MailTips is a new feature in 2010, which displays informational message while a user composes a message. As an administrator, you can configure custom mailtips for a mailbox, distribution group, dynamic distribution group, mail contact and mail enabled public folders.

In this example, I want the users to see the message “Please send only e-mails with ICT related problems” while they compose an email to the ICT Helpdesk. This can be done in two ways, either from Exchange Control Panel (ECP) or Shell.

Run the following shell command to set this feature.
Set-MailBox -Identity HelpdeskICT -MailTip “Please send only e-mails with ICT related problems”

When you receive the following error in Exchange 2010 when opening the Outlook Web App properties in the Exchange Management Console:

An IIS directory entry couldn’t be created. The error message is Access is denied.

Solution: Make sure that the group Exchange Trusted subsystem is member of local administrator group on all the Exchange 2007 servers.

Today I’ve migrated my Exchange 2007 environment to Exchange 2010. After installing Exchange 2010, creating some mailboxdatabases, moving the arbitration mailboxes, I wasn’t able to delete the default created mailboxdatabase from the Exchange 2010 environment. The command failed with the following error:

Remove-MailboxDatabase -Identity “Mailbox Database 0075281871″
This mailbox database contains one or more mailboxes or arbitration mailboxes. To get a list of all mailboxes in this databa
se, run the command Get-Mailbox -Database <Database ID>. To get a list of all arbitration mailboxes in this database, run th
e command Get-Mailbox -Database <Database ID> -Arbitration. Before you can remove this mailbox database, you must disable, m
ove, or remove user mailboxes and move arbitration mailboxes.
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (Mailbox Database 0075281871:DatabaseIdParameter) [Remove-MailboxDatabase],
    AssociatedUserMailboxExistException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : 68BDB73C,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.SystemConfigurationTasks.RemoveMailboxDatabase

When I create an overview of all the arbitration mailboxes, they are already succesfully moved to a new created mailboxdatabase. Why I’m getting this error…?? There’s another default created mailbox, called: Discovery Search Mailbox. After moving this mailbox to another mailboxdatabase, I wass able to delete succesfully the default created mailboxdata from my Exchange 2010 environment.

Update Rollup 2 for Exchange Server 2010 is available.

Download details Update Rollup 2 for Exchange Server 2010 (KB979611)

A cool new feature in Exchange 2010 is to add a signature to your e-mail based on Active Directory information. So if you fill in the correct information in the Active Directory, the signature will be automatically added to your e-mail. You need to follow these steps:

With dynamic distribution groups, group membership is determined by the result of an LDAP query. You can create a dynamic distribution group and define the query parameters by completing the following steps:

1.) Open the Exchange Management Console
2.) Navigate to Recipient Configuration, Distribution Group
3.) Click New Dynamic Distribution Group
4.) Give up  a Name and Alias
5.) Change the Filter settings. In this example I’m using the Active Directory attribute Department
6.) Give up the Filter Condition. To see a preview of all the effected users, click Preview
7.) Click New to finish the last step

Microsoft announced the release of Exchange Server 2010 today at Microsoft TechEd 2009 in Berlin. The release marks the first version of Exchange Server designed for the cloud, and provides customers the option of deploying it on-premises, the way Exchange Server has always been deployed, or use it as a service hosted by Microsoft, or a combination of the two.

This version of Exchange is just really cool stuff!!

For more information, you can read this article on msexchangeteam.com

In this article I’m going to migrate my Exchange 2007 SP2 environment to Exchange 2010. This is my environment:

Server 1
Name: SRV-E2K10DC-01
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 x64
IP: 172.16.1.10
Roles: DC/DNS

Server 2
Name: SRV-E2K7-01
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 SP2 x64
IP: 172.16.1.11
Roles: Exchange 2007 SP2 HT/CAS/MBX

Server 3
Name: SRV-E2K10-01
OS: Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 x64
IP: 172.16.1.12
Roles: Exchange 2010 HT/CAS/MBX

Domain FQDN: EXCHANGE.LOCAL
Forest Functional Level: Windows Server 2008 R2
Domain Functional Level: Windows Server 2008 R2

1.) First I’ve installed all the prerequisites for Exchange 2007 SP2 on server SRV-E2K7-01
Command: servermanagercmd -ip exchange-typical.xml
2.) Install all the prerequistes for Exchange 2010 on server SRV-E2K10-01
Command: servermanagercmd -ip exchange-typical.xml
3.) After rebooting server SRV-E2K7-01, you can install Exchange 2007 SP2
4.) After succesfully installing Exchange 2007 SP2, you can install Exchange 2010 on server SRV-E2K10-01
5.) Open the Exchange Management Console on server SRV-E2K7-01
6.) I’ve created some user account (100) and all mailbox enabled
7.) Open the Exchange Management Console on server SRV-E2K10-01
8.) As you can see, all the mailboxes are vissible!
9.) The next step is to move the mailboxes from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010
10.) Return to the Exchange 2010 server and open the Exchange Management Console
11.) Navigate to Recipient Configuration, Mailbox
12.) Select the mailboxes you want to migrate and right-click
13.) Choose “New Local Move Request”
14.) Select the new Mailbox Database
15.) Wait until the users are migrated to the new Mailbox Server
16.) Select all the completed move requests and select Clear Move Request

The users are now migrated to the new Exchange 2010 environment. In the next post we are going to de-install the Exchange 2007 environment.