<RANT>

Come on, what’s this about…

“Service Pack 1 is a prerequisite for installing Service Pack 2. Please make sure that your system is running Service Pack 1 before you install Service Pack 2″ as seen here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=a4dd31d5-f907-4406-9012-a5c3199ea2b3)

I’m really not impressed by this, mostly because I’ve been running the RTM version of Vista since the 1^st attempt at installing SP1 onto it killed my machine. So I had been looking forward to trying out SP2… so now to get my machine up to SP2 I’ve to apply 2 service packs!!!

I say again… I’m not impressed!!!

I’m sure the idea is to keep SP2 as small as possible, but to be honest I’d rather have a single bigger download to deal with rather than having to download twice and install twice.

</RANT>

N3ilb

Here follows some EMS code to list all SMTP addresses in Exchange 2007… really rather useful!!

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize “Unlimited” | select name, EmailAddresses | foreach {

“Name: “+$_.name

$_.EmailAddresses | foreach {

if($_.SmtpAddress){

if($_.IsPrimaryAddress){

“Primary SmtpAddress: $($_.SmtpAddress)”

} else {

“SmtpAddress: $($_.SmtpAddress)”

}

}

}

write-output “”

} > c:\Addresses.txt

 

And if you only want mailbox info for users in a specific OU then add

-OrganizationalUnit “Distinguished Name of OU”

To the command, so…

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize “Unlimited” -OrganizationalUnit “OU=OUNAME,DC=MyDomain,DC=Com” | select name, EmailAddresses | foreach {

“Name: “+$_.name

$_.EmailAddresses | foreach {

if($_.SmtpAddress){

if($_.IsPrimaryAddress){

“Primary SmtpAddress: $($_.SmtpAddress)”

} else {

“SmtpAddress: $($_.SmtpAddress)”

}

}

}

write-output “”

} > c:\Addresses.txt

Hope you find this useful!

N3ilb

If you’re planning to use Forefront for Exchange (FfE) to filter emails for profanity then you can save a bit of time and effort and use the example keyword list that ships with FfE instead of creating your own.

The example keyword lists must be installed manually after installing FfE on the Hub Transport server and then imported into a keyword list you create… so…

1. On the server with FfE installed browse to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Forefront Security\Exchange Server” and double-click on “KeywordInstaller.MSI”, Next à Check “I agree and…” and click Next, from the options available select the languages you want à Next à Install à Finish.

    

2. Within the Forefront Server Security Administrator console (FSSAc) select FILTERING à Filter Lists à List Types: Keywords. As shown below…

   

3. Select Add and give your list a name. As shown below…

   

4. With the list you created selected click Edit to launch the list editor.

    

5. Within the list editor click Import, browse to “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Forefront Security\Exchange Server\Data\Example Keywords” and select the appropriate file from those you selected to install in step 1 above.

    

6. Click the <=== button to move the imported text into the ‘Includes in Filter’ selection list and click OK à OK.

    

At this point you’ve now got a profanity list setup but you now need to make sure its used…

1. Within the FSSAc click FILTERING à Keyword à select Transport Scan Job.

    

2. On the bottom right of the FSSAc you should see a Filter section with a dropdown list, from the drop down list select Enabled

    

3. From the Action drop down list select the appropriate action

    

4. Click Save.

    

All mails flowing through this Hub server will now be subject to profanity scanning, repeat the above for your other Hub Transport servers!

N3ilb

Set-MailboxDatabase –Identity ServerName\DatabaseName –IssueWarningQuota Size –ProhibitSendQuota Size –ProhibitSendReceiveQuota Size –DeletedItemRentention NumberOfDays

Set-MailboxDatabase –Identity Exchange1\SG01DB1 –IssueWarningQuota 200000 –ProhibitSendQuota 220000 –ProhibitSendReceiveQuota 250000 –DeletedItemRentention 30

Or…

Set-MailboxDatabase –Identity Exchange\SG01DB1 –IssueWarningQuota 200MB –ProhibitSendQuota 220MB –ProhibitSendReceiveQuota 250MB –DeletedItemRetention 30

I quite like that you can specify the limits in MB!

N3ilb

Setting up SCR…

Enable-StorageGroupCopy –Identity SourceServerName\StorageGroupName –StandbyMachine TargetServerName

Enable-StorageGroupCopy –Identity Exchange1\SG09 –StandbyMachine Exchange1DR

If you receive the warning message:

WARNING: SG09 copy is enabled but seeding is needed for the copy. The storage group copy is temporaily suspended. Please resume the copy after seeding the database.

Then you need to seed the database;

To seed the database… (from the SCR source server or target server)

Update-StorageGroupCopy –Identity SourceServerName\StorageGroupName –StandbyMachine TargetServerName

Update-StorgageGroupCopy –Identity Exchange1\SG09 –StandbyMachine Exchange1DR

Verify SCR health…

Get-StorageGroupCopyStatus –Identity SourceServerName\StorageGroupName –StandbyMachine TargetServerName | FL

Get-StorageGroupCopyStatus –Identity Exchange1\SG09 –StandbyMachine Exchange1DR | FL

Sometimes enabling SCR may fail and if you get the following error message:

The database was not found after log replay. Storage group: ‘Exchange1\SG16′. Database: C:\SG16\DB1.edb.

I’ve found that if you suspend the SCR for the Storage Group and then kick off seeding again it fixes the problem.

Suspending SCR…

Suspend-StorageGroupCopy –Identity SourceServerName\StorageGroupName –StandbyMachine TargetServerName

Suspend-StorageGroupCopy –Identity Exchange1\SG09 –StandbyMachine ExchangeDR

Seeding the database again…

Update-StorageGroupCopy –Identity SourceServerName\StorageGroupName –StandbyMachine TargetServerName –DeleteExistingFiles

Update-StorgageGroupCopy –Identity Exchange1\SG09 –StandbyMachine Exchange1DR –DeleteExistingFiles

Note the extra switch “-DeleteExistingFiles”

Disabling SCR…

Disable-StorageGroupCopy –Identity SourceServerName\StorageGroupName –StandbyMachine TargetServerName

Disable-StorageGroupCopy –Identity Exchange1\SG09 –StandbyMachine Exchange1DR

At this point you should manually delete any database/log files on the target server.

N3ilb

For my own reference ;o) – (Get-ReceiveConnector “ServerName\ReceiveConnectorName”).RemoteIPRanges | Ft lowerbound

UpperBound, Netmask, CIDRLength, RangeFormat and Size are filter options too.

Hi all,

One thing that bugs me about Vista compared to XP or 2000 is that it’s a pain to setup IP settings in the GUI, you have to load about 3 or 4 screens before you get to the one you want (there may be a quicker way but I don’t know it). One alternative to this to configure the IP settings from the command prompt using netsh (also useful for scripting).

From a command prompt (running with admin rights)

Setting a static IP:

Netsh int ip set address “Adapter Name” static IP_Address Subnet_Mask Default_Gateway Gatway_Metric

So…

Netsh int ip set address “Local Area Connection” static 192.168.1.33 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 1

Setting the primary DNS server:

Netsh int ip set dns “Adapter Name ” static IP_Address primary

So…

Netsh int ip set dns “Local Area Connection” static 192.168.1.10 primary

Adding a secondary DNS server:

Netsh int ip add dns “Adapter Name” IP_Address index=2

So…

Netsh int ip add dns “Local Area Connection” 192.168.1.11 index=2

If you are unsure of the adapter name then at the command prompt enter “ipconfig /all” and you should see something along the lines of “Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection” just above the adapter settings, in this case “Local Area Connection” is the adapter name.

N3ilb

Hi All,

Think this has something to do with the install package being very large, its discussed in more detail here (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=925336) and the hotfix (for x86 Server 2003) can be downloaded here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8EFFE1D9-7224-4586-BE2B-42C9AE5B9071&displaylang=en)

Hope you find this useful!

N3ilb

Came across this error today while I was creating a new application for a new web app I was writing… its really simple… don’t forget to add the user account you specified for the AppPool to run under to the IIS_WPG group on the IIS server. If you haven’t, add it and do an iisreset. That should sort your problem! J

Hope you find this useful!

n3ilb

Throughput and Channel Info

Hi all,

The aim of this post is to give me a place for quick reference info on wireless. No new information here and I didn’t even come up with this information myself, just to save me trying to remember this stuff or having to spend time looking it up…

	Data Rate (Mbps)	Actual Throughput (Mbps)	Non-Overlapping Channels
802.11b	11	6	3
802.11g (b clients in cell)	54	8	3
802.11g (only g clients in cell)	54	22	3
802.11a	54	25	12

 

Range

802.11g: (Cisco 1242 AP) – Open Office Environment

• 105 ft (32 m) at 54 Mbps

• 180 ft (55 m) at 48 Mbps

• 260 ft (79 m) at 36 Mbps

• 285 ft (87 m) at 24 Mbps

• 330 ft (100 m) at 18 Mbps

• 355 ft (108 m) at 12 Mbps

• 365 ft (111 m) at 11 Mbps

802.11a: (Cisco 1242 AP) – Open Office Environment

• 85 ft (26 m) at 54 Mbps

• 150 ft (46 m) at 48 Mbps

• 210 ft (64 m) at 36 Mbps

• 230 ft (70 m) at 24 Mbps

• 260 ft (79 m) at 18 Mbps

• 280 ft (85 m) at 12 Mbps