Outlook Web Access did not initialize error on Exchange 2007 SP1 after installation of Rollup 5
Installing the rollup update 5 on a machine running Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 might cause your Outlook Web Access, OWA, to fail with error Outlook Web Access did not initialize
I have already experienced this error at 2 of my customers on fresh installations and I am surprised I didn't find this error documented at Microsoft (Maybe I didn't look hard enough)
The problem is that, for some weird reason, the installation of the rollup update 5 is removing the Exchange server from the Exchange Domain Servers group !
So if you are facing this issue simply find that group, add your exchange server account to it and restart your server. That should do it!
Export and Import mailboxes in Exchange 2010 SP1
Ever since Exchange 5.5 I have been longing for an easy way to import/export mailboxes to and from PST. I have to admit that Exmerge was a pretty decent tool back then, however, although it did work, I was very disappointed by the requirements of import-mailbox export-mailbox on Exchange 2007, and I prefer to forget the frustration of using these commands with Exchange 2010 RTM.
I can happily say that all my problems are now quickly forgotten after the release of Exchange 2010 SP1 and the new commands New-MailboxImportRequest and New-MailboxExportRequest.
Prerequisites and permissions considerations
I am happy to say that installing Outlook on the server is no longer a requirement to export/import mailboxes and this, for me, was great news!
If you rush things and directly try to run New-MailboxImportRequest cmdlet it will fail with the following error, this is because, by default, no one is assigned the permission to Import and Export mailboxes.
“The term 'New-MailboxImportRequest' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet”
Disable & Enable Organizations in Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant
One thing I have noticed while working with Exchange 2010 SP1 installed in hosting (or multi-tenant) mode is the lack of the possibility to disable/enable a tenant organization.
There is a lot of scenarios when disabling a tenant organization can be very handy and useful. For example if a client didn't pay, you might want to suspend his account without deleting the whole organization and making him lose data.
I have recently developed my own scripts to disable and enable, or suspend and resume, a specific organization for a client of mine and never thought of sharing them until yesterday when this same question popped up on the technet forum and I thought that they might be helpful for some of you so here they are.
Disclaimer
I need to start with a disclaimer, I have built these script for my own use so they are not polished and might be lacking a lot of features and surely have some bugs. Although I am ready to work on them and enhance them if they find interest and feedback I am not to be held responsible for any damage they might cause to your environment. So, in short,
THE SCRIPTS ARE PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE AND "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, AND MAY NOT BE ERROR FREE. ANTOINE KHATER, THE AUTHOR OF THESE SCRIPTS, DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND LIABILITY FOR ANY KIND OF DAMAGES AND/OR LOSS.
Step-by-step Starting with Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant: Sending and receiving emails
This tutorial is part of 4 parts tutorial on Exchange 2010 multi-tenancy support
Part 1: Installation of Exchange 2010 SP1 in hosting mode
Part 2: Creating and deleting Organizations in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 3: Managing Organization in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 4: Sending and receiving emails in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Well I didn't think I would dedicate one post for just "sending/receiving emails" in Exchange 2010 hosting mode however I didn't know where to fit this part so here goes the 4th, and last, part of this tutorial "Step by step starting with Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant"
Receiving email
It is well known that if your exchange 2007/2010 is internet facing you will need to add "Anonymous" to the permission groups of the "Default Receive Connector" on your Hub transport server. Exchange 2010 running in hosted mode is no exception however there is no Exchange Management Console anymore to do this change so we will need to do it through powershell by running the following command. Of course don't forget to replace "Exchange" by your Hub server name.
Step-by-step Starting with Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant: Manage your organizations
This tutorial is part of 4 parts tutorial on Exchange 2010 multi-tenancy support
Part 1: Installation of Exchange 2010 SP1 in hosting mode
Part 2: Creating and deleting Organizations in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 3: Managing Organization in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 4: Sending and receiving emails in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
In part 1 of this tutorial we have seen how to install exchange 2010 SP1 in hosting mode and in part 2 we learned to Create and Delete organizations. I will show you today in this tutorial the basic management of an organization like creating/deleting mailboxes.
Managing mailboxes as a hosting company
Creating mailboxes
We need to make the difference here between you, as a hosting company, creating users in a specific organization and the Organization Administrator creating users for its own organization.
Step-by-step Starting with Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant: Create and delete organizations
This tutorial is part of 4 parts tutorial on Exchange 2010 multi-tenancy support
Part 1: Installation of Exchange 2010 SP1 in hosting mode
Part 2: Creating and deleting Organizations in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 3: Managing Organization in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
Part 4: Sending and receiving emails in Exchange 2010 SP1 hosting mode
In part 1 of this tutorial I have showed you how to install Exchange 2010 SP1 multi-tenant (or in hosting mode).
Today we will go over the process of creating and deleting organizations and mailboxes mailboxes.
A look at Service Plans
Before doing a jump start and create an organization we need to take a look at some files located on your CAS server called Service Plans.
Service plans are located by default in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ClientAccess\ServicePlans" of your CAS server and they define the different services your hosted organization provides to its customer.
