Rui Silva

Brief Description: This update restores functionality to Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access due to changes being made to Internet Explorer in the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista Beta release.

Overview: In the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 release, the Dynamic HTML Editing ActiveX control is being removed from the Internet Explorer browser. As a result, there is functionality missing that Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access relies on. This update replaces that deprecated functionality on the Microsoft Exchange servers so that Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access continues to function smoothly.

KB Article: You receive an error message when you try to perform any editing tasks, or you must click to enable the compose frame in Outlook Web Access

Download: Update for Exchange 2003 (KB 911829)

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I was reading Anderson Patricio's Blog, when I found out this cool PowerShell eBook."Forget batch files and set your VBScripts aside: There's a new scripting and automation kid on the block and its name is Microsoft® PowerShell™. Designed from the ground up to be powerful, flexible, consistent, and complete, PowerShell™ promises easier and more efficient Windows and Windows Server System administration. In this short Realtimepublishers eBooklet, An Introduction to Microsoft® PowerShell™, scripting guru Don Jones introduces you to PowerShell™, tells you a bit about how it works, and gives you a sneak peak of PowerShell™ in action. Now's the chance to start learning what some are calling "the most significant technology for Windows administrators since the invention of remote control."Access to this expert publication is offered at no charge to readers. The complete eBook is currently available as an Adobe® Acrobat PDF file." Technorati : exchange 2007, monad, powershell Del.icio.us : exchange 2007, monad, powershell

It's now available an updated version (05.0.7529.0000) of the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer Management Pack For MOM 2005.

The ExBPA Management Pack works in tandem with the ExBPA tool:

Identification of Exchange server configuration issues which could result in poor performance, scalability and unplanned downtime
Automated analysis and root cause identification
Support for third-party software and hardware
Self-updating database and help content
Links to over 500 articles on the Web
Works with Exchange Server 2003, Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 5.5 (in mixed mode topologies)

Technorati : MOM, exchange
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Microsoft is making an effort to keep online and downloadable versions of its Exchange documents in sync. They are using an internal tool for that, and this is the list of the updated documents so far:

What's New in Exchange Server 2003
Exchange Server 2003 RPC over HTTP Deployment Scenarios
Exchange Server 2003 Deployment Guide v4.0
Planning a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Messaging System v3.0
Exchange Server 2003 Interoperability and Migration Guide
Working with Store Permissions in Microsoft Exchange 2000 and 2003
Offline Address Book Best Practices Guide
Journaling with Exchange 2003
Comparing the POP3 Service and Configuring Coexistence
Server Consolidation Using Exchange Server 2003
Using Exchange Server 2003 Recovery Storage Groups

The Radicati Group, Inc.’s latest study, “Microsoft Exchange and Outlook Analysis, 2006-2010,” provides an in-depth analysis of current and forecasted MS Exchange installed base, with extensive breakouts by version, business size and region. According to the report, Microsoft Exchange currently commands a 31% installed base market share and a 52% revenue market share of the corporate insourced messaging software market. The next version of Exchange, called Exchange 2007, is expected to be released in early 2007. Microsoft is also currently beta testing a hosted e-mail service called Office Live.

Microsoft has aggressively expanded its reach into the hosted e-mail market since 2003, and we expect that Microsoft's revenue in this market will grow at an average annual rate of 25% over the next four years.

Microsoft leads the e-mail client market with Outlook, Outlook Express and Outlook Web Access. Uptake for Outlook Mobile, the company's e-mail client for mobile devices has also been strong, due to increased demand for smartphones.

Read the full Press Release.

Microsoft released an updated version of its iSCSI initiator. The Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator package adds support to the Windows operating system for using iSCSI targets that support 1.0 of the iSCSI spec. This new version, v2.02 (build 1895) introduces the following fixes:

Fix for persistent reservation Microsoft iSCSI DSM to handle an error for Microsoft Cluster Server scenario where one cluster node physically crashes
Improvement in session recovery to better handle race conditions and avoid bugcheck triggered by advanced cable pull testing
Fix for memory leak in iSCSI wmi provider
Fix for send target command
Fix to report authorization type correctly in WMI for iSCSI HBAs
Fix to QLoginTarget iscsicli command to login as a data login and not as an informational login
Fix for session recovery to release lock that could occur in session recovery code path

Marc Grote has a very interesting article about using Exchange Server 2003 with iSCSI: Implementing iSCSI for Exchange Server 2003. I have one of mine coming up soon.

Recently, I was at a client doing an intervention on their Exchange and Active Directory infrastructure when, before doing some critical changes in the production environment, we had to do a full Exchange backup. At the time I didn't know exactly how much information they had in their mailbox stores, but it turned out to be quite a lot.

Since time is money I remembered that we could have made things faster if we have tweaked NTBackup previously (yes, I love using NTBackup to backup Exchange stores).

If you read an article I wrote some time ago, 10 Tips to Optimize Exchange 2003 Performance (Part 2), you'll notice that my 6th tip is about making Exchange backups faster. Basically you need to change some registry values under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Ntbackup\BackupEngine\ (if you don’t see the BackupEngine subkey you’ll have to run Windows Backup at least once):

Logical Disk Buffer Size = 64
Max Buffer Size = 1024
Max Num Tape Buffers = 16

These settings will boost data throughput from 640MB/min to 1200MB/min. This means that my waiting time at the client could have been reduced to a half! Of course I modified those keys immediately, but since the backup had already started, we didn't benefit from that change.

In the article I also advise you to get an improved of version of NTBackup, which is now included in Windows Server 2003 SP1. This new version support the /FU switch that further improves the data throughput.

Using the /FU switch will also save you some time. I made some basic testing and measures with and without this new switch. The measures

Internet Security Systems (ISS) strongly believes that the security vulnerability that Microsoft disclosed in the MS06-019 bulletin can originate a new worm that will affect unpatched Exchange Server systems throughout the World. According to them:

"Testing done by X-Force confirms denial of service of the Exchange Server is easily achieved with no user interaction and is not mitigated by firewall best practices.
Further analysis of this issue reveals that code execution is possible, but difficult to obtain.  However, with the high profile of Microsoft Exchange as a target and the nature in which it is typically deployed, we expect to see active exploitation of this issue in the wild with the possibility of a worm."

The keyword is patch, patch, patch!

Related links:

Microsoft Exchange Calendar Attachment Heap-based Overflow
Internet Security Systems Warns Against Potential Microsoft Exchange Worm
Hackers Expected To Target Exchange
Exploit Out For Exchange Bug
ISS warns against potential Microsoft Exchange worm
Worm Could Wreck Exchange

Some of you might have noticed that the Microsoft Exchange Team blog, You Had Me At EHLO, got an upgrade. One of the changes was the addition of a new section for videos, where they put recently 2 new cool videos:

Exchange 2003 SP2 configuration for Windows Mobile 5 and MSFP Direct Push: Harold Wong demonstrates what is required on the Exchange Server and the Windows Mobile 5 device to get the Direct Push feature to work correctly.
ExBPA: past, present, future: Paul Bowden, Program manager of the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer talks about the past, present and future of the tool.