Anderson Patricio Get-news Blog

How to enabled POP3 debug in Exchange Server 2007

Hello folks, 

 Even in Exchange Server 2007 sometimes we may enable POP3 debug during troubleshooting procedures :) . To enable the debug of POP3 we can do these following steps:

1. Open the file Microsoft.Exchange.Pop3.exe.config . It can be found at X:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ClientAccess\PopImap
2. Change the ProtocolLog to True

 Restart the POP3 Service, and now we can see the log generated after the last restart, as it follows:

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

Visualizing the Exchange Server 2007 setup log files through Exchange Management Shell

Hello folks,

 Exchange Server 2007 has a bunch of scripts to facilitate our daily tasks. One of them is the Get-Setuplog.ps1 that allows us to see the Setup Log file using Exchange Management Shell, the nice thing of this script is the different collor for each type of event (Error = Red, Warning = Yellow and Regular Messages = white).

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

Monitoring Exchange Server 2007 using MOM 2005 (Part 1)

Hello folks,

MSExchange.org has just published an article that I wrote about How to monitor Exchange 2007 using MOM 2005, here is the link:  http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/monitoring-operations/monitoring-exchange-server-2007-mom-2005-part1.html

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

Creating an Equipment Address List in Exchange Server 2007

Hello folks,

By default, Exchange Server 2007 has an All Rooms address list, and how about Equipment Mailboxes? We do not have it, so.. If you want to create using Exchange Management Console forget it, because it is not possible, we have to use Exchange Management Shell (Power Shell) to accomplish the task. Then.. let's go..

 To create a new address list to all Equipment mailbox we will use the New-AddressList cmdlet, as it follows:

New-AddressList -Name 'All Equipments' -RecipientFilter "(ResourceType -eq 'Equipment')"

Now we can go back to Exchange Management Console and we can check the new address list that was created using Exchange Management Shell.

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

System unavailable message appears in Exchange Server 2007 after the ForeFront installation

Hello Folks,

I've worked in a customer that started to get the system unavailable message message in all the webservices after a ForeFront installation.

Some of the symptoms:

• Three of the Application Pools on the IIS Services manager are stopped and we cannot start them
• OWA, Autodiscover, OAB returns the same error message: System Unavailable
• Event ID 2268 and 2274 with source W3SVC-WP

Then, what's the problem? How can I solve it? Here is the Microsoft KB to solve this issue: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=894435

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

Installing the DPM Management Shell

Hello Folks,

I've been working with DPM since the previous versions and yesterday I started to play with DPM v2. In this blog post I will cover the installation of the DPM Management Shell portion of the product.

The initial screen, click on Install DPM Management Shell.

License Terms, If you agree Accept and click on OK.

Welcome. Just click Next

Prerequsites Check. The setup will validate the prerequisites, click on Next.

Installation Settings. We can change the installation folder, after that click on Next.

Installation. Just click on Close to start to manage the DPM through DPM Management Shell.

Now, PowerShell rocks!!!

Do you have any doubts about DPM Management Shell cmdlets? Don't worry we can use get-DPMCommand cmdlet to get all the avaiable cmdlets to manage the DPM through PowerShell.

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

Changing the Queue Database path in Exchange Server 2007

Hello folks,

 Today, we are going to visualize how to change the Queue Database in Exchange Server 2007. That feature is one of the innovations of Exchange Server 2007 which uses the ESE engine to control the queue. The queue database is found only in two server roles: Hub and Edge Transport. Let's see how to change it:

The default path of the Queue database and transaction log is "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\data\Queue". To change this settings, we should open the file EdgeTransport.exe.config in this file we have to parameters:

• QueueDatabasePath: Database path (mail.que and trn.chk files)
• QueueDatabaseLoggingPath: transaction logs path (*.log and *.jrs files)

Now, let's change both parameters for the c:\Database folder, as shown in the figure below. 

Click on the image to see in the original size (readable)

After changing the config file, we have to methods do accomplish our queue database moving process:

Moving the current database

1. Click on Start / Run and type services.msc  click OK
2. Stop the service called Microsoft Exchange Transport
3. Move the database files(mail.que and trn.chk) from original location to the new place
4. Move the transactions log files (*.log and *.jrs) from original location to the new place 
5. Start the Microsoft Exchange Transport service

Creating a new queue database

1. Click on Start / Run and type services.msc  click OK
2. Restart the the Microsoft Exchange Transport service

In both cases the result will be the same, the new database will be changed for the directory specified in the .config file.

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

Archiving Solutions for Exchange Server 2007

Hello folks,

We can see many times in the Exchange Server 2007 documentation that we can keep information in a SharePoint server, but there is not any link explaining how can we do that. So I've made some researches about the subject and here are the solution:

1. Read the MsExchangeTeam.com blog about it, where we can use Sharepoint to keep the messages
   Records Management in Exchange Server 2007 and Outlook 2007 in 5 Easy Steps -> http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/09/19/428952.aspx
2. Email Records Management, Part 1 -> http://blogs.msdn.com/recman/archive/2006/12/19/email-records-management-part-1.aspx
3. E-mail Records Management, Part 2 -> http://blogs.msdn.com/recman/archive/2007/01/05/e-mail-records-management-part-2.aspx
4. E-mail Records Management, Part 3: E-mail Retention -> http://blogs.msdn.com/recman/archive/2007/01/18/e-mail-records-management-part-3-e-mail-retention.aspx
5. E-mail Records Management Part 4: Quota Management and Sending E-mail to the Records Center -> http://blogs.msdn.com/recman/archive/2007/02/08/e-mail-records-management-part-4-quota-management-and-sending-e-mail-to-the-records-center.aspx

Ok, I assume that It will take some of your time to read all these links, but at the end we will know how to configure properly the MRM together with Sharepoint, applying your company requirements using these two MS Solutions.

If you want to use a third party solution, I have seen two products to accomplish this task:

• GFI has a solution to Archive Exchange Server 2007, but you must enable IMAP in the Client Access Server
• Symantec Backup Vault also is a Exchange Server 2007 Archive solution
• In the www.microsoft.com/exchange has a partner section that we can found the other partners that work on this area

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

Managing the Language in the OWA Virtual Directory

Hello folks,

By default when a new mailbox access the OWA after the first logon the following screen appears, and we should choose the language and time zone settings:

How can we remove this screen? It's easy just set up the DefaultClientLanguage parameter in the OWA virtual directory, using the following cmdlet: 

Set-OwaVirtualDirectory -identity "Owa (Default Web Site)" -DefaultClientLanguagage <language code>

Now, all the first logon will be using the language that we choose in the language code, here are some language codes:

• English (Canada) : 4105
• Portuguese (Brazil): 1046
• French(Canada): 3084

Now let's go some procedures:

1. List the DefaultClientLanguage of determined server
   
   Get-OwaVirtualDirectory | Sect Name,DefaultClientLanguage
   
2. Setting up the OWA* virtual directory to use Portuguese as default language. It means that all new mailboxes user in this OWA will not receive the Language selection screen in the first logon.
   
   Set-OwaVirtual Directory -Identity 'owa*' -DefaultClientLanguage:1046
   
3. Validating the Language value in the mailboxes
   
   Get-Mailbox | Select Name,Languages

 Note: When you change for a value different than 0, this value is not filled out in the user attribute, when you return the value to 0, all the users that haven't choosen yet the value will receive the option to choose.

Now we can see a new mailbox receive the Portuguese automatically

Note: To rollback the settings to the normal behavior, just set up the language code with the 0 value.

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

MSExchange.org Article: Understanding Transport Agents (Part 2)

Hello folks,

Yesterday was released my second article about Transport Agents, here is the link: http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/planning-architecture/understanding-transport-agents-part2.html

 By the way, If you want to read the first part of this article we can look at http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/planning-architecture/understanding-transport-agents-part1.html

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

An overview of PowerGUI tool

Hello folks,

I was reading the Rui J. M. Silva's Blog (http://msmvps.com/ehlo/) that is one of my favourites blogs and I saw an interesting post about some help tools to PowerShell (http://msmvps.com/blogs/ehlo/archive/2007/06/04/941379.aspx).. So.. I decided to start this post..

There is a powerful Tool  available on the internet, called PowerGUI. It is a Free GUI (Graphical User Interface) PowerShell Tool sponsered by Quest. The PowerGUI allows we to use the Windows PowerShell in a familiar and intuitive GUI, like a MMC console.

To download the PowerGui, we can check the new version out, at the official site: http://www.powergui.org/

When you install the Tool you have the opportunity to set up the builtin scripts/cmdlets that you want. Let's take an overview of the tool...

Starting the PowerGUI..

The startup screen of the PowerShell...

 After started, we can see the folders separated by features (Network, Exchange 2007 and Local System), each node above those items can be scripts or cmdlets, we can create more scripts and cmdlets to add functionalities to the PowerGui, in this post I will be using only the builtin Nodes.

In the Figure bellow we are running the node Mailboxes that it is the get-mailbox cmdlet, beside of the main frame we have some features that we can customize for each view, in the Figure we have the Links, Actions and Actions Common (that are equal for all cmdlets) section. In the same figure yet, we are selecting an user and we are going to click on Statistics.

That Statistics Actions is the Get-MailboxStatistics and the result is shown in the figure below.

The tool has a lot of resources, in this post my intention was to show the tool and how we can see good oportunities to decrease the administrative tasks using the PowerGUI.

Tomorrow, I will be posting how to create nodes and Actions in the PowerGUI.

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio.