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Azure Active Directory Sync (DirSync) seems so simple on the surface doesn’t it? “Next, Next, Finish”, right? Ha! If you’ve ever had to revisit your DirSync server to troubleshoot or make a configuration change, you know there can be more than meets the eye. A lot of useful information happens to be scattered across various registry keys, SQL tables and XML files. If you’re not familiar with the FIM Management Console, and these other locations it might be hard to see what’s going on. ...

Update: Be aware, this script has not been tested with SIP, X400 or other address types. I recently encountered a question in an online forum where someone asked for a script to convert all of their user’s email addresses to lower case values. While this doesn’t affect the message delivery, it can have an impact on aesthetics when the address is displayed in an external recipient’s email client. An Exchange Email Address Policy can do this to some degree, but I wanted to see how it could be done with PowerShell. ...

I am proud to report that today this blog has reached 100,000 views! Maintaining this site has been very rewarding for me, and I’m happy to have been able to contribute to the technical community, which has served me very well since I entered the infotech industry ten years ago. WordPress.com provides statistics on how every blog is used. Here are some facts about mine: My post on setting logon wallpaper for Windows 7 has been my most popular Google’s search results have sent most of my readers (by far). TechNet forums comes in 2nd Google has sent people to this site at a rate 34x to that of Bing Only 9 viewers have used ask.com to find me (GASP!) The anti-spam feature for comments is very good, though the comment spam I receive has been surprisingly complementary; I’m half way inclined to let it through. Thanks to all my visitors. Please share my site with a friend, visit the sites that pay my bills (Mike’s Links – top right), and if you have any topic suggestions or feedback in general, please contact me!

A common challenge in PowerShell: mailbox sizes are returned with the Get-MailboxStatistics cmdlet but the email address is not. For that, you need another cmdlet, such as Get-Mailbox. So how do you combine results from multiple cmdlets into a single output? The Solution: Custom Objects with PSObject The approach involves: Creating a custom object with defined properties set to null Populating fields by querying different cmdlets Using foreach loops to process multiple users Outputting results as a unified list Example: Mailbox Report Here’s how to build a mailbox report combining email addresses and storage sizes: ...

Feb 2021 Edit: Microsoft finally took down the TechNet Gallery. This script is now available on GitHub: RecipientReportv5.ps1 Exchange Server stores alternate email addresses in Active Directory’s multi-valued proxyAddresses attribute. There can be only one uppercase SMTP, and this represents the primary, or “reply to” address. There can be many lower case smtp entries which represent aliases, or alternate addresses. Viewing this information in the Exchange Management Console is straightforward enough: ...

Thank you to all attendees of my sessions at the Cloud Connections conference! I’m making the presentation slides available for download: Piloting Exchange Online - A session on deploying Exchange Online Forefront Online Protection for Exchange - Covering email security features For additional speaker materials, visit the DevConnections website at: http://www.devconnections.com/updates/LasVegas_Spring12/Cloud

Thanks to all readers of the site. Today I purchased the “No Ads” upgrade, and thus made the internet a cleaner place. Enjoy!

Microsoft has released another high-quality poster, this time featuring the Hyper-V architecture in Windows Server “8” Beta. My favorite part of the Windows Server “8” release has to be the Hyper-V updates. You can download the poster from Microsoft’s website. Additional Reading Understand and Troubleshoot Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server “8” Beta How does Storage Migration actually work? Videos Windows 8 Hyper-V: Availability Video Windows 8 Hyper-V: Scalability Video Hyper-V Cmdlets in Windows Server “8” Demo Video Windows Server “8” Extensible Switch in Hyper-V interview with Bob Combs

There is a critical Remote Desktop vulnerability that requires immediate patching. Install this update immediately – Microsoft security bulletin MS12-020. This vulnerability affects multiple Windows versions, particularly those exposing Remote Desktop to the internet, such as Terminal Servers. For those unable to patch immediately, I recommend enabling Network Level Authentication (NLA) as a temporary mitigation. To configure NLA, open the Remote Desktop settings and select the option to allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication. ...

PST (Personal Storage Table) files have several valid uses. Home Outlook users, and those who use IMAP/POP accounts such as Gmail and Hotmail, will always need them. In enterprise environments, they can be used for archiving data in organizations which do not enforce retention policies. In these cases, PST files can be configured through group policy and AutoArchive features. However, in most situations, PST files represent unmanaged storage of email. For regulated enterprises, this can create real compliance problems. When legal discovery is required, PST files scattered across user machines become a nightmare for administrators and legal teams alike. ...