Practical Help for Exchange & Office 365
On November 30th I had the great pleasure of being a guest on the RunAs Radio podcast. I joined host Richard Campbell to discuss all the new features in Exchange 2019. We discuss the MetaCache Database (MCDB), the benefits of the new search architecture, and several client-side features.
(Originally posted at http://runasradio.com/shows/show/618)
One of the best-kept secrets in the hybrid configuration wizard (“HCW”)
is the F12 easter-egg. Jeff Kizner demonstrated this feature during his Ignite session back in September.
Tip: For a break down of Jeff’s session, with notes and timers, I highly recommend checking out 15 Ignite sessions every Exchange admin should see.
If you press F12 this enables a new section called Diagnostic Tools. This section provides shortcuts to the following tools or folders.
Pressing F12 a second time will hide these tools.
What do you think about this easter-egg? Have you run into any cool easter-eggs in other Microsoft products? Drop a comment below or join the conversation on Twitter
When attempting to use Connect-MsolService with an MFA-enabled admin account you may receive a legacy auth prompt as opposed to a modern auth prompt. This incorrect prompt is due to the MSOnline PowerShell module being out of date.
If you were to enter credentials in the legacy prompt you would be unable to connect and would receive the following cryptic error.
C:\> Connect-MsolService
Connect-MsolService : Exception of type 'Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automation.MicrosoftOnlineException' was thrown.
At line:1 char:1
Connect-MsolService
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CategoryInfo : OperationStopped: (:) [Connect-MsolService], MicrosoftOnlineException
FullyQualifiedErrorId : 0x800434D4,Microsoft.Online.Administration.Automation.ConnectMsolService
So, all we need to do is update, right?
Well, depending on how you originally installed the MSOnline module the update process may not be intuitive as you might think.
[Read more…] about Connect-MsolService may fail when MFA is enabled
It’s amazing to believe that Microsoft Ignite was over a month ago. With 1,610 sessions Microsoft gave us a massive amount of announcements and demonstrations of new product features. This included Exchange 2019.
If not already, I highly recommend checking out 15 Ignite sessions every Exchange admin should see. Each session in this article includes extensive notes on what each session contained. In addition, those notes contain timers so you can jump to the section that interests you the most. Hopefully, it will also serve as a reference if you need to search for a certain announcement or feature weeks (or even months) down the road.
Here is what Ignite taught us about Exchange 2019.
The tagline for Exchange 2016 was that it was “forged in the cloud”. This was a result of Exchange Online and Exchange on-prem sharing a common code base. The greatest benefit of this common code was that it ran in the cloud for a number of months before shipping on-prem as a cumulative update. By the time the code was released on-prem, it had been more than validated as stable and able to run at scale.
Going forward Microsoft has separated Exchange on-prem into its own code branch. This means that Exchange online is no longer driving cumulative updates for on-prem. What will drive updates are security patches and feature requests from customers. So, be sure to make your voice heard on UserVoice, at conferences, and in the various TAP programs.
While Microsoft currently plans to keep cumulative updates quarterly, they have opened up the conversation on whether updates should occur less frequently. Common feedback is that the current release cadence of quarterly cumulative updates is too aggressive for some customers. The product group also believes this could result in more stable releases.
[Read more…] about What Ignite taught us about Exchange 2019
Last week was a big week for Exchange 2016. Microsoft released Cumulative Update 11. At this time no updates were released for Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2010. Exchange 2013 entered extended support back on April 10th, and Microsoft announced in June that cumulative update 21 was the last planned update for Exchange 2013.
As always, test these updates in a lab first! I recommend checking out this 7-part guide on configuring Exchange in your lab. It doesn’t take much to get one going.
The updates are as follows:
Exchange 2016 Cumulative Update 11 | KB4134118 | UM Language Pack
Cumulative Update 11 now officially supports .NET Framework 4.7.2. Framework 4.7.2 is only optional at this point and will not become mandatory until the June 2019 updates. Due to no quarterly update scheduled for December, it is expected that CU13 will be the first version to enforce 4.7.2 as a requirement.
Support for 4.7.2 has been officially added to Exchange 2013 CU21, which was released back in June. 4.7.2 will also be a requirement for Exchange 2019. However, 4.7.2 is preinstalled with Windows Server 2019, so it will not require a separate download. For a great resource on navigating which .NET update goes with which CU I recommend reading Upgrade Paths for CU’s & .NET by Michel de Rooij.
In the June updates, it was stated that all Exchange roles would require Visual C++ 2013. Microsoft has since clarified this statement to the following:
Cumulative Update 11 will now perform prerequisite checks to confirm the necessary versions of Visual C++ are installed.
These updates contain 22 security and bug fixes. Check KB 4134118 for a list of issues CU11 resolves.
[Read more…] about Exchange October 2018 UpdatesLast year I was invited to write an Exchange 2016 book with a few fellow MVPs. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, the book was later
Rather than have my chapters go to waste (combined these chapters are 40,000 words) I wanted to offer them to you for free.
Below you will find three chapters covering the management of mailboxes, groups, contacts, mail-enabled users, and public folders.
That said I do want to warn you that these chapters only received a brief technical review. They did not go through any formal editorial process, so I apologize in advance for any errors. Please read these at your own risk.
While I offer these for free I would like to state that my work is under copyright. By viewing or downloading these chapters you agree to the copyright notice below.
Copyright © 2018 by Gareth Gudger
All rights reserved. No part of these chapters may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please email info@supertekboy.com.
I have always been a big fan of dark mode for any application as I spend more hours than I care to admit at my computer, so eye strain is always a concern.
Dark mode lets us protect our eyeballs from the harsh glare of a white screen, and it may just conserve a little more battery life on our mobile devices.
Microsoft Teams has such a mode.
To enable dark mode, log onto Microsoft Teams and select your profile picture in the top right of the window. From the context menu click Settings.
One of the newest features announced at Ignite was the ability to enable dark mode in Outlook on the Web. It is worth noting that this feature is only available in Office 365. There are no plans to bring it to Exchange 2019 at this time.
I have always been a big fan of dark mode for any application as I spend more hours than I care to admit at my computer, so eye strain is always a concern.
Dark mode lets us protect our eyeballs from the harsh glare of a white screen, and it may just conserve a little more battery life on our mobile devices.
Note: These instructions will also work with Outlook.com
To enable dark mode, log onto Outlook on the Web and click the toggle next to Try the new Outlook so it moves to the right (on).
