subject: exchange

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish is the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series written by Douglas Adams. Its title is the message left by the dolphins when they departed Planet Earth just before it was demolished to make way for a hyperspatial express route, as described in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Well, I'm not going to leave Planet Earth, but almost. I'm going on vacations for almost 3 weeks (!) and I'll try to not get near anything that has a microprocessor and a keyboard. I'm heading to Thailand where I expect to spend a wonderful time experiencing a different culture and enjoying some of the most wonderful beaches on the world.

This means that I won't post anything here during that period, I'll try to catch up later when I arrive.

So, so long, and thanks for all the fish!

Security and productivity are 2 keywords that are without a doubt regular concerns of IT managers. While reading Paul Robichaux's blog, I noticed a cool link about this subject.

Meanwhile, the guys from Realtime Nexus sent me an email about their latest publication on security. So here are the links:

• Hacking Email: 99 Email Security and Productivity Tips - Everyday, and some not everyday tips, on how you can keep your email safe and secure.
• The Messaging and Web Security Essentials Series is an online article series focused on helping security professionals address the ongoing task of keeping an organization secure from the multitude of online and messaging threats.

Here's a bunch of neat tools available freely on the web:

• Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007: The Calendar Printing Assistant for Outlook 2007 is a program that provides an easy way to print and customize Outlook 2007 calendar information. It puts you in control of the tools you need and helps you plan and create designer-quality output.
• Microsoft Office Outlook Connector: With Outlook Connector, you can use Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2002(XP), Outlook® 2003 or Outlook® 2007 to access and manage your Windows Live Mail or Office Live Mail accounts, including e-mail messages, calendar, tasks, notes, and contacts.
• Pando: Pando is free software that lets you send and receive large files and folders, up to 1GB, via email, IM and the Web.

• How to generate SQM data with Exchange Server 2007 ExBPA
• Exchange 2007 policies
• Basement UM setup, part 3
• Hate voice mail? Don't use it!
• Installing, Configuring and Testing an Exchange 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) Based Mailbox Server (Part 3)
• Hardening an Exchange Server 2003 Environment (Part 3)
• Exchange Connections reflections
• Removing IMVv1 prior to installing E2K3 SP2
• Reporting on the age of content in mailbox folders and across an Exchange Server via a script
• script: Show OWA Users
• Exchange Server 2007: Questions before business launch
• Exchange 2007 Edge and ISA 2006 on the same box???
• Powershell: all you ever wanted to know
• Updates on the new build of OABInteg
• Outlook Junk Email Folder is actually cool
• MailArchiva: Open source email archiving for Exchange Server
• Creating an ethical firewall in Exchange Server 2007
• Step-by-Step Guide: Test driving Exchange Server 2007
• Outlook 2007 is slow, RSS broken
• Shooting arrows at MS Exchange Server

Download
Update for Exchange 2003 (KB 912939)

Brief Description
This update modifies the "Safe HTML" filtering in Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server 2003 to allow workflow application code to use the HTML POST method within e-mail forms or attachments.

Overview
Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server 2003 introduces content filtering known as "Safe HTML" filtering to help protect users from malicious script and from certain HTML elements. For more information on “Safe HTML” filtering, see KB 899394 - How to share files that are removed by the "Safe HTML" filtering feature in Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server 2003.

The "Safe HTML" features in Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server 2003 affect content in e-mail messages or attachments which use the POST method. This update allows workflow application code to use the HTML POST method within e-mail forms or attachments if the action URI meets the requirements specified in KB 912939.

As you probably know, Tech·Ed IT Forum 2006 ended last Friday. Overall I must say that the whole event was a quite good experience (excluding food quality, obviously).

Technical sessions were more than interesting, maybe because there are so many new exciting products coming up. The community lounge and the Ask The Experts (ATE) area (where I worked) corresponded to my high expectations. I had the opportunity to review some of the MVPs, MCTs and Microsoft employees I know: Benjamin Mateos, Ilse Van Criekinge, Neil Hobson, Mark Arnold, Scott Shnoll, but I also met some new people: Toomas Ruus, Steven van Houttum, Ted Shultz e Eileen Brown (I finally got to know Eillen, but we didn't have the time to say more than a hello).

If you didn't attend the greatest Microsoft technical event in Europe, please tune in The Virtual Side.

Finally, I would like to leave you with some interesting personal stats:

# of sessions I attended: 13
# of hours at Ask The Experts: 9
# of BSOD at the CommNet computers: 3
# of attempts to do the Exchange CCR lab: 8
# of naps Alex took (and I assisted): 3
# of Alex was hit by a bike: 2
# of times the hotel key didn't work: 7
# of beers drank: CENSORED!

TechEd-ITForum
TechEd-ITForum

Microsoft has just released the November update for the Outlook 2003 Junk E-mail Filter.

"This update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail."

• Description of the Update for Outlook Junk E-mail Filter 2003 (KB921587)

Technorati : outlook, junk email, spam
Del.icio.us : outlook, junk email, spam

• Exchange and Daylight Saving Time 2007
• Controlling attachment size in Exchange Server 2007 Outlook Web Access (OWA)
• Exchange 2007 Offline Address Book Web Distribution
• Recent change of Internet Explorer 6 behavior in handling ActiveX controls and its effects on OWA
• Exchange Server 2007 Recipient Policies and Accepted Domains
• Configuring Exchange 2007 Hub Transport role to receive Internet mail
• Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant
• Removing the First Exchange 2003 Server (Part 1)
• HOW TO: Find an email address in Active Directory
• HOW TO: Modify Display Template to make default email address appear in Address Book/GAL
• How to create a Global Address List programmatically using Visual Basic
• Validation of user inputs in Exchange 2007
• HTML email; can be good and bad, but I may have a solution to this dilemma

Well I must confess that, so far, I didn't attend one single session about Exchange or Unified Communications. Mainly because I want to get in touch with other technologies that are also very interesting to me, besides messaging.

Meanwhile PowerShell RTM'd yesterday. Read the full details on this post from the Microsoft PowerShell Team: It's a Wrap! Windows PowerShell 1.0 Released!. BTW, this release was announced by Microsoft VP Bob Muglia during his opening keynote here at Tech·Ed. I didn't attend the keynote because by that time I was too busy doing some hands-on labs in order to become an expert in Exchange 2007

To download Windows PowerShell, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/powershell/download.

TechEd-ITForum
TechEd-ITForum

Some weeks ago, Eillen wrote a cool blog post where she points out the available virtual labs about Exchange 2007. Is that cool or not?

Virtual Labs

• Exchange Server 2007: Installing Exchange Server 2007
• Exchange Server 2007: Using Management Console and Shell
• Exchange Server 2007: Administering Exchange Server 2007 Server Roles and Mailboxes
• Exchange Server 2007: Remote Client Access with Exchange Server 2007
• Exchange Server 2007: Compliance and Retention
• Exchange Server 2007: Using Local Continuous Replication
• Exchange Server 2007: Using Cluster Continuous Replication

Read how “Microsoft is changing the core notion of what services an e-mail system provides” in this report from Gartner. In this download, read about improvements in unified messaging, operational efficiency, and hosted messaging services.

"Microsoft Exchange has about half of the market for corporate e-mail seats, with share expected to grow steadily through the end of the decade. For that reason alone, a new version of Exchange has the potential to set the direction for the e-mail market. While, as expected, this new release (due 1Q07 and called Exchange 2007) improves management, bumps scalability and adds security elements, the real news is that Microsoft is changing the core notion of what services an e-mail system provides."

Here's the link to the full report: Microsoft’s Exchange Server 2007 Could Set the Future of E-mail.

• WiFi Did You Do That?
• Outlook 2007: still famously obscure
• Backup^H^H^H^H^H^HRestore best practices
• Gone but not forgotten
• Exchange Analyzer Tools Success Stories
• Exchange Server 2007: Comparing editions and CALs
• Motivations for the Exchange Server 2007 transport redesign
• Hardware Configuration for Exchange 2003
• Exchange 2003 Hacks
• Hardening an Exchange Server 2003 Environment (Part 2)
• Maximum E2K7 Transport Rules
• Creating a Server Side rule to move suspect messages with inline gifs to another folder using Rule.dll
• RFC 2821 and the "implicit MX" rule: Can you really get mail without an MX record?
• Exchange Server 2007 "Business Launch", Edition Comparison: Microsoft removes Store size limits from Standard Edition
• Bulk creating Exchange mailboxes from a CSV file
• Forefront's Worm List
• All About Sender ID: the session
• Testing Your Mail Hygiene Solution: the session
• Getting Rid of PSTs: the session
• Share your calendar with Office Online
• Exchange Hosted Services: an update
• Planning (or at least thinking) for Exchange 2007 Hardware..?

Next week starts the biggest technical event Microsoft organizes in Europe, Tech·Ed IT Forum 2006. For the first time, since I remember, the event is sold out. Maybe because Microsoft merged 2 events: Tech·Ed and IT Forum.

Well, my presence is guaranteed, since I'll be working at the Ask The Experts (ATE) booth. It's my second time at the ATE, last year was a wonderful experience, so my expectations are high for this year. Fell free to drop by and say hello if you're in the neighborhood of the Exchange Server cabana.

TechEd-ITForum
TechEd-ITForum

After some speculation around the release date of Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft issued a press release yesterday stating that the official release date wil be Nov. 30, 2006.

REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 6, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the completion of the 2007 Microsoft^® Office system code and confirmed its release to manufacturing (RTM). This gold code milestone concludes the largest Microsoft Office beta program to date, with more than 3.5 million people downloading Beta 2. The unprecedented quantity of feedback from beta testers and customers helped the Office development team effectively validate product quality and optimize performance. Microsoft Office RTM also marks a critical step toward worldwide business availability of the 2007 Office system, Windows Vista™ operating system and Exchange Server 2007 on Nov. 30, 2006.

Read the full Press Release: 2007 Microsoft Office System Is Golden.

In order to promote their virtualization technology and for giving users a richer experience with the new products to be released, Microsoft has now available for download some pre-configured virtual machines:

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 VHD - 32-bit version - This download enables you evaluate how Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 together can help create an optimized messaging system for your organization. Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 is designed to reduce the growing cost and complexity of managing a corporate messaging system by providing more control for IT administrators, more value and expanded inbox access for end users, and increased security and compliance for the organization as a whole.
• Windows Server 2003 R2 VHD
• ISA Server 2006 VHD
• SQL Server 2005 VHD

"The Microsoft VHD Test Drive Program provides customers with an enhanced server-based software evaluation experience that’s faster, better supported and more flexible. You can now access the entire catalog of pre-configured Microsoft and partner products and solutions in the VHD format and start evaluating and testing today from www.microsoft.com/vhd."

Read the full Press Release: Q&A: Businesses Get an “Easy Button” for Software Evaluation with Microsoft’s New Virtualization Program.

This is just one of the headlines of the Windows PowerShell Week Magazine. A "magazine" providing advance information about the Windows PowerShell Week webcast series (about whish I blogged some time ago). Includes information about each webcast, links to virtual labs and related resources, and articles that provide an introduction to working with Windows PowerShell.

Also be sure not to miss Windows PowerShell Week Script Samples, sample code and commands from the Windows PowerShell Week webcast series. Includes a document that shows you how to convert common VBScript commands into their Windows PowerShell equivalents.

• The route to a painless migration
• Analyst blasts Windows Mobile security
• Setting AutoArchive properties on a folder hierarchy in Outlook 2007
• Exchange 2007 Install From Command Line
• The State of Outlook Printing
• Speech recognition of names by Exchange 2007 unified messaging
• How Exchange 2003 uses WMI to present the Status and Monitoring node in Exchange System Manager
• How to smoothly survive the transition from Linkstate to Exchange 2007 routing
• Exchange 2007 Cross Org Mailbox Migration
• Recipient Permission Delegation in Exchange Server 2007
• Assigning service account access in Exchange 2007
• Installing, Configuring and Testing an Exchange 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) Based Mailbox Server (Part 2)
• Sending 'As'
• E2K3 Public folder management - SSL certificate server name is incorrect error
• More on Continuous Replication
• Geolocationing Exchange Message Tracking with Powershell (Exchange 2000/2003) (Seeing what countries your messages/Spam are coming from)
• Exchange Server 2007: Bulk creation of mailboxes using Exchange Management Shell
• Recovering downloaded POP3 email
• Google Launches Gmail Client for Mobile Devices
• The Devil does Unified Communications!