Manual outlook configuration with Exchange 2013
Introduction
When I first heard that Exchange 2013 has killed MAPI and that now even internal clients connect to exchange using RPC over HTTP (or outlook anywhere), the first question that popped to my mind was "What should we enter in the server name then?"
Well it wasn't too long before I got the answer to that question, as you can see in the image below the servername is no longer the server FQDN, instead outlook uses a new connection point MailboxGUID @ UPNsuffix e.g.: 271d1d80-72c1-440f-b34c-f748dba61332@zerohoursleep.com this change has for goal to remove the infamous “Your administrator has made a change to your mailbox. Please restart.”
Yes you've read it right, it is the MailboxGUID so it will change for every user! You wouldn't care a lot about this if you are using outlook auto-configuration, however if you want to configure Outlook manually keep on reading.
Getting the Server Name
The only way I found to retrieve this GUID is through the Exchange Management Shell by running Get-mailbox username | ft name,ExchangeGUID, the GUID in question is that big funny string.
KB2756920 causes IIS to crash
I have faced a recent issue on OWA of Exchange 2010 installed on windows 2008 R2 on various server.
The issues caused OWA - Blackberry - Out of office and autodiscover to totally crash and the application log was filled with errors similar to the below
EventID: 3
Source: System.ServiceModel 3.0.0.0
WebHost failed to process a request.
Sender Information: System.ServiceModel.ServiceHostingEnvironment+HostingManager/30542218
Exception: System.ServiceModel.ServiceActivationException: The service '/EWS/exchange.asmx' cannot be activated due to an exception during compilation. The exception message is: Method not found: 'System.String System.ServiceModel.Activation.Iis7Helper.ExtendedProtectionDotlessSpnNotEnabledThrowHelper(System.Object)'.. ---> System.MissingMethodException: Method not found: 'System.String System.ServiceModel.Activation.Iis7Helper.ExtendedProtectionDotlessSpnNotEnabledThrowHelper(System.Object)'.
at System.ServiceModel.WasHosting.MetabaseSettingsIis7V2.WebConfigurationManagerWrapper.BuildExtendedProtectionPolicy(ExtendedProtectionTokenChecking tokenChecking, ExtendedProtectionFlags flags, List`1 spnList)
After some troubleshooting removing KB2756920 solved the issue.
Although I only faced the issue with Microsoft Exchange, this is rather an IIS issue and I guess it could affect any other web-based application.
Bulk Mailbox creating mailboxes in Exchange 2010 multi-tenant
I recently received this email in my inbox so I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate a post answering this question.
Hi Antoine,
First of all, I'd like to thank you for you blog, I used your guide to set up an Exchange 2010 multi tenant set up and it worked like a dream! Very clear instructions, just what I needed to guide us through the potential minefield!
Do you have any blog posts or examples on how to bulk create mailbox in a multi tenant environment, I'd like to a take a spreadsheet with users name, e-mail address etc. and create multiple mailboxes using a powershell script. I'm a GUI man at heart and I find powershell tricky at the best of times. I saw your blog on how to import PST files which I also think will be very useful.
Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Before getting started, and if you are new to Exchange 2010 multi-tenant mode I suggest you check the list of tutorials I wrote : Exchange 2010 hosting for hosters.
Lab Setup
For this tutorial I am using a single exchange server in hosting mode running all the roles, but the number of exchange servers you have in your setup will not change anything.
I have also created 2 test organizations for this tutorial TestOrg1 and TestOrg2.
A look to the CSV file
Quick Tip: Fix “Enable Web-based distribution” greyed out in offline address book
After upgrading from Microsoft Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 or 2010 you might notice that the "Enable Web-based distribution" option is greyed out. The first thing to check is if you have moved the Offline Address Book generation to an Exchange 2007/2010 server.
However if you have already done this and the option is still disabled it can easily fixed by running ApplyMandatoryProperties on it. This can be done by running the below powershell command
Get-OfflineAddressBook | Set-OfflineAddressBook -ApplyMandatoryProperties
Et voila! you can now "Enable Web-based distribution"
Enable end users to manage group membership of distribution groups in Exchange 2010
I am often asked how to allow end users, or regular users with no administrative privileges, to change group membership of specific distribution groups in Exchange 2010. This is what I will cover today in this short tutorial.
In this post I will show you how to allow to userA to manage group membership of DistGroup
First open Exchange Management Shell -> Recipient Configuration -> Distribution Group
Find the distribution group DistGroup and right click properties on it
Go to the Group information and add UserA as manager to this group and click OK
Creating a DAG in Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant mode
After my posts about Exchange multi-tenant or hosting mode I got a lot of questions about how to create Database Availability Group, or DAG, when running Exchange hosted. So I decided to dedicate a post on how to configure/create DAG using powershell.
Technically the below applies to any exchange setup but, since when running in hosting mode there is no more Exchange Management Console, it might be specially useful if you are trying to configure a DAG while running exchange in multi-tenant mode.
The setup
For this article I am using 2 Exchange 2010 SP1 servers running the mailbox role in multi-tenant mode configured as below
| Name | LAN IP | Replication network IP |
| VSMBX1 | 10.2.1.71 | 192.168.99.71 |
| VSMBX2 | 10.2.1.72 | 192.168.99.72 |