Are you still running Exchange 2007?

Then it is about time you start planning for a transition to a newer version of Exchange Server. Why you might ask, it is still working ok. Well, the extended support for Exchange Server 2007 ends in 2017-04-11, in other words, just one year left!

There are some things you need to take in consideration, one big and quite essential point is that you cannot go to Exchange 2016 Server directly. Microsoft only support migration from Exchange Server two versions old, so since you are on that old platform you will have to go to either 2010 or 2013 before you can move on to 2016.

But there is not really something you need to worry about, it is quite straight forward and manageable, even if it does take some time to perform. There is also quite a lot of tools you can use, BinaryTree, Dell, MigrationWiz and CodeTwo, to name a few, all have tools that can help you on your way.

If you want more information regarding the support you can have a look here.

 

 

Microsoft Sender ID Framework SPF Record Wizard

There is a lot of different great posts out there that describes SPF and how to create the records. But not so many posts that refers to the Sender ID Framework SPF Record Wizard provided by Microsoft.

Have a look at the wizard if you are planning to implement SPF, it provides the option to easily generate all SPF records you need. It can be found here!

Multiple updates released including SP3 for Exchange 2010

Service Pack 3 for Exchange 2010

Microsoft has released a number of updates. The big news here is the release of Service Pack 3 for Exchange 2010 with the two following major features:

Coexistence with Exchange 2013
Support for Windows Server 2012

Great new for all of you wanting to implement Exchange 2013 in your existing environments. But coexistence also requires an update of Exchange 2013.  CU1 for Exchange 2013 is scheduled for release in Q1 so it should be released soon. That said, installing Exchange 2013 in a existing Exchange 2010 Service Pack 3 environment WILL work all tough it is not supported. But it enables you to start running tests in your lab and prepare for the release of CU1.

More information on SP3 for Exchange 2010 can be found here.
If you want to go straight to the download you can find it here.

More updates…

But wait, there is more… Microsoft has also released Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 SP2 and Update Rollup 10 for Exchange 2007 SP3. Both are considered security releases so they will be available on Windows Update.

More information on these can be found here.
Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 SP2 can be found here.
Update Rollup 10 for Exchange 2007 SP3 can be found here.

RTM for 2013!

Good news, Exchange 2013, Lync 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 has now reached RTM! The general availability has been set to Q1 2013 but Office 365 Enterprise and Volume License customers will have access to new functionality and downloads in mid-November!

More information can be found here:

Exchange 2013
http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2012/10/11/the-new-exchange-reaches-rtm.aspx

Lync 2013
http://blogs.technet.com/b/lync/archive/2012/10/11/lync-2013-is-finished.aspx

SharePoint 2013
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/BlogPost.aspx?pID=1035

Office 2013
http://blogs.office.com/b/office-news/archive/2012/10/11/office-reaches-rtm.aspx

Lync 2013 Preview released!

More good news, Microsoft has also released the Lync 2013 Preview! The download is available from here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/sv-se/evalcenter/hh973393

Exchange 2013 Preview released!

Microsoft has finally released the Exchange 2013 Preview! Now my summer vacation is saved, expect a lot of posts in the next days regarding this. Now stop reading and  download Exchange from here to get started:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh973395

List mailboxes based on creation date

Just a quick one liner to list mailboxes based on the date when they where created. In the example below I list all mailboxes created the last week:

Get-Mailbox -resultsize unlimited | where {$_.WhenMailboxCreated -gt (get-date).adddays(-7)} |ft Name,whenMailboxCreated -Autosize

If you want to change the number of days just edit –7 to the number of days matching your preferences.

That’s all, take care and have fun!

Quick tip: Exclude a mailbox database from automatic mailbox provisioning

Here is a quick tip on how to manage automatic provisioning for mailbox databases.

This could be useful when you have a standard quota set on most databases and then use a mailbox databases with a different quota. then you would like to exclude the mailbox database with different quota and move the mailboxes to that mailbox database manually. in other words when you are using a VIP mailbox database. Here is the command:

Set-MailboxDatabase <MailboxDatabaseName> -IsExcludedFromProvisioning $true

Example:

Set-MailboxDatabase MailboxDatabase7 -IsExcludedFromProvisioning $true

To retrieve a list of all mailbox databases excluded from provisioning run the following command:

Get-MailboxDatabase | Where { $_.IsExcludedFromProvisioning -eq $true}

If you want to include a database again you run the following command:

Set-MailboxDatabase <MailboxDatabaseName> -IsExcludedFromProvisioning $false

Example:

Set-MailboxDatabase MailboxDatabase7 -IsExcludedFromProvisioning $false

One-liner to export mailbox size, quotas and more to a CSV file

I got a question form a friend if I could help and sort out a command that exported mailbox size and quotas to a CSV file  for him. This should work for both Exchange Server 2007 and 2010, here is how we did it:

First run a get mailbox command:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited

Then we add a pipe and a number of attributes we want to get:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Select-Object DisplayName, IssueWarningQuota, ProhibitSendQuota

We continue with adding two that performs Get-MailboxStatistics to receive attributes from the mailbox that the Get-Mailbox Cmdlet does not give us:

@{label=”TotalItemSize(MB)”;expression={(Get-MailboxStatistics $_).TotalItemSize.Value.ToMB()}} and @{label=”ItemCount”;expression={(Get-MailboxStatistics $_).ItemCount}}

Then we add another attribute that Get-Mailbox gives us:

Database

And to finish it off we export the results to a CSV file after another pipe:

| Export-Csv “UserMailboxSizes.csv” –NoTypeInformation

And the complete command again with all parts combined together:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Select-Object DisplayName, IssueWarningQuota, ProhibitSendQuota, @{label="TotalItemSize(MB)";expression={(Get-MailboxStatistics $_).TotalItemSize.Value.ToMB()}}, @{label="ItemCount";expression={(Get-MailboxStatistics $_).ItemCount}}, Database | Export-Csv "C:\Scripts\UserMailboxSizes.csv" -NoTypeInformation

This command can of course be modified and you can add other attributes or functions. In the following example I use where to get only the mailboxes that does not use the database default quota.

Where {$_.UseDatabaseQuotaDefaults -eq $false

And the complete command:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Where {$_.UseDatabaseQuotaDefaults -eq $false} | Select-Object DisplayName, IssueWarningQuota, ProhibitSendQuota, @{label="TotalItemSize(MB)";expression={(Get-MailboxStatistics $_).TotalItemSize.Value.ToMB()}}, @{label="ItemCount";expression={(Get-MailboxStatistics $_).ItemCount}}, Database | Export-Csv "C:\Scripts\UserMailboxSizes.csv" -NoTypeInformation

There you go, enjoy and do not hesitate to let me know if you have any questions!

Exchange Server Version Numbers

A list of all versions of Exchange server released so far including version numbers.

Friendly name	Version number
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0	4.0.837
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0 (a)	4.0.993
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0 SP1	4.0.838
Microsoft Exchange Server  4.0 SP2	4.0.993
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP3	4.0.994
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP4	4.0.995
Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 SP5	4.0.996
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0	5.0.1457
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 SP1	5.0.1458
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 SP2	5.0.1460
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5	5.5.1960
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP1	5.5.2232
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP2	5.5.2448
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP3	5.5.2650
Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP4	5.5.2653
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server	6.0.4417
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server (a)	6.0.4417
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP1	6.0.4712
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP2	6.0.5762
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server SP3	6.0.6249
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3	6.0.6487
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3	6.0.6556
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3	6.0.6603
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3	6.0.6620.5
Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server post-SP3	6.0.6620.7
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003	6.5.6944
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP1	6.5.7226
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2	6.5.7638
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 post-SP2	6.5.7653.33
Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 post-SP2	6.5.7654.4
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007	8.0.685.24 or 8.0.685.25
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1	8.1.0240.006
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP2	8.2.0176.002
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP3	8.3.0083.006
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010	14.00.0639.021
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1	14.01.0218.015