Late last week, Microsoft released another high-quality poster. This time for Hyper-V in Windows 8 (beta).
You can download this poster here.
If you’re interested in learning more on Hyper-V in Windows 8, click some of the links below. This update to Hyper-V is my favorite part of Windows Server 8!
Reading
Videos
3/16/2012 UPDATE:
Exploit code published for RDP worm hole
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I don’t always post on Windows security updates, but when I do, it’s a Dos Equis near to my heart! Do you use Remote Desktop? Of course you do. That’s why you need to install this update immediately:
MS12-020: Vulnerabilities in Remote Desktop could allow remote code execution
This is important for anyone running just about any version of Windows, but especially if you’ve got any machine exposing Remote Desktop directly to the internet (such as a Terminal Server). Fortunately there is a mitigation for those who just cannot patch tonight: enable NLA for your Remote Desktop connections.
Read more here.
Hop to it! Microsoft says not to wait for a normal patch-cycle on this one…
Chances are, if you read my site, you also read the Exchange team blog. This means you’ve seen the PST Capture Tool! I’ve had a chance to work with this tool for a little while now and have found it to be a delight!
“PSTs are bad M’kay?“
This is a line we’ve all recited a time or two (ok maybe not exactly that line), but do we even know why? Are we just parrots, or do we actually have a reason for condemning this hugely prolific file format?
Let’s start by acknowledging that PST files aren’t all bad. M’kay? If you run Outlook at home, or if you use IMAP/POP-based accounts (Gmail, Hotmail, etc) at work, using a PST file can actually be a good idea. While it is possible to direct internet mail to the Exchange mailbox, this would create several problems:
I’d even go so far as to say you might want to use PST files for archiving corporate email! If you run a small shop – or a big one that isn’t subject to any retention policies. A group policy configuring AutoArchive (and a note to your users) might be a good way to implement spring cleaning in your Exchange data stores.
See, PST files actually can serve a purpose!
Then there is the other side of the coin:
In most situations, PST files represent unmanaged storage of email. For someone who is charged with administering an email environment, this means we aren’t able to do our job. If users begin to rely on something that we aren’t taking care of; what happens when it breaks? We’ve all had the uncomfortable task of telling someone we can’t get their data back at least once in our careers. It doesn’t make for fun times.
More important than our comfort; many organizations are subject to regulations which require them to turn email data over to the courts upon request. A judge wont want to hear your sob story about how PST files aren’t searchable, and how you’re going to have to look across the whole network by hand to find that email thread.
I recently completed an Exchange 2010 deployment for a government organization that was subject to such legislation. Once we activated the Personal Archive for their users, they decided to put the kibosh on PST files. To enforce this, we laid out a three phased approach:
The first two steps were quite simple to accomplish. Outlook reads a registry value called PSTDisableGrow (REG_DWORD). We deployed a GPO to implement this as follows:
| Outlook 2003 | HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\PST\ |
| Outlook 2007 | HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\PST\ |
| Outlook 2010 | HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\PST\ |
Set PSTDisableGrow to “1” (without the quotes). This will allow users to mount PST files in Outlook, but it will not allow any new content to be placed within. Don’t worry about overkill here. I used a single GPO for all 3 settings. Outlook version X doesn’t care about extra registry settings in Outlook Y’s key.
PSTDisableGrow has some siblings; read more about DisablePST, DisableCrossAccountCopy and DisableCopyToFileSystem here.
That’s all for now, have a great week!
EDIT: Be sure to also check out this relevant blog post by the Microsoft Exchange product group: Deep Sixing PST Files
Today, Microsoft released SP2 for Exchange 2010. 
You can download SP2 here.
As previously announced, the major features for this update focus on the following areas:
Here are some other fun facts:
You’ll need to add the “IIS 6 WMI Compatibility” component if you are upgrading from RTM or SP1. A fresh install would offer to add this for you, but if you’re upgrading, you’ll need add it yourself. You can easily add the IIS role service with the following two PowerShell commands:
Planet Technologies is hosting a free webcast in which we will be providing some tips, insights and updates on Office 365 and Exchange Online.
If you’re interested in attending, or would like to read the agenda, please see the registration page below.
About Planet Technologies
Planet Technologies, a leading Microsoft partner with multiple gold competencies, is recognized world-wide as a leading expert in the integration and customization of Microsoft technologies, architecture, security and management consulting. Planet’s clients include some of the largest public sector and commercial organizations in the world.
Learn more at www.go-planet.com
EDIT: This article seems to be popular, however readers should note it is from 2011! Check out the updated article here:
Upgrading DirSync to the Latest Version
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As Microsoft has already stated, the new 64-bit version of DirSync.exe is not installed or configured differently than its 32-bit predecessor. However, as a tinkerer, I wanted to verify this and have a look under the hood anyway!
Below are some screenshots of my experiences and insights along the way:
Before you start: Read and follow the instructions! In this article, I assume you’re at the point where you’re actually ready to install this product.
| 1. First I installed the .Net Framework prerequisites as well as my favorite MMC snap-ins onto a new Windows 2008 R2 server. You can do this using the following two lines in PowerShell | Import-Module ServerManagerAdd-WindowsFeature NET-Framework,RSAT-ADDS -Restart |
| 2. Then I ran dirsync.exe (downloaded from the portal.microsoftonline.com site).a. NOTE: Microsoft didn’t bother to change the installer’s executable name (dirsync.exe). This may be confusing if you plan to download and store both x86 and x64 versions. |  |
| 3. A few clicks of the “Next” button… |  |
| a. NOTE: We install to the “Program Files” directory. If this were a x86 application we’d be using “\Program Files (x86)” |  |
| b. NOTE: This screen may take 5-10 minutes. It’s installing a few things in the background:i. SQL 2008 R2 Expressii. Forefront Identity Manager 2010 (FIM)iii. Configuration of the FIM Management Agents (MAs) |  |
| … |  |
| 4. Once the background tasks have completed, you’re able to run the Configuration Wizard. This is where you will need to have your Office 365 tenant prepared and credentials identified, etc. |  |
| 5. Next… |  |
| 6. You should have created this account earlier. Whatever you put in here will be stored within FIM, and if you ever change the credentials, you’ll need to re-run this setup wizard. |  |
| a. Or for the expert user: Dive into FIM directly |  |
| 7. Here you need to supply your forest’s Enterprise Admin credentials. This username is not saved anywhere, and is only needed once to set permissions for these new objects:a. Yourdomain\MSOL_AD_Syncb. Yourdomain\MSOL_AD_Sync_RichCoexistence |
 |
| 8. Selecting this box enables some extra features required for a “hybrid deployment” / “rich coexistence”, and by doing so you’ll allow FIM to update attributes IN YOUR Active Directory. If this box is not checked, FIM will read-only. |  |
| 9. Next.. |  |
| 10. If you’re ready, you can run the initial full synchronization now. Otherwise, you can run it manually at any time.a. Once configured, DirSync runs every 3 hours. |  |
11. If you promise to be careful, you can poke around in the FIM configuration.  a. Note the “hidden” client UIb. If you get an error when opening the FIM console, log out and then back in. Your account was added to some groups that are not yet part of your login ticket.c. Clicking the Management Agents tab shows both sides of your configuration. “TargetWebService” is responsible for all of the Office 365 configurations and the “SourceAD” management agent contains your Active Directory connector information (double-click them to open).NOTE: Changing the DirSync configuration directly within FIM is unsupported by Microsoft. They would prefer you rerun the previously mentioned Configuration Wizard if you need to make any changes. |
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Online Directory Sync\SYNCBUS\Synchronization Service\UIShell\miisclient.exe  |
| 12. Finally, be sure to run Microsoft Update again. You’ll notice that SQL 2008 R2 does not have SP1. |  |
Most medium and large organizations using Microsoft’s Office 365 service will also be using “DirSync” to provision and manage user identities. Until now, DirSync has been based on ILM 2007 FP1, which is a functional, but older application, with no x64 support. This means when installing DirSync onto a server, you had to go out of your way to deploy the Windows Server 2008 operating system since the Server 2008 R2 OS is x64 only.
ILM was replaced by Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010, which uses the x64 CPU architecture and as therefore Windows Server 2008 R2 as well.
Today (finally), Microsoft announced DirSync can now be downloaded for use with the 64-bit architecture. This is great news for new Office 365 customers – no more legacy software needed. However, this does raise a question for existing DirSync users: How do we migrate?
You should check out the announcement for details, but essentially, you reformat and rebuild. Wait! Before you start muttering nasty things about Microsoft – the new installation of DirSync will find all of the identities currently in Office 365 and match them up with the appropriate Active Directory accounts in your environment. There is no downtime for the users.
Thanks to all who attended my sessions at Exchange Connections in Las Vegas this week!
As promised, I have uploaded the slides. You can download them here:
If you’re looking for slides from other presenters, you can find them here:
If you haven’t heard, that hosted Blackberry service for Office 365 I mentioned earlier is now accepting participants in their open beta program. Read more here:
Over the weekend I was given the Microsoft MVP award for a second time!
Thanks to everyone who follows this blog and attends my Exchange Connections sessions; its because of you I am able to wear this badge of honor for another year.
Needless to say:
The EHLO blog posted an important announcement today regarding Exchange 2010 in hosted environments. Previously, for Microsoft to support your multi-tenant deployment of Exchange 2010, you had to build a whole new forest and use a special setup.com /hosting installation process. There were other significant limitations as well.
The strict support statement, combined with Microsoft’s release of Office 365 really came as a one-two punch to some of the smaller companies who wished to host Exchange but could not afford to employ developers and/or take the risk of forfeiting support from Microsoft. It seemed like Microsoft may have lost some love for their hosting partners.
With the Exchange 2010 SP2 update (scheduled to launch later this year), you will be able to host a multi-tenant environment with a regular deployment of Exchange. This is made possible by the new Address Book Policies and specific configurations to be documented with the SP2 release.
Personally, I’d look at this very carefully before deploying any new /hosting environments. This (SP2) seems like a much simpler deployment to maintain.
Let me start off by acknowledging this isn’t exactly an original topic. Many have discussed it in the various BlackBerry-related forums and RIM has an official article on it (albeit very old). I even found a video with similar instructions for BES 4x. What I couldn’t find however was an illustrated and current (BES 5x) walkthrough of testing “Enterprise Activation” from a simulated handheld; so if that’s what you are after, please read on…
Before I get into the steps themselves let’s take a look at one of the simulators, which is based on Blackberry OS 7 device software:
You should know this software is free! You can download it here after you complete the registration.
Once you run through the application setup, you’re greeted with this intuitive interface
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Within, you can do all softs of fun things such as navigate the menus, take screenshots, simulate use of the touchscreen, compass and more.
What we’re after today however is Enterprise Activation (the process of associating the handheld with a Blackberry Enterprise Server).
Initially, I was discouraged to see Enterprise Activation was not working via the normal process:
But after some research I learned it can be completed via simulating a USB connection to the BAS interface instead.
To accomplish this, follow the below steps:
(Click images to enlarge)
| 1. Launch the simulator. You may need to resize the screen and click through a few pop-ups to get to the device’s main screen. |  |
| 2. From the Simulate menu button, select USB Cable Connected. |  |
| 3. From the same computer, launch the BAS web site. Accept certificate warnings and install ActiveX CAB files as prompted. Depending on your browser configuration you may need to adjust the security settings. |
The default URL is: https://server.domain.local:443/webconsole/login
(Bad) |
| 4. You can verify the device is properly connected by expanding the Devices menu tree on the left and selecting Device properties. |  |
| 5. Before you can begin the EA process, you need to create a user. Select a user from your directory that does not currently have a Blackberry device. To do this, expand the BlackBerry solution management menu tree on the left and select Create a user.
6. Once on this screen, simply select Search from the right. It will pull up all of the users in your Exchange Server environment. |
 |
| 7. Select a test user and click Continue. |  |
| 8. On the following screen, select Create a user without activation password. |  |
| 9. Expand the Devices menu tree on the left and select Manage current device. |  |
| 10. Select Assign the current device to a user. |  |
| 11. Click Search once again and select the test user.
12. Click Associate user. |
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| 13. Once complete, notice a new envelope icon on the simulator (covered with a briefcase). This represents the new EA relationship. |  |
| 14. Touch the new envelope and compose a test message. |  |
| 15. Verify it reached its destination and that the message was saved to your test user’s Sent Items folder. |  |
And we’re done! I hope this was helpful.
Would you like an excuse to get out of the office for a few days? When is the last time you learned something new? Or how would you like an opportunity to share fresh ideas on the technology you’re passionate for?
Or heck, maybe it’s just been a while since you’ve been to Vegas? 
Join me and other Microsoft enthusiasts at the DEVCONNECTIONS conference this fall! This semiannual event covers many tracks from Visual Studio to Exchange Server to Microsoft’s hot new cloud products: Azure and Office 365.
In addition to attending some great sessions, I will also be presenting on two topics:
| Exchange Online: Administration |
| Be careful not to fool yourself; Exchange Online (part of Office 365) offloads infrastructure management, but as an administrator, you are still responsible for the administration of your user mailboxes, Internet mail flow, message tracking and more! This session introduces you to the various administrative interfaces of Exchange Online, Forefront, RBAC, provisioning and other operational topics. |
| Exchange Online: Understanding Archiving and Compliance |
| Thinking of moving to Office 365? Whether you are aiming for a period of coexistence or a complete migration, your archival and compliance requirements are not going away! In this session we examine the features and functionality that Microsoft provides around retention, archiving, and search. |
Sign up here, and use the SPKR discount code to save $50.
And if that’s not incentive enough, I’ll close by reminding you that Halloween in Las Vegas should prove to be very interesting…
While replying to a question on the TechNet support forums, I noticed a little green button that wasn’t there before:
It seems that Microsoft has finally created a way to upload pictures to the forums! No more feeling around in the dark, trying to guess what’s wrong.
As the seasoned forum participants will tell you, this isn’t entirely new. You’ve always been able to add an image if it was hosted by another site via editing the thread’s HTML manually, but the introduction of this button will now allow you to store images with Microsoft; no 3rd party site needed. And more importantly, this will allow anyone to upload a screenshot.
Once you upload an image, there are controls to drag it into place, as well as controls to resize.
I’m curious to see how this goes. While I think it’s a needed addition, I would imagine there is a high risk of abuse, or worse, administrators accidently exposing sensitive information about their environments.
Do you use the TechNet forums? If no, why not? What other forums do you like?
The long awaited release of Microsoft Office 365 has arrived. Now what? As nice as it would be to flip a switch and perform your migration, we all know the process is a bit more involved. So, how do you get there from here?
Join Planet and Microsoft experts who’ve been in the trenches participating in thousands of migrations to O365 to date. In this one hour interactive roundtable, they’ll share insights into:
There is no cost to participate but space is limited so register today!
About Planet Technologies
Planet Technologies is recognized world-wide as a leading expert in the integration and customization of Microsoft technologies, architecture, security and management consulting. We offer Microsoft based solutions around business intelligence, CRM, collaboration and messaging, cloud services, desktop deployment, SharePoint solutions, unified communications, virtualization and more. Visit us a www.go-planet.com
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