Exchange Schema Versions

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This is an article I first published a couple of years ago to check what schema version a customer was running when performing an Exchange upgrade.  There have since been official articles published by Microsoft, but I prefer to keep my own blog post for easy access.

This article outlines how to find the Exchange schema and version in of your Exchange schemas. There is also a list of the schema versions per build type.

To find the attributes listed below use Adsiedit.msc. When you launch asdiedit.msc there are 3 containers listed.

  • Domain: [Domain Controller FQDN]
  • Configuration: [Domain Controller FQDN]
  • Schema: [Domain Controller FQDN]

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AD: Managing Local Administrator Group Memberships

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Being able to easily delegate access to domain systems is essential for administrators to enable necessary IT staff to manage their environments. The proper OU structure along with the deployment of Active Directory GPOs makes this a fairly simple task.

GPOs can be used to add users or groups to local admins or to replace the existing memberships. Using GPOs ensures access is granted uniformly and consistently for a specific group of systems, ideally separated by their OU placement.

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Sync your Domain with an Internet time server

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Recently, the time on all of my domain computers was out of sync. Each computer in my domain had the same time, but it was about 10 minutes slow. Domain computers get their time from your domain controller(s), so I looked into syncing the time of my DC with an internet time server. The steps below can be used to sync your DC with an internet time server.

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Removing an Orphaned Exchange 2007 Server

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Recently, I’ve gone through an exercise to rebuild the Exchange 2007 environment at my new company. The original Exchange 2007 design was not what I would call optimal, so we decided to just rebuild instead of fix all of the problems. Luckily, most of the users were still on Exchange 2003, so this made the rebuild fairly simple. We did however run into a couple of issues during the uninstall process which resulted in orphaned Exchange servers in the environment. The servers showed up in Exchange 2003 System Manager and Exchange 2007 Management Console, but the server no longer existed. You might run into the same issue if a server was improperly uninstalled or a server was prematurely reimaged, etc.

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