Server Posterpedia v2 available in the Windows Store!

Yesterday, Microsoft has released the new version of the Posterpedia App. This is very nice app, available in the Windows store. Server Posterpedia is an interactive app that uses technical posters as a reference for  understanding Microsoft technologies.

There are posters available for Microsoft Hyper-V, Exchange, Server 2008, SharePoint, Windows Azure, SQL, etc.

You can download the app using the following URL: http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/11/20/server-posterpedia-v2-available-in-the-windows-store.aspx or in the App Store!

       

Cool free Windows 8 app…Server Posterpedia

Microsoft has released a great new free Windows 8 app…Server Posterpedia!Server Posterpedia is an interactive app that uses technical posters as a reference for  understanding Microsoft technologies.

You can download the app using the following URL: http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/nl-NL/app/server-posterpedia/f988071c-66dc-4281-8028-637ac0f09061 or in the App Store! How cool is that!

       

       

How to: Move Catalog Data in Exchange 2010

When you’ve moved an mailbox database, the old catalog data is still present on the old partition. This prevents deleting the specific partition. When you try to delete those files, you receive this error.

Error description:
The Catalog data folder stays in place after a database move path action. The folder couldn’t be cleaned up because it is in use by the Microsoft Exchange Search Indexing service

Solution:
First we have to temporarely disable the indexing on the particular mailbox database. Then we stop the indexing service of Exchange so we can delete the remaining files. The last step is to enable the indexing again.

Actions:
You can follow the next steps.

– Open the Exchange Management Shell and run the following command:
     Set-MailboxDatabase -Identity databasename -IndexEnabled $false
-Before moving / cleaning the catalog files, stop the service Microsoft Exchange Search Indexer
– Move the catalog files to the new database location or clean them up.
– Start the service Microsoft Exchange Search Indexer
– Open the Exchange Management Shell and run the following command:
Set-MailboxDatabase -Identity databasename -IndexEnabled $true

Send-As Permissions with Recipient Management in Exchange 2010

Today I need to configure Role Based Access Control (RBAC) within Exchange 2010. The people on the helpdesk department must be able to set Send-As permissions on the mailboxes. To configure RBAC within Exchange 2010, you can use the RBAC User Editor from the Exchange 2010 toolbox.

Default there are a few pre-configured management roles, each with his own rights and permissions. In my case I added the people from the Helpdesk department in the “Recipient Management” role group. But for setting Send-As permissions, they need some rights more to perform this action.

With the following command, you can extent the role group “Recipient Management” with the Send-As permissions, so they are able to configure Send-As permissions on a specific mailbox. The case in this one is that the Send-As permission is a Active Directory permission, so they also need the role “Active Directory Permissions”.

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Name “ADPermissions Recipient Mgmt” -Role “Active Directory Permissions” -SecurityGroup “Recipient Management”

Get-ManagementRole “Active Directory Permissions” | fl
Get-RoleGroup -Identity “Recipient Management” | fl

Now the members of the role group “Recipient Management” have also the ability to change or configure Send-As permissions. You can also do this through the GUI by dubble-click on the group “Recipient Management” and add the specific management role. See the screenshots below.

       

How to: View the whitespace within a mailbox database in Exchange 2010

To obtain an overview of the whitespace within a mailbox database in Exchange 2010, you can use the following command:

Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | Select-Object Server,Name,AvailableNewMailboxSpace

Whit this new option, it’s possible to see when you’ve to perform an offline defragmentation of your Exchange mailbox databases. To perform an defragmentation, it is still necessary to put the databases offline.

Exchange 2010 SP2 error during installation…”Couldn’t resolve the user or group “domain.lan/Microsoft Exchange Security Groups/Discovery Management.”

Today I had to install a new Exchange 2010 environment. After checking the Active Directory health, I’ve started the Exchange 2010 setup with Service Pack 2 included. The installation fails on the Mailbox Server Role with the following error “Couldn’t resolve the user or group “domain.lan/Microsoft Exchange Security Groups/Discovery Management.” If the user or group is a foreign forest principal, you must have either a two-way trust or an outgoing trust. The trust relationship between the primary domain and the trusted domain failed. Strange behaviour, because the Active Directory is healthy and there are no errors in the Event Viewers. I’ve performed the following steps.

 

1.) Open the Active Directory Users and Computers snapin
2.) Navigate to the Users organizational unit
3.) Delete the DiscoverySearchMailbox account
4.) Rerun the Exchange 2010 setup. The setup will install Exchange 2010 fine now…
5.) Open the Exchange Management Shell (EMC)
6.) Run the command: setup.com /prepareAD The DiscoverySearchMailbox account will be created again.
7.) Mail-enable the new DiscoverySearchMailbox with the following command:
Enable-Mailbox -Discovery -Identity “DiscoverySearchMailbox {D919BA05-46A6-415f-80AD-7E09334BB852}”
8.) Force the Active Directory Replication
9.) Your Exchange 2010 environment is ready for production now

 

       

       

How to: Move the transport queue on an Exchange 2007/2010 Hub Transport Server

When you’ve a large Exchange environment, it’s recommended to change the location of the Hub Transport queue. To do this, you can use the following script. The default location is the folder where you’ve installed Microsoft Exchange. For example C:\Program Files\…

1.) Navigate to the file EdgeTransport.exe.config, located in the Bin directory of the Exchange installation folder.
2.) Search for the rules QueueDatabasePath and QueueDatabasesLoggingPath. This is the orrigional location
3.) Open the Exchange Management Shell
4.) Browse to the scripts directory in the Exchange installation folder
5.) Select the script Move-TransportDatabase.PS1
6.) Run the following command
Move-TransportDatabase.PS1 -QueueDatabasePath NEWLOCATION -QueueDatabaseLoggingPath NEWLOCATION
In my example it’s moving to D:\Queue
7.) Now the Hub Transport database and logfiles will be moved to the new location. It’s containing the following files;

Trn.chk – The checkpoint file
Trn.log – The current transaction log file
Trntmp.log – The next provisioned transaction log file that is created in advance
Trnnnn.log – Other transaction log files that are created when Trn.log reaches its maximum size
Trnres00001.jrs – The Reserve log file
Trnres00002.jrs – The Second Reserve log file
Temp.edb – Temp DB used to verify database schema on start-up