Update Roll-up 7 for Exchange Server 2007 SP1 has been released. You can download it here.

As noted in previous posts, Exchange 2007 updates are cumulative and release-specific. This roll-up is for Exchange 2007 SP1, and supersedes all previous update roll-ups for Exchange 2007 SP1.

Update Roll-up 7 for Exchange Server 2007 SP1 has 50 fixes, including important fixes for SCR and IMAP4 issues.

Fixes for the following issues are included (details in KB960384):
946449 A non-read report message is sent after you perform a “Mark All as Read” operation against unread e-mail messages in Exchange Server 2007

949113 Unexpected modified instances of a recurring meeting may appear when you use Entourage to access a calendar on a computer that is running Exchange Server 2007

949114 Duplicate calendar items may appear when you use Entourage to access a calendar on an Exchange 2007 server

949464 The customized properties are removed in the recipients’ calendars when you send a meeting request that includes customized properties

950115 When a CDO 1.2.1-based application generates a meeting request that includes some European characters in the message body, these characters appear as question marks in Exchange 2007

951341 Users cannot read calendar items when they connect Exchange Server 2007 by using certain IMAP4 or POP3 clients

952778 Event ID 9874 is frequently logged on Exchange Server 2007 with Service Pack 1

953094 The value in the “Messages queued for submission” performance counter on the mailbox role of Exchange Server 2007 increases after a meeting request is delivered

954213 All Test commands that are related to the Client Access Server fail when you run the commands on an Exchange 2007 server in a disjoint namespace

954741 The UseRUSServer parameter does not work if an administrator has specified an RUS server on a target mailbox server

954898 The LegacyExchangeDN attributes for mail-enabled objects are incorrectly set in an environment that contains Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007

955027 The Edgetransport.exe process may crash on a hub transport server that is running Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1

955462 You notice high CPU usage when the IMAP service is running on an Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 server that has the CAS role

955778 You receive a Non-Delivery Report (NDR) message when you send an e-mail message to a non-SMTP address in an Outlook client that is using Cached mode

956069 A Non-Delivery Report (NDR) is generated when an Exchange Server 2007 user tries to send a message to a recipient who has a one-off FAX address that includes any characters that are larger than 0xFF in Unicode

956205 Corrupted characters appear in the Subject field or in the Location field of a recurring calendar item after a user adds DBCS characters to a field in a meeting occurrence by using an Outlook 2002 client

956275 An Exchange 2007 sender’s address is split into two separate addresses when an external recipient replies to the message

956455 The display name appears in a received message even though the property of the user mailbox is set to “Hide from Exchange address lists” in Exchange Server 2007

956687 Messages stay in the submission queue after you enable per-mailbox database journaling in an Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2007 coexisting environment

957019 Images cannot be pasted in an Exchange Server 2007 Outlook Web Access message body

957071 The MSExchange Transport service may crash intermittently on the Exchange 2007 server

957124 You do not receive an NDR message even though your meeting request cannot be sent successfully to a recipient

957227 The Exchange Management Console crashes when one or more domain controllers of a top-level domain are not reachable

957485 The Test-OwaConnectivity command returns a warning message in Exchange Server 2007 when there is a disjoint namespace

957504 The IMAP4 service crashes intermittently, and Event ID 4999 is logged on Exchange Server 2007

957683 An IP Gateway can still be used to dial out for a “Play on Phone” request after the IP Gateway is disabled

957834 Network shares are deleted and created intermittently by the replication service on an Exchange SCC cluster when SCR is enabled on the Exchange server

957947 The Exchange Information Store service may crash when an Entourage client synchronizes with an Exchange 2007 server

958091 You cannot update the task complete percentage to any value other than 0 or 100 in Outlook Web Access

958093 Voice mail messages are not stamped with the disclaimer that is defined in the transport rule in an Exchange Server 2007 environment

958128 Replication messages stay in a queue in a retry state after a public folder database is dismounted

958331 The Restore-StorageGroupCopy command may fail in an Exchange Server 2007 SCR environment

958444 Event 522 is logged when replication is resumed on a suspended Storage Group on an Exchange Server 2007 CCR or SCR environment

958472 An unexpected text string appears at the top of the message body when an Exchange Server 2007 user sends an HTML message by using Outlook Web Access

958552 The ByteEncoderTypeFor7BitCharsets setting does not take effect for the US ASCII character set after you install the hotfix that is mentioned in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 946641

958638 Exchange 2007 Server cannot parse X-Priority headers from clients that submit X-Priority headers that contain additional comments

958803 The EdgeTransport.exe process may stop responding in Exchange Server 2007 when the priority queuing feature is enabled

958872 The Map This Address feature in the contact page for an OWA client does not work in Exchange Server 2007

959100 Exchange Server 2007 cannot route e-mail messages to mail enabled Non-MAPI public folders that are hosted on an Exchange Server 2003 server

959135 Event 9673 occurs when the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service crashes on a computer that is running Exchange 2007 with Service Pack 1

959397 An increase in database size is generated unexpectedly when IMAP4 users use a Copy command in Exchange 2007

959434 The last logon time is not updated to reflect the logon times that have occurred after users log on to their mailboxes by using the Entourage client in an Exchange 2007 environment

959545 A redirection message in Outlook Web Access 2007 is incorrect when the message is translated to Korean

959671 The Manage Mobile Devices option is not displayed in Exchange Management Console after a mobile device re-synchronizes with an Exchange 2007 server

959952 The Set-Mailbox command does not change the AutomateProcessing attribute for an Exchange Server 2007 user when a regular user mailbox is converted from a room mailbox

960291 Outlook Web Access or an Exchange Web Service application does not correctly display a monthly or yearly recurring appointment or meeting request

960292 The MSExchangeIMAP4 service may crash intermittently after you apply an update rollup for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1

960349 The Exchange Information Store service may crash after you enable tracing for the logon actions

961281 An error is returned when you enable SCR from any source in a child domain after you install Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Rollup 5

961395 The Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging server does not update the caller information if an external user makes a call

A nice feature in Exchange 2007 SP1 is the Message Tracking. Message tracking records the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) transport activity of all messages that are transferred to and from an Exchange 2007 computer that has the Hub Transport, Mailbox, or Edge Transport server role installed. You can use message tracking logs for message forensics, mail flow analysis, reporting, and troubleshooting. In this article I’ll give you some nice tips to configure and fine-tune the message tracking feature.

Remember, by default, message tracking is enabled on all Exchange 2007 computers that have the Hub Transport, Mailbox, or Edge Transport server roles installed.

You can enable or disable the message tracking performing the following steps:

1) Open the Exchange Management Console
2) Open Server Configuration, Hub Transport, Properties on your servername
3) Click on the tab Log Settings       

You can also configure the message tracking with the Exchange Management Shell. You can use the following command:

Set-TransportServer <Identity> -MessageTrackingLogEnabled <$true | $false>
(For example: Set-TransportServer SRVEXC01 -MessageTrackingLogEnabled $true)
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By default, the place of your message tracking logfiles is the following location:
DriveLetter:\Exchsvr\TransportRoles\Logs\MessageTracking
(For example: E:\Exchsvr\TransportRoles\Logs\MessageTracking)

You can change this path with the Exchange Management Console, just browse to the new folder, or you can change this path with the Exchange Management Shell with the following command:
Set-TransportServer <Identity> -MessageTrackingLogPath <LocalFilePath>
(For example: Set-TransportServer SRVEXC01 -MessageTrackingLogPath E:\MessageTracking\Logs)

Note! when you change the message tracking logpath, make sure this folder has the following permissions:
- Administrator: Full Control
- System: Full Control
- Network Service: Read, Write, and Delete Subfolders and Files
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By default, the maximum size for each message tracking log file is 10 MB. When a message tracking log file reaches its maximum size, Exchange 2007 opens a new message tracking log file. This process continues until either of the following conditions is true:
- The message tracking log directory reaches its specified maximum size.
- A message tracking log file reaches its specified maximum age.

After the maximum size or age limit is reached, circular logging deletes the oldest message tracking log files.
By default, the maximum size for the whole message tracking log directory is 250 MB. Circular logging deletes the oldest message tracking log files when either of the following conditions is true:
- A message tracking log file reaches its specified maximum age.
- The message tracking log directory reaches its specified maximum size.You can change this size with the following command:
Set-MailboxServer <Identity> -MessageTrackingLogMaxDirectorySize <DirectorySize>
(For example: Set-TransportServer SRVEXC01 -MessageTrackingLogMaxDirectorySize 600MB)
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By default, the maximum age for any message tracking log file is 30 days. Circular logging deletes the oldest message tracking log files if either of the following conditions is true:
- The message tracking log directory reaches its specified maximum size.
- A message tracking log file reaches its specified maximum age.You can change this age with the following command:
Set-TransportServer <Identity> -MessageTrackingLogMaxAge <Age>
(For example: Set-TransportServer SRVEXC01 -MessageTrackingLogMaxAge 90.00:00:00)

 To specify an age value, enter it as a time span, as follows: dd.hh:mm:ss where d = days, h = hours, m = minutes, and s = seconds. The valid input range for this parameter is 00:00:00 to 24855.03:14:07. Setting the value of the MessageTrackingLogMaxAge parameter to 00:00:00 prevents the automatic removal of message tracking log of files because of their age.
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To see all the settings of your TransportServer, you can use the following command:
get-transportserver | fl

In the next post I’ll let you see how to use the Exchange Message Tracking for easy tracing some e-mailtraffic.

Yesterday Microsoft has released Rollup 6 for Exchange 2007 SP1.

Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2007 SP1 fixes the issues that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:

950675  Downloaded .xls file attachments are empty when you open the files by using Outlook Web Access on Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1

955443  Some free/busy messages are not replicated from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2003 servers after some mailboxes are migrated from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2007

956536  The Microsoft Exchange File Distribution service uses lots of memory and processor time when Exchange Server 2007 processes many OABs

956624  The Microsoft Exchange Transport service crashes continuously after you enable journal rule or deploy an antivirus application on an Exchange Server 2007 server

957748  The custom message class of contact object is overwritten by the normal IPM.Contact class when an Exchange 2007 server replicates the contact object to any other public store

959239  MS09-003: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange could allow remote code execution

More information you can find here. You can download Rollup 6 for Exchange 2007 SP1 here.

Here’s a list of the must used TCP & UDP IP ports that you could possibly need to use (or open in your firewall(s)).

TCP port 25 – SMTP
TCP port 26 – SSL secured SMTP
TCP port 110 – Post Office Protocol (POP3)
TCP port 995 – SSL secured POP3
TCP port 143 – Internet Message Access Protocol v. 4 (IMAP4)
TCP port 993 – SSL secured IMAP4
TCP port 80 – HTTP for Outlook Web Access
TCP port 443 – SSL secured HTTP for Outlook Web Access (HTTPS)
TCP/UDP port 389 – Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
TCP port 3268 – LDAP communications with an Active Directory Global Catalog Server
TCP port 119 – Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
TCP port 563 – SSL secured NNTP
TCP port 135 – Remote Procedure Protocol (RPC) however it will also use ports 1024 and up as needed.
TCP/UDP port 53 – Domain Name System (DNS)
TCP port 102 – Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) *Only used in X.400 connections.
TCP/UDP port 88 – Kerberos

Today I’ve installed HP Data Protector 6.0 in my virtual test environment. So we’re going to create a full Exchange Store backup using HP Data Protector.

First off all i’ve installed a Windows 2003 Server with HP Data Protector 6.0. (Note: if you’re using Exchange 2007, install patch DPWIN_307 or later)

After the installation we’re are going to deploy the HP Client to the Exchange 2007 server, for communicating with the Backup server.

The next step is configuring the device for the backup destination. In my situation it’s a backup to disk.

Now the device is created, we can go further with configuring the Exchange full Store backup.

In the next few days i’m going to configure the Exchange 2007 Single Mailbox backup.

Exchange quota information is stored in Active Directory, and by default is cached by Exchange for up to two hours.  This means that it could take up to two hours for a quota change to take effect.  The recommended interval for Exchange to refresh quota information is 20 minutes, which can be set by adding three registry values.
 
- Start the registry editor on your Exchange 2007 Mailbox server
- Locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ParametersSystem key.
- Create the “Reread Logon Quotas Interval” value
- Right-click ParametersSystem, select New, and then select DWORD value.
- Name the new DWORD value “Reread Logon Quotas Interval”.
- Right-click Reread Logon Quotas Interval, and then click Modify.
- Enter a decimal value of 1200 seconds (20 minutes)
- Create the “Mailbox Cache Age Limit” value
- Right-click ParametersSystem, select New, and then select DWORD value.
- Name the new DWORD value “Mailbox Cache Age Limit”.
- Right-click Mailbox Cache Age Limit, and then click Modify.
- Enter a decimal value of 20 (20 minutes)

- Locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange ADAccess key.
- Create the “CacheTTLUser” value
- Right-click MSExchange ADAccess, select New, and then select Key.
- Name the new key Instance0.
- Right-click Instance0, select New, and then select DWORD value.
- Name the new DWORD value “CacheTTLUser”.
- Right-click CacheTTLUser, and then click Modify.
- Enter a decimal value of 300 (5 minutes)

Alternately, copy this text file and paste it into a file called MailboxCache.reg, then import it into the registry of each of your Exchange 2007 Mailbox servers

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Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ParametersSystem]
“Reread Logon Quotas Interval”
=dword:000004b0
“Mailbox Cache Age Limit”
=dword:00000014
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange ADAccess\Instance0]
“CacheTTLUser”
=dword:0000012cc
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Ex-colleague Duncan Epping wrote a great article on his blog about running Exchange 2007 on VMware ESX. You can find this article here.

- Installation
- Best practices
- Migration
- Storage solutions

Have a look on his blog, there are some great articles more, so check it out by yourself on Yellow-Bricks.com

This new Microsoft site lets you test you Exchange 200x remote connecttivity. You can choose the following tests:

Exchange Connectivity Analyzer

- Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync Test
This test will simulate the steps a mobile device uses to connect to an Exchange Server using Echange ActiveSync.

- Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync AutoDiscover Test
This test will walk through the steps a Windows Mobile 6.1 device (or another AirSync licensed device) uses to connect to the AutoDiscover Service

- Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 AutoDiscover Connectivity Test
This test will walk through the steps Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 uses to connect to AutoDiscover

- Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 RPC/HTTP Connectivity Test
This test will walk through the steps Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 uses to connect via RPC/HTTP

- Inbound SMTP Email Test
This test will walk through the steps an Internet e-mail server uses to send inbound SMTP email to your domain