Message tracking in Microsoft Exchange 2013….the easy way!

 

In Microsoft Exchange 2010 there was a very easy and powerfull tool, message tracking viewer. With this graphical tool you could track any message within your Exchange organization.

With Exchange 2013, the message tracking is not graphical anymore. So it’s not that easy to track some messages. The new way to go is Windows PowerShell! With the following example, you can easy create a overview of all the messages in your Exchange environment.

Get-MessageTrackingLog -ResultSize Unlimited -Start “Jul 15 2015″ | Out-GridView -Title “Exchange SMTP tracking log”

 

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You can create a search filter based on, for example: EventID, Sender, Recipients or Subject.

 

How to: View configured mailbox quota’s in Exchange 2010/2013 using Out-GridView

When you’ve configured mailbox quota’s within your Exchange 2010/2013 environment, you’ve to check the configuration sometimes. Using Microsoft PowerShell, you can watch the current configuration within a few second, so this is extremely powerfull!! But, when you have to query for some specific user or result, it’s not that easy.

There’s a very usefull command within PowerShell that I’m using almost for all my scripts….Out-GridView. When using the parameter Out-GridView, the results are not showing within the PowerShell screen, but in a separate window! Within this window, you can very easy add some search criteria….for example: specific user, quota or an overview per database.

One requirement is that the Windows Feature “Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE)” is installed on the Exchange servers or mangement server from where you’re running the commands.

1.) Open the Exchange Management Shell (EMS)
2.) For an overview of the current mailbox quota, use the following command.
Get-Mailbox -Identity mswinkels | ft Name, IssueWarningQuota, ProhibitSendQuota, ProhibitSendReceiveQuota
3.) The results of this command is shown within the PowerShell window
4.) Now we’re running the same command, but replace “ft” (format-table) with “select” and add the parameter “Out-GridView”
Get-Mailbox -Identity mswinkels | Select Name, IssueWarningQuota, ProhibitSendQuota, ProhibitSendReceiveQuota | Out-GridView
5.) Now the results are in a separate window! Extreme usefull when you’ve have to search for a specific result or results.

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How to: View all mailbox databases in a Exchange 2010 and 2013 coexistence environment with PowerShell

When you setup coexistence with Microsoft Exchange 2010 and 2013, you can manager you mailbox databases in different ways. Though the Exchange Management Console (EMC), Exchange Control Panel (ECP) or with Exchange Management Shell (EMS). Today I had to configure a new Microsoft Exchange 2013 environment in a existing Exchange 2010 environment, so this is a coexistence infrastructure.

When I had installed the new Exchange 2013 servers, and I had started the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) from the new Exchange 2013 server, I saw only the new Exchange 2013 database. But wait a minute, I had also a copple of mailbox databases configured on my existing Exchange 2010 environment. In the Exchange Control Panel (ECP), all the databases are visseble, but why not in the Exchange Management Shell?

The solution is pretty easy. Within Exchange 2013 there’s a new parameter that you can use with the Get-MailboxDatabase command. So the new parameter is -IncludePreExchange2013. The whole command should be: Get-Mailboxdatabase -IncludePreExchange2013.

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How to: Install Exchange 2013 fully unattended

When you’ve to install a new Microsoft Exchange 2013 environment, you can start collecting all the necessary things, just lik pre-requisites etc…but there is a script available in the Microsoft TechNet Gallery. This script does the trick for you fully unattended. You just have to give in some names and paths. The script downloads all the pre-requisites, installs all the necessary Windows roles and features and installs Exchange 2013 the way you like 🙂

The script can be found here.

All you have to download is the Microsoft Exchange 2013 ISO and create some destination folders, that’s it!! You can also choose to install a multi role Exchange 2013 environment or maybe a multi server Exchange 2013 environment where you’ve multiple mailbox (MBX) and client access (CAS) servers. In my lab environment I’ve installed one multi role server in just a few clicks!! Below the commands I’ve used.

#######################################################################
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

mkdir E:\Install\E2K13_ISO
mkdir E:\Databases\MDT01
mkdir E:\Logs\MDB01
mkdir E:\Install\Prereq

$Cred=Get-Credential
E:\Install\Install-Exchange2013.ps1 -Organization DemoLab -InstallMultirole -MDBDBPath E:\Databases\MDB01 -MDBLogPath E:\Logs\MDB01 -MDBName MDB01 -InstallPath E:\Install\Prereq -AutoPilot -Credentials $Cred -SourcePath E:\Install\E2K13_ISO -IncludeFixes -InstallFilterPack -Verbose
#######################################################################

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Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Service Pack 1 Architecture Poster

Microsoft has released the Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Service Pack 1 Architecture Poster. This poster gives you an overview of all the components, load-balancing and possibilities of Exchange Server 2013. Nice to print on the wall in your studyroom 😉

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You can download the Architecture poster here.