29 May 2014

Exchange 2010 SP3 RU6 now available

Exchange 2010 SP3 RU6 is now available.
Version 14.03.0195.001

Issues Resolved:
Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2010 SP3 resolves the issues that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles:

  • 2960652 Organizer name and meeting status field can be changed by EAS clients in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
  • 2957762 "A folder with same name already exists" error when you rename an Outlook folder in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
  • 2952799 Event ID 2084 occurs and Exchange server loses connection to the domain controllers in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
  • 2934091 Event ID 1000 and 7031 when users cannot connect to mailboxes in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
  • 2932402 Cannot move a mailbox after you install Exchange Server 2010 SP3 RU3 (KB2891587)
  • 2931842 EWS cannot identify the attachment in an Exchange Server 2010 environment
  • 2928703 Retention policy is applied unexpectedly to a folder when Outlook rule moves a copy in Exchange Server 2010
  • 2927265 Get-Message cmdlet does not respect the defined write scope in Exchange Server 2010
  • 2925273 Folder views are not updated when you arrange by categories in Outlook after you apply Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3 Update Rollup 3 or Update Rollup 4
  • 2924592 Exchange RPC Client Access service freezes when you open an attached file in Outlook Online mode in Exchange Server 2010
  • 2923865 Cannot connect to Exchange Server 2010 when the RPC Client Access service crashes
  • 2920549 Store.exe crashes if you create a deeply nested subfolder in Outlook


~ brad

“The difference between e-mail and regular mail is that computers handle e-mail, and computers never decide to come to work one day and shoot all the other computers.” ~ Jamais Cascio

20 May 2014

Couple Updates

Couple updates for you.

Lync 2013 Client - CU7 for May 2014 - KB2880980
Version 15.0.4615.1001

This update resolves the following issues:

  • 2961173 Incorrect emoticons in a conversation after you install Office 2013 SP1 or a later version of Lync 2013
  • 2961174 Update reports NMOS in QoE for calls between Lync 2013 and a Lync mobile client
  • 2961175 Cannot hear the voice in an audio/video call in Lync 2013


Also the Office 2013 Visio stencil has been updated. You can grab the new file here.

~brad

“The original question, 'Can machines think?' I believe to be too meaningless to deserve discussion.” ~ Alan Turing, Mechanical Intelligence: Collected Works of A.M. Turing

16 May 2014

Tech Ed North America 2014 Videos Now Available

As of the time of writing, most videos for TechEd North America 2014 have been released over on Microsoft's Channel 9. The sessions from Thursday 15 May are not available but should be soon.


~brad

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” ~ Albert Einstein

14 May 2014

Build a free lab using AWS

Since I had some bench time, I was checking out Amazon Web Services. I found that it was relatively easy to build a full, free (for a year) functioning lab.

It turns out AWS has a free tier 12-month trial for new users. I simply signed in with my Amazon account and they spun up a default Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) pretty much immediately. The free tier limits you to micro VMs (2 proc, 612 MB RAM, 30 GB HDD, up to 2 NICs) for Windows servers. The free tier gets you 750 free hours of uptime. So, that’s one instance up all month long or several for short periods. The free tier licensed OS images for Windows are:
  • Server 2012
  • Server 2008 R2
  • Server 2008 R2 with SQL Server Express and IIS
  • Server 2008
  • Server 2003

The look and feel of Amazon EC2 took a little while to figure out (I highly recommend the Getting Started guides and pay attention to what Security Groups do), and it did take a few days to get everything built since the install was operating off of lower resources than would be typical and I had other priorities to tend to. It is possible to alter instance resources any time the machine is down, so it costs only a few bucks to do the installation on an instance with higher resources and then back it down before putting it into the lab.

Coupled with my MSDN account, I was able to put together a lab including: DC, CA, Exchange 2010 AIO, Lync 2010 SE, Lync 2013 SE, SCOM 2012. There are plenty of connectivity options and the environment seems very secure so far (of course it does), so I haven’t had any problems connecting and feel like I have done a good job limiting unwanted traffic/access.

I shut down the machines when I am not actively using them, so I only gave up $2.01 last month for the lab. If I start to grow this, I might set up some scheduled tasks for server shutdowns since I did manage to go to bed the other night with all of my machines up resulting in 60 hours of lost free lab time.

-ponboquod-

OT: World War I in Photos: Technology

As this year marks 100 years since the start of the war, Alan Taylor of The Atlantic is running a ten part series of photo essays about the war. This third installment is about the change in technology used in the war.

When Europe's armies first marched to war in 1914, some were still carrying lances on horseback. By the end of the war, rapid-fire guns, aerial bombardment, armored vehicle attacks, and chemical weapon deployments were commonplace. Any romantic notion of warfare was bluntly shoved aside by the advent of chlorine gas, massive explosive shells that could have been fired from more than 20 miles away, and machine guns that spat out bullets like firehoses. Each side did its best to build on existing technology, or invent new methods, hoping to gain any advantage over the enemy. Massive listening devices gave them ears in the sky, armored vehicles made them impervious to small arms fire, tanks could (most of the time) cruise right over barbed wire and trenches, telephones and heliographs let them speak across vast distances, and airplanes gave them new platforms to rain death on each other from above. New scientific work resulted in more lethal explosives, new tactics made old offensive methods obsolete, and mass-produced killing machines made soldiers both more powerful and more vulnerable. 

American troops using a newly-developed acoustic locator, mounted on a wheeled platform. The large horns amplified distant sounds, monitored through headphones worn by a crew member, who could direct the platform to move and pinpoint distant enemy aircraft. Development of passive acoustic location accelerated during World War I, later surpassed by the development of radar in the 1940s. (National Archives)

~ Brad

"The machine gun is a much over rated weapon.." ~ Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1915

13 May 2014

Powershell: Lync User Report

When I first started in my current position, we were positioning to roll out Lync to all of our users company wide. My boss wanted a way to track how many users we actually had enabled. Rather than giving him a simple number of users by running (Get-CsUser).Count, I wanted to be able to provide him more information. In addition I could easily see how well my pools were balanced. This is actually part of a larger report that I have set up as a daily scheduled task. I decided to break it into two pieces for the blog and will post the combined script after that.

Basically this script collects user counts based on registrar pool and Conferencing policy, puts it into a couple nice tables, and emails the report to me. This script provided here looks at two registrar pools and three Conferencing policies. You should be able to modify this as needed for your environment.

I have run this on my Lync 2010 and 2013 Front End servers.

Download the script here. Some of the HTML code included in the script doesn't show up correctly in the preview below.

#******************************************
#
#   DESCRIPTION: Email Report of Lync users based on Registrar Pool and Conferencing Policy
#   VERSION: 1.0
#   UPDATED: 
#   AUTHOR: Brad Roberts
#   CONTACT: brad@thatucguy.com
#   BLOG: http://www.thatUCguy.com
#   BLOG ENTRY: http://www.thatucguy.com/2014/04/powershell-lync-user-report.html
#
#   DISCLAIMER: You running this script means you won't blame me if this breaks your stuff. This script is provided AS IS and is not guaranteed to work perfectly in your environment. Testing is always a good idea. Any risk in running this script is entirely on you.
#
#******************************************

#******************************************
#
# Variable Definitions
#
#******************************************

$strSubject = "Lync User Report"
$strSMTPServer = "smtp.thatucguy.com"
$strToEmail = "lync.admin@thatucguy.com"
$strFromEmail = "no-reply@thatucguy.com"
# Registrar Pools
$poolAmericasFQDN = "lync-pool-americas.thatucguy.com"
$poolAmericas = "Americas Users"
$poolEMEAFQDN = "lync-pool-emea.thatucguy.com"
$poolEMEA = "EMEA Users"
# Conferencing Policies
$ConfSilver = "Lync-Conferencing-Silver"
$ConfGold = "Lync-Conferencing-Gold"
$ConfPlatinum = "Lync-Conferencing-Platinum"

#******************************************
#
# Load Required PS Modules
#
#******************************************

if ((Get-Module ActiveDirectory) -eq $null){Import-Module ActiveDirectory}
if ((Get-Module Lync) -eq $null){Import-Module Lync}

$blnDebug = $false

#********************************
#
# Get User counts, total and for each pool
#
#********************************

$counttotal = (Get-CsUser -OnLyncServer).count
$countamericas = (Get-CsUser -filter {registrarpool -eq $poolAmericasFQDN}).count
$countemea = (Get-CsUser -filter {registrarpool -eq $poolEMEAFQDN}).count
$usercount = $usercount + "

Lync User Report

" $usercount = $usercount + "" $usercount = $usercount + "
Total Users$poolAmericas$poolEMEA
$counttotal$countamericas$countemea
" #******************************** # # Get User counts by Conferencing Policy # #******************************** $countSilver = (Get-CsUser -filter {ConferencingPolicy -eq $ConfSilver}).count $countGold = (Get-CsUser -filter {ConferencingPolicy -eq $ConfGold}).count $countPlatinum = (Get-CsUser -filter {ConferencingPolicy -eq $ConfPlatinum}).count $ConfCount = $ConfCount + "

Lync User Report by Conferencing Policy

" $ConfCount = $ConfCount + "" $ConfCount = $ConfCount + "
Silver UsersGold UsersPlatinum Users
$countSilver$countGold$countPlatinum
" #******************************** # # Create and send email # #******************************** $strComputerName = gc env:computername $dtTimeNow = get-date $strScriptInfo = " Script Info Script Name: " + $MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition + " Time: " + $dtTimeNow + " Run From: " + $strComputerName $strHTMLHeader = $strHTMLHeader + "" $strHTMLHeader = $strHTMLHeader + "" $strHTMLHeader = $strHTMLHeader + "" $strHTMLHeader = $strHTMLHeader + "" $strHTMLHeader = $strHTMLHeader + "" $strHTMLFooter = $strHTMLFooter + $strScriptInfo $strHTMLFooter = $strHTMLFooter + "" $strHTMLFooter = $strHTMLFooter + "" $strHTMLBody = $strHTMLHeader + $usercount + $ConfCount + $strHTMLFooter $msg = new-object Net.Mail.MailMessage $smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($strSMTPServer) $msg.From = $strFromEmail $strToEmail | foreach {$msg.To.Add($_)} $msg.subject = $strSubject $msg.IsBodyHtml = $true $msg.body = $strHTMLBody $smtp.Send($msg)

Hope this helps!

brad

Fun Fact:
Louisiana is the first state to have an Official Crustacean and it is the crawfish.

09 May 2014

Lync Conference 2014 Videos are available

Good News! The videos from all of the Lync Conference 2014 sessions are now available. You can see all of them over here.



"In all large corporations, there is a pervasive fear that someone, somewhere is having fun with a computer on company time. Networks help alleviate that fear." ~ John C. Dvorak

06 May 2014

Article: Sony develops tech for 185TB tapes: 3,700 times more storage than a Blu-ray disc

Just as everyone is moving away from tape backups, Sony decides to change the game.

There was a time, in computing’s not-so-distant past, where magnetic tape was the best way to back up large amounts of data. In the mid-90s, tape could store tens or hundreds of gigabytes, while hard drive capacities were still mostly measured in megabytes. That would soon change, of course, with the advent of writable optical media and cheap, large hard drives, but even today tape drives still hang around as one of the best options for mass data backup. Now, Sony has developed a new technology that pushes tape drives far beyond where they once were, leading to individual tapes with 185 terabytes of storage capacity.


Read the full article here.

"The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog.  The man will be there to feed the dog.  The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment. " ~ Warren G. Bennis

05 May 2014

Lync Team Blog is finished

As of 1 May 2014 the Lync Team Blog is finished. This blog is being consolidated into the Microsoft Office Blog.
I'm not sure if this is going to be a good move or not, but there is a Welcome blog entry here to show you how to only get updates for the products you are interested in. When you apply your filters you can get a custom RSS link for your reader.