SuperTekBoy

One of the great unsung heroes is Log Parser Studio. This utility allows you to easily parse through gigabytes upon gigabytes of IIS logs to find the information you need. Without this tool, this task is tedious in a single Exchange server environment and orders of magnitude worse in Exchange environments with many servers.

Log Parser Studio is great when it comes to migration planning and discovery, and it is a tool I always have in my tool belt. It does not matter if you are migrating to a newer version of Exchange or Office 365; Log Parser Studio can aide in the planning for both scenarios. For discovery, I use it in the following two ways:

• First, is to identify third-party integrations, such as those from a voicemail system, fax solution, or, conference room system
• Second, is to identify all client software connecting to Exchange

With the third-party integrations and clients identified you can then add them to your migration plan and determine the next steps. This could include upgrading legacy Office clients, or, testing the integration of a third-party app against the target system.

Discovery with Log Parser Studio becomes especially useful in environments where Exchange predates the current IT team, or, knowledge and documentation have been lost over time.

In this article, we will explore how to use Log Parser Studio to identify the multitude of client software and third-party integrations.

Let’s get started!

Installing Log Parser Studio

Log Parser Studio comes in two downloads. The first is the original command-line utility known as Log Parser. The second is Log Parser Studio which was later developed to give a GUI to that command-line. We will need to download both components for this process.

• Log Parser 2.2
• Log Parser Studio

Tip: I recommend installing Log Parser on a workstation and not directly on an Exchange server. That way we avoid adding unnecessary CPU cycles to the Exchange server.

First, we need to install Log Parser 2.2. Double-click on the LogParser.msi. On the installation screen, click Next. Accept the license agreement and click Next. On the Choose Setup Type screen click Complete. Click Install. After the install completes, click Finish.

Next, we need to install Log Parser Studio. Unzip the file LPSV2.D2.zip (I recommend unzipping this to your desktop). Open the newly created LPSV2.D2 folder and launch LPS.EXE.

This will launch Log Parser Studio.

Adding an external sender notification to the top of an email is an important distinction for many companies. This disclaimer quickly identifies to its end users when a message is sourced from an external sender. This eliminates the guesswork for internal users, helping them to identify potential phishing attacks but also a great reminder when it comes to data loss prevention as they reply.

Companies approach this disclaimer in many different ways. Two common examples are a disclaimer prepended at the top of the email, or, adding a keyword in the message subject.

Thankfully, adding this is a simple process in Office 365 (and also Exchange on-premises – the instructions are identical).

For this article, our example company, Time Travel Research, wishes that all inbound email from external senders is prepended with a disclaimer stating the sender is external to the organization. Time Travel Research wants to ensure that every instance of an external email, even those in the same email chain, is prepended with this disclaimer.

Let’s get started!

Add an external sender disclaimer to all inbound email

Log in to the Exchange Admin Center. Once logged in, navigate to Mail Flow >> Rules. Click the New () button.

From the drop-down menu, you will notice several choices. These choices are predefined rule templates. We will create a rule from scratch. Select Create a new rule.