Posted on November 20th, 2007
Description
This script takes a CSV file and uses the entries in the columns to create managed folders and a managed folder mailbox policy. It then sets the created policy to all mailboxes.
Usage
Save the script code below into a simple text file and name it ManagedFolderSetup.msh. Open up the Exchange Management Shell and navigate to the directory containing the file you just created. Type:
.\ManagedFolderSetup.msh C:\ManagedFolders.csv
Ensure the path specified for the CSV file is correct.
Sample Script
$newManagedFolders = @()
$existingManagedFolders = @()
$managedFolderLinks = @()
## Name of the managed folder mailbox policy to be created - change this in your script
$managedMailboxPolicy = "General Policy"
if(!($args[0]))
{
write-host "Usage: ManagedFolderSetup.msh ManagedFolders.csv"
return
}
$data= import-csv -path $args[0]
## Create Managed folder
foreach( $i in $data )
{
$newFolder = Get-ManagedFolder | where {$_.Name -eq $i.Folder}
if ($newFolder -ne $null) {
$script:existingManagedFolders += $newFolder
} else {
$newFolder = New-ManagedFolder -Name $i.Folder -FolderName $i.FolderName -StorageQuota $i.StorageQuota
if($newFolder -ne $null) {
write-host "Done"
$script:newManagedFolders += $newFolder
} else {
write-host "Error: Managed folder" $i.Folder "cannot be created."
}
}
}
write-host "Below Managed folders already exist:"
foreach($i in $existingManagedFolders)
{
write-host $i.Name
$managedFolderLinks += $i.Identity
}
write-host "Succesfully created below Managed folders:"
foreach($i in $newManagedFolders)
{
write-host $i.Name
$managedFolderLinks += $i.Identity
}
## Create a Managed folder mailbox policy
$newPolicy = New-ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy -Name $managedMailboxPolicy -ManagedFolderLinks $managedFolderLinks
if ($newPolicy -ne $null) {
write-host "Succesfully created below Managed folder mailbox policy:"
$managedMailboxPolicy
} else {
write-host "Error: Managed folder mailbox policy" $managedMailboxPolicy "cannot be created."
return;
}
## Set the created managed folder mailbox policy to all mailboxes
write-host "Set the created policy to all mailboxes:"
$mailboxes = get-mailbox
foreach($mailbox in $mailboxes)
{
$mailbox.Name
Set-Mailbox -identity $mailbox.Identity -ManagedFolderMailboxPolicy $newPolicy.Identity
}
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