Exchange 2010

Exchange 2010: Change security groups to distribution groups

Distribution groups are a well-known concept for Exchange admins. Quite simply, a distribution group is an Active Directory group that’s Exchange-enabled and therefore has an email address. Messages sent to the group are delivered to group members, which can be mailbox users, mail users (users with an email address outside the Exchange org), mail contacts, […]

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Connect to Office 365 Using a PowerShell Function

When you sign-up for Exchange Online (or Office 365, which includes Exchange Online), an Exchange organization is created for you in Microsoft’s datacenter. One of the really cool things about Exchange Online is that besides its easy-to-use web interface, you also have the ability to manage your cloud-based organization using PowerShell. Shell-savvy administrators can run […]

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Microsoft to release PST Capture tool to search, import and destroy PST files

Microsoft has announced it will release PST Capture, a free tool to search .PST files, import them into Exchange Server 2010 and Exchange Online and (optionally) destroy the files. Exchange mailbox data is stored on Exchange servers – either on-premises in your organization’s datacenter, or in Exchange Online if you’re using Microsoft’s new Office 365 […]

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UDP notifications support back in Exchange 2010, Outlook 2003 users rejoice

If there is a legacy client for Exchange 2010, it must be Outlook 2003. Released in October 2003, Outlook 2003 is two versions and almost eight years old! When running in online mode, Outlook 2003 relies on Exchange Server to notify it of new messages by sending UDP notifications. If UDP notifications aren’t received, Outlook […]

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Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out, and do technical books still matter?

After tech-reviewing a few books and coauthoring Exchange Server 2007: The Complete Reference, I’ve shied away from writing another technical book. It’s an intense effort, and much more time-consuming than one can possibly imagine without actually having done it. And if you’re a fanatic about technical accuracy, and strive to provide more technical depth than […]

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Exchange ActiveSync: What is the Allow/Block/Quarantine List?

If you’re an Exchange admin happy about how Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) just hums along with mobile devices supporting the EAS protocol, and the multitude of devices that can now access Exchange without any admin intervention (OTA device activation and all that…), but also unhappy about the multitude of devices that can now access Exchange without […]

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Virtualizing Exchange? Microsoft addresses misleading VMWare guidance

Are you planning on deploying Exchange Server in a virtual environment, using hyervisors (aka hardware virtualization) such as Microsoft’s Hyper-V or VMWare’s ESXi/vSphere Hypervisor? Microsoft has frequently carried statements about supportability of Exchange Server in a hardware virtualization environment (see Microsoft support policies and recommendations for servers that are running Exchange Server in hardware virtualization […]

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Exchange 2010 Personal Archives and Client Access

In Exchange 2010, you can provision Personal Archives for your users. A personal archive, or an archive mailbox, is an additional mailbox where users can move older messages or messages that they don’t need to access frequently but may still want to retain for a longer period. You can also apply a Retention Policy to […]

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Office 2011 for the Mac hits the store shelves, Outlook 2011 makes the Mac a corporate citizen

Mac users can now stop envying Windows users for having the latest and greatest version of Microsoft Office. Office for Mac 2011 has just hit the store shelves. The latest update to Microsoft Office for the Mac brings the Mac version on par with its Windows sibling, and surpasses it in ways that Mac users […]

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Using Get-Hotfix to get a list of installed hotfixes

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 requires a number of hotfixes to be installed. These are listed in Exchange 2010 Prerequisites in Exchange 2010 documentation and in the Exchange 2010 SP1 FAQ and Known Issues post on the Exchange team blog. While preparing a server for SP1, I erroneously kept trying to install the hotfixes […]

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