subject: exchange : Notes from the field

Quick install notes for Exchange Server 2007 SP2

Rui Silva — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:27:36 GMT

The long awaited Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 has finally been released. There are many exciting new features, but if I would like to highlight 2 of them: Exchange Server 2010 support : SP2 is a pre-requisite for installing Exchange Server 2010...(read more)

You cannot resume setup by performing the action "BuildtoBuildUpgrade"

Rui Silva — Tue, 06 May 2008 08:08:00 GMT

I recently made 2 important decisions regarding my test environment:

Move all the VMs to Hyper-V;
Install Exchange 2007 SP1.

Moving to Hyper-V is not that hard:

Remove the VM Additions;
Create a new Hyper-V VM using the previous VHD.

My problems started when installing Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1. After I kicked the SP1 Setup, I got a warning that I should first install .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 (how could I disregard my own recommendations?), so I stopped the setup process.

After installing the required update, I resumed the SP1 setup, but now I got the following error:

Setup previously failed while performing the action "install". You cannot resume setup by performing the action "BuildtoBuildUpgrade"

Microsoft Knowledge Article KB947281 describes this problem and has a resolution for it. Unfortunately the article is a little bit incomplete. It tells you to delete the Watermark and Action entries from any of these Registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\ClientAccessRole
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\HubTransportRole
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\MailboxRole

But for my particular case the Watermark and Action entries were located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\UnifiedMessagingRole.

So, the right solution should be to check for those entries at any of these keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\ClientAccessRole

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\HubTransportRole

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\MailboxRole

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\UnifiedMessagingRole

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\ClusteredMailboxServer

[UPDATE]
The KB Article has been corrected!

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Notes from the field: upgrading Exchange 2007 to SP1

Rui Silva — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:42:24 GMT

So far, I did a couple of clean Exchange Server 2007 SP1 installations and they went really, really smoothly. I can say that the setup experience is much better than the RTM version.

Meanwhile, I also had the chance to upgrade existing Exchange Server 2007 RTM version to Service Pack 1. The experience was not so good compared with clean installations, nothing serious, but there are some caveats I would like to share with you.

Read the Release Notes for Exchange Server SP1 and How to Upgrade to Exchange 2007 SP1.
SP1 requires a Schema extension (again). Although the Setup Wizard will do it for you, I strongly recommend that you do it separately. Just follow the instructions from this link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125224(EXCHG.80).aspx. The process is identical to the RTM version.
Install .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 *before* running the Exchange 2007 SP1 setup. Remember that you must also install it on your Schema Master in order to extend the Schema from this server.
If you are currently using Forefront Security for Exchange, install Forefront SP1 *before* upgrading Exchange Server 2007 to SP1 (I'll write another post about this subject). Forefront for Exchange SP1 is backward compatible with Exchange 2007 RTM. Read more details at http://blogs.technet.com/fss/archive/2007/11/29/forefront-security-for-exchange-server-with-service-pack-1-is-now-available.aspx.
Upgrade server roles in this order: CAS > HT > UM > Edge > Mailbox.
Before running the SP1 setup, perform the following actions on that server:
1. Restart the server (this is very important, especially on cluster nodes, since the Setup can run for ages before finishing (the problem has to do with time it takes to register the new performance counters).
2. Stop all services/processes that can have open handles to performance counters such as MOM Agents.
3. Restart the Remote Registry service.
4. Stop all Exchange and Forefront services.
5. Disable Forefront by running FSCUtility /disable (don't forget to run FSCUtility /enable afterwards).
6. Start the Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service. This service is disabled by default in Windows, and you must set its Startup type to Manual or Automatic for the service to be started
7. Run the SP1 setup.
If you're installing SP1 on an SCC cluster, follow the procedures from this link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691226(EXCHG.80).aspx (start by doing a restart on each passive node).
If you have previously customized an OWA theme, you'll need to copy the modified files to the new version of OWA (there will be a new folder on each CAS). You may need to do some further customization, since there are new features, such as the monthly view on Calendar.
You cannot uninstall Exchange 2007 SP1. After you install SP1, the only way to remove it is to uninstall Exchange 2007 from the computer

I would also like to share the SP1 setup behavior when it is interrupted:

On one occasion (when the Performance counters were taking ages to register) I had to restart the server. Luckily for me, the setup resumed from the stage it was before.
On another occasion, I forgot to copy the Scripts folder (it's part of the setup files) to the server where I was installing SP1. The setup stopped because it couldn't find the necessary files. There was no option to retry the operation. When I run setup again, I had the following error:

The World Wide Web (W3SVC) service is either disabled or not installed on this computer. You must exit Setup, install the required component, then restart the Setup process.

Setup cannot continue with upgrade because 'C:\Program
Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\bin\ExchHelp.chm' is open. Close the file and restart setup.

I found the solution on this link: http://www.expta.com/2007/10/installing-exchange-2007-sp1-notes-from.html.

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Notes from the field: Transporter Suite

Rui Silva — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:52:38 GMT

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a migration project which involved a migration from Lotus Domino 7.0 to Exchange Server 2007.

I used the (free) Microsoft tool: Transporter Suite. Transporter Suite has all it takes to perform a full mail (and application) migration from Lotus to Exchange. The latest version is v08.02.0012, but I used the RTM version (if you want to know what's new, read Microsoft Transporter Suite for Lotus Domino Release Notes).

There are several approaches you can take in a similar migration project, but I prefer to place the Exchange Server in front of the Lotus Notes server, adding a non-authoritative SMTP domain and forward messages for the users not yet migrated. The following picture depicts the scenario I used.

Actually you can even make the SMTP domain authoritative for the Exchange Server, it will still forward any unresolved addresses to the Lotus Notes server if you configure a Send Connector.

My personal feeling is that Transporter Suite has lots of space for improvements. Probably there are some commercial tools more powerful and even more stable, but with a little bit of patience and some testing, the tool provided by Microsoft will do the job.

I would like to share my findings, hoping that they might help you. As I mentioned before, there is a new release of Transporter Suite that may have solved some of the problems I faced.

Install the connector components on a server with the Hub Transport (HT) role. Although the documentation mentions that it can be installed on a HT or/and CAS, without the HT role I couldn't create any connections. Here's an excerpt from the official documentation:
"All connector components (Directory Connector and Free/Busy Connector): Can only be installed on Exchange Server 2007 servers with the Hub and/or Client Access Server (CAS) roles installed; optionally, other roles (such as Mailbox or Unified Messaging) can also be installed."
There's a small misprint on the documentation. You'll need to increase the maximum attachment size by editing the web.config file in the exchweb\EWS subdirectory of the ClientAccess directory on each CAS. The line that you'll need to add is:

<httpRuntime maxRequestLength="10240" />

Please don't forget the "/" at the end! (that's the misprint)
I had some problems migrating users. The error I had was:

Summary: 1 item(s). 0 succeeded, 1 failed.
Elapsed time: 00:00:01

User1
Failed

Error:
The value "SMTP:User1@DOMAIN.COM" of property "ExternalEmailAddress" is used by another recipient object "DOMAIN.COM/Domino Contacts/User1\/HQ\/Company". Please specify another value.

Exchange Management Shell command attempted:
'CN=User1/OU=Sede/O=Company' | move-dominouser -Quiet -DominoDirectoryServer 'SRVNOTES' -GlobalCatalog 'DC01.DOMAIN.COM' -TargetOU '.' -InitialPassword 'System.Security.SecureString' -TargetId 'DOMAIN\User1'

Elapsed Time: 00:00:01

I didn't find a way of solving this problem. I think it's related with the timings associated with the remove process of the contact created previously and the subsequent copy of all proxy addresses. So, the solution was to write my own migration code. Here it is, you might find it useful:

   1: '*******************************************************************************   2: 'migrateUsers.VBS: Copy proxyAddresses from a Domino contact to an AD user   3: '   4: 'Version: 0.1       5: 'Date:    2008/01/07   6: 'Author:  RUI SILVA rui.silva(a)live.com   7: '   8: '*******************************************************************************   9:    10: Const ForReading = 1  11: Const ForWriting = 2  12: Const ADS_SCOPE_SUBTREE = 2  13: Const ADS_PROPERTY_UPDATE = 2  14:    15: Set objConnection = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")  16: Set objCommand = CreateObject("ADODB.Command")  17: objConnection.Provider = "ADsDSOObject"  18: objConnection.Open "Active Directory Provider"  19: Set objCommand.ActiveConnection = objConnection  20:    21: objCommand.Properties("Page Size") = 1000  22: objCommand.Properties("Searchscope") = ADS_SCOPE_SUBTREE   23:    24:     strName=InputBox("Enter username:")  25:     objCommand.CommandText = _  26:         "SELECT distinguishedName FROM 'LDAP://ou=Domino Contacts,dc=DOMAIN,dc=COM' WHERE objectCategory='user' " & _  27:             "AND mailNickname='" & strName & "'"  28:     Set objRecordSet = objCommand.Execute  29:    30:     If objRecordset.RecordCount = 1 Then  31:         strDN = objRecordSet.Fields("distinguishedName").Value  32:         MsgBox(strDN & ": FOUND")  33:     strDN = Replace(strDN, "/", "\/")  34:         Set objContact = GetObject("LDAP://" & strDN)  35:         arrProxyAddresses = objContact.GetEx("proxyAddresses")  36:         nArr = UBound(arrProxyAddresses)  37:         For n=0 To nArr  38:             If InStr(arrProxyAddresses(n), "SMTP:") Then  39:                 strEmailAddr = Mid(arrProxyAddresses(n), 6)   40:             End If  41:         Next  42:    43:         objCommand.CommandText = _  44:             "SELECT distinguishedName FROM 'LDAP://ou=USERS,dc=DOMAIN,dc=COM' WHERE objectCategory='user' " & _  45:                 "AND sAMAccountName='" & strName & "'"  46:         Set objRecordSet2 = objCommand.Execute  47:    48:         If objRecordset2.RecordCount = 1 Then  49:             strDN2 = objRecordSet2.Fields("distinguishedName").Value  50:             MsgBox(strDN2 & ": USER FOUND")  51:             Set objRecipient = GetObject("LDAP://" & strDN2)  52:    53:             objRecipient.ProxyAddresses = arrProxyAddresses  54:             objRecipient.put "mailnickname", strName  55:             objRecipient.put "mail", strEmailAddr  56: '            objRecipient.MailEnable strEmailAddr  57:             objRecipient.SetInfo  58:             MsgBox("OK")  59:         End If  60:    61:         objContact.DeleteObject(0)  62:    63:         objRecordset.Close  64:         objRecordset2.Close  65:          66:     Else      67:         MsgBox(strName & ": NOT_FOUND")  68:     End If  69:       70: objConnection.Close

Good luck for your migration! Don't forget to read the documentation: Microsoft Transporter for Lotus Domino End-to-End Guidance.

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