Tag Archives: Exchange

Removing an auto-mapped mailbox

Posted by on December 7, 2012 No comments

In Exchange Server 2010 SP1, shared mailbox with full access rights will be auto mapped to the users given such rights. This is fine for that user who doesn’t seem to know how to add an additional mailbox to their Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013 client. But what about those support and systems admins who grant themselves access for troubleshooting and find out later they are stuck with this new folder under their Outlook folder that can’t be removed.

Well we never say “can’t”. So what you need to do to remote the auto-mapping attribute is to reach out to the administrator if you are not one or if you are just find your way to the Exchange Management Power Shell and issue the following command:

Add-MailboxPermission -Identity <shared mailbox alias> -User <your mailbox alias> -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType All -Automapping $false

Once this command is run the additional mailbox will automatically be removed.

Reference: Disable Outlook Auto-Mapping with Full Access

Issue: Outlook Address Book Not Updating

Posted by on November 8, 2012 No comments

Symptoms:

New users added to Exchange 2010 do not show up in global address book

Tests Performed:

1. Searched for new users from Outlook – This failed
2. Searched for new users from OWA – This works
3. Put Outlook in non-cached mode and searched – this worked

Suspected Problem:

Offline Address Book Generation is not happening – Possible cause, resources (memory) on host server, service failure.

Steps Taken: *note* I have seen this before so I know where I am looking first

1. Stop the Microsoft Exchange File Distribution Service

2. Stop the Microsoft Exchange Address Book

3. Clear the files from ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ExchangeOAB’ putting them into a backup folder of some sort.

4. Restart the services above.

5. To get the OAM to immediately generate run the following command: Update-OfflineAddressbook “name of offline address book”. You may encounter an issue stating that the System Attendant Service is not running or you do not have permission. 1. Make sure you are running the Exchange Management Shell as Administrator and 2. The System Attendant Service is running. *note* The Service is named “Microsoft Exchange System Attendant”.

6. You will now notice that the GUIDS and files have started to populate under \ExchangeOAB\ folder

Follow-up Testing that things now work:

1. Exit Outlook and delete the Offline Address Book cache from ‘C:\Users\%user profile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\Offline Address Books’

2. Open outlook again cache should repopulate at this point.

3. Open a new email message or click the Address Book and search for the person(s) who were not showing previously.

Conclusion:

The Outlook Client failed to download an updated copy of the Offline Address Book because the services have stopped functioning. I was unable to obtain errors in the event logs regarding this, however having experienced this in the past it has become suspect

- For Darlene

Simple Exchange 2010 Database White Space Report

Posted by on October 2, 2012 1 comment

I was looking at some of my database on Exchange that seemed to be very large in size so first thought was that an offline defrag may be needed, but before I reach that point I wanted to know how much ‘slack’ or white space existed in each of my Exchange databases.

This was done by using the following command syntax in the Exchange Management Shell:

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

To export this into a CSV format the following can also be done, so that you can give to any management members for review of your findings:

Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | Select-Object Server,Name,AvailableNewMailboxSpace | Export-Csv C:\work\white_space_report.csv -Force -NoType

Next, I may find a way to setup this to email a weekly report…

Exchange 2010 SP2 | Mailbox Export Request

Posted by on May 15, 2012 No comments


Exchange 2010 has many improvements.  As we know when things change they do not often stay the same. In this case the method used to export exchange email boxes to PST files. Back in a previous post I went over the steps of exporting a mailbox to PST. To do this all you needed was a system with the Exchange 2007 tools installed and office.  This has changed in Exchange 2010 SP2. I note the SP2 because this is what I am using and the methods have changed from the initial release.

In Exchange 2010, you first need to be assigned the “Mailbox Import Export” role to import or export email boxes.  To assign the “Mailbox Import Export” role to an individual user, use the following syntax:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "Mailbox Import Export" -User jsmith

To assign the “Mailbox Import Export”role to a Windows security group, use the following syntax

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "Mailbox Import Export" -SecurityGroup Administrators

In addition to the “Mailbox Import Export” role, the user which will actually perform export / import must also be member of the local Administrators group on the Exchange server on which the export operation is taking place.

To run the command to export the mailbox we need to open the EMC and run the following command:

New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox jermsmit -FilePath "\\SERVER\pst backups\jermsmit.pst"

You need to grant read/write (full) permission to the group Exchange Trusted Subsystem to the network share where you’ll export or import mailboxes. If you don’t grant this permission, you’ll receive an error message stating that Exchange is unable to establish a connection to the target mailbox.

With this new method, the requirement for Office to be installed no longer exists and Exchange 2010 queues up the backup to the UNC folder path specified.

- Jermal

Determining Free Space in an Exchange 2010 Mailbox Database

Posted by on May 8, 2012 No comments

In Exchange 2010 you can see how big your mailbox databases are, and how much white space they have, by running the following command in the Exchange Management Shell.

[PS] C:>Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | ft name,databasesize,availablenewmailboxspace -auto

In screen-cap database AB is 64.76 GB in size but has 11.97 MB white space due to mail deleted. This is a nice clean server post migration.  As time goes on the white space will grow and the need to defrag will be required to free up unused space.  – this I will go into at in another post.

- jermal

Public Folders Not Replicating From Exchange 2007 to 2010

Posted by on May 8, 2012 No comments

After a migration from Exchange Server 2007 to Exchange Server 2010 I encountered a problem with the replication of public folders. It seems they would not replicate regardless of what I attempted.  I spent sometime looking into this, and not wanting to HACK in a solution just to make it work.  I wanted it to work and work right. I am here now to share some simple steps to look into if you a similar issues with public folder replication.

History: The public folders in this origination was from a Exchange 2003, migrated to 2007 (issues along the way) and not being moved to Exchange 2010.

From what I have read that this is a know issue and seems to happen with Exchange organizations that have previously run versions of Exchange Server 2003 or below.

The Exchange Server 2010 Application Event Log will have this error:

The store driver couldn’t deliver the public folder replication message ” ” because the following error occurred: The Active Directory user wasn’t found. This is Application Event ID 1020

The cause of this error:
A legacy container in Active Directory for the Exchange 2003 (or earlier) in server objects.

Do not follow these steps if you still have Exchange 2003 or earlier versions running in your organization.

Launch ADSIEdit.msc and navigate to CN=Configuration <your domain>, CN=Services, CN=Microsoft Exchange, CN=<your org name>, CN=Administrative Groups, CN=<your legacy administrative group>, CN=Servers.

If you no longer operate any Exchange 2003 or earlier servers and the Servers container is empty then you can delete the container.

I was able to replicate the public folder hierarchy and content from Exchange Server 2007 to 2010 after doing this.  How awesome is that!

- Jermal

Old Error, Now New

Posted by on May 8, 2012 No comments

It’s back again:

Source: MSExchangeIS
Error ID: 9646
Description: Mapi session “xxxx: /o=OrganizationName/
ou=AdministrativeGroupName/cn=Recipients/cn=UserName”
exceeded the maximum of 500 objects of type “objtFolder”.

Microsoft Exchange 2010 server logs the above message. While on the client end Outlook client doesn’t update folders automatically.

The number of server-side objects that are allowed by clients is limited to prevent a single client from the exhausting resources on the Exchange server.

To resolve this problem:

1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetservicesMSExchangeIS

2. Right click ParametersSystem and create New -> Key

3. Enter MaxObjsPerMapiSession and confirm creation of the new sub-key

4. Right click newly created key, create new DWORD value called objtFolder and give it a decimal value bigger than default 500.

5. Create another DWORD value called objtFolderView and give it the same value.

Move mailbox in Exchange 2010 fails

Posted by on April 27, 2012 No comments

When I was moving a mailbox from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 I had mailbox moves which fail due to the “corrupt” limit being hit.

errorMessage: Message (size 11.00 MB ) exceeds the maximum allowed size for submission to the target mailbox. You can increase this limit by using the Set-Mailbox cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell.

And while this can be fixed by doing the following:
Go to to user mailbox properties (in EX2010), then go to mail flow settings, then set Message Size Restriction properties and set both Sending and Receive message size to high value (99999).

Then go Move Request node again and resume the move request and it should work. Just remember to go back to the user mailbox setting again and set Message size restriction to its default value.

This is a per mailbox solution and doesn’t scale when moving many email boxes over in the migration process.

So before attempting any mailbox moves during a migration from 2007 to 2010, make sure you set the send receive limit to something larger, otherwise valid messages will be dropped as “corrupt” messages simply because they are over the size limit

Set the limit under global config -> hub transport -> global setting

- jermal

“New Local Move Request” missing

Posted by on April 26, 2012 No comments

As you have noticed I am currently involved with turning up an Exchange 2010 server and migrating over. This doesn’t happen without learning some new tricks and getting to understand the new kid on the block. This is where New Local Move Request and I became friends.

I was unable to move a mailbox account that I had previously moved.  It wasn’t long until I discovered that if there is an existing Move Request (pending, in progress, failed or completed) you will not see the “New Local Move Request”

The solution to this is very simple, so much so that you wouldn’t think of it until you ran into the same issue. Just find your way to ‘Move Request’ located under Recipient Configuration and you will have the option that reads ‘Clear Move Request’.

Move requests should be enabled again and you,  are good to go.

- jermal

Testing Remote access to Exchange with Microsoft Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer

Posted by on April 26, 2012 No comments

The Microsoft Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer is awesome tool for troubleshooting Exchange external access.

If you are setting up a new Exchange environment and want to test remotely, this is the tool for you.