One of my goals with any solution is “simplicity”. Make it easier for users to access the resources they need in a safe and secure manner. Redirecting your general URL for Outlook Web Access/App to the proper secure address makes life for your users much easier. The old method for doing this will no longer work in Windows 2008 R2/Exchange 2010 due to some of the new features (i.e. Remote PowerShell). Read More →

When the first Exchange 2010 mailbox server is installed a new mailbox database is installed as well. This database is named “Mailbox Database…” followed by a long string of numbers (ex: Mailbox Database 0947606264). When you create a new mailbox database with your companies standard naming convention and attempt to delete the first default database you get the following error: Read More →

One of my customers upgraded to Exchange 2010 this year, but their managed backup team could not upgrade their backup solution from CommVault 8 to CommVault 9. CommVault 8 does not support backups on passive DAG copies, but they tested it and got it working… sort of.  Read More →

Time synchronization is an important aspect for all computers on the network. By default, the clients computers get their time from a Domain Controller and the Domain Controller gets his time from the domain’s PDC Operation Master. Therefore the PDC must synchronize his time from an external source. I usually use the servers listed at the NTP Pool Project website. Before you begin, don’t forget to open the default UDP 123 port (in- and outbound) on your firewall. 

  1. First, locate your PDC Server. Open the command prompt and type: C:\>netdom /query fsmo
  2. Log in to your PDC Server and open the command prompt.
  3. Stop the W32Time service: C:\>net stop w32time
  4. Configure the external time sources, type: C:\> w32tm /config /syncfromflags:manual /manualpeerlist:time.windows.com
  5. Make your PDC a reliable time source for the clients. Type:C:\>w32tm /config /reliable:yes
  6. Start the w32time service: C:\>net start w32time
  7. The windows time service should begin synchronizing the time. You can check the external NTP servers in the time configuration by typing: C:\>w32tm /query /configuration
  8. Check the Event Viewer for any errors.

Tested on Windows Server 2008 R2 (Build 7600).

The Exchange 2007/2010 Offline Address Book (OAB) can be a pain to manage in environments where users expect instant access to updates to the Global Address List. Outlook 2007/2010 clients running in Cached Mode use the Offline Address Book by default for all address lookups. This means when a new user is added to your domain and mailbox enabled they will not appear in the “GAL” for Outlook clients until the OAB generation and distribution process has run it’s course. The following article explains how the OABGen and Web-Distribution process works in Exchange 2007 and 2010. Read More →