Exchange 2003 Articles

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Exchange 2003 Articles categories topic

[	274	]	Exchange 2007 Articles	Last updated: Jul 02, 2009
[	272	]	Exchange 2003 Articles	Last updated: Jan 29, 2009
[	20	]	High Availability & Recovery	Last updated: Jan 29, 2009
[	70	]	Management & Administration	Last updated: May 10, 2007
[	27	]	Migration & Deployment	Last updated: Dec 05, 2006
[	28	]	Mobility & Client Access	Last updated: Jun 27, 2006
[	18	]	Monitoring & Operations	Last updated: Jun 03, 2008
[	30	]	Planning & Architecture	Last updated: Sep 12, 2006
[	46	]	Security & Message Hygiene	Last updated: Dec 07, 2006
[	33	]	Tools	Last updated: Feb 01, 2007
[	71	]	Exchange 2000 Articles	Last updated: Jul 06, 2004
[	2	]	Exchange 2010 Articles	Last updated: May 14, 2009
[	12	]	Exchange 5.5 Articles	Last updated: Jan 05, 2005
[	11	]	Product Reviews	Last updated: Oct 28, 2008

Exchange 2003 Articles

Recovering Deleted Items in Exchange Server 2003 (Part 2): Date - Jan 29, 2009; Author - Anderson Patricio; How to configure the deleted items retention period on Public Folders and how to recover deleted items from Public Folders using Outlook client.
Managing Exchange 2003 with SCOM 2007 (Part 2): Date - Jun 03, 2008; Author - Rui Silva; Detailed configuration of the Exchange 2003 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007. Creating overrides and common troubleshooting.
Managing Exchange 2003 with SCOM 2007 (Part 1): Date - May 20, 2008; Author - Rui Silva; A configuration guide for monitoring Exchange Server 2003 with System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007.
Generating Active Directory Accounts using the mailbox information in the Mailbox Database (Part 2): Date - Feb 07, 2008; Author - Anderson Patricio; How to generate Active Directory accounts from a Mailbox Database using Exchange Server 2000/2003.
Exchange 2003 System Mailboxes: Date - May 10, 2007; Author - Marc Grote; Overview of Exchange Server 2003 System mailboxes.
Troubleshooting Mailbox Manager Policy Application: Date - Apr 12, 2007; Author - Neil Hobson; Troubleshooting which Mailbox Manager policies are being applied.
Auditing Mailbox Access Using Exchange System Manager and Event Viewer: Date - Mar 27, 2007; Author - Neil Hobson; A look at how to audit mailbox access using Exchange System Manager and Event Viewer.
Resetting OWA Folder and IIS security permissions in Exchange 2003: Date - Feb 13, 2007; Author - Chris Dalby; The various steps needed to reset OWA folder and Internet Information Services (IIS) security permissions.
PFDavAdmin tool (Part 2): Date - Feb 01, 2007; Author - Neil Hobson; What the PFDavAdmin tool is and what it can do for you.
Microsoft Exchange Load Generator: Date - Jan 25, 2007; Author - Marc Grote; How to use the Microsoft Exchange Server Load Generator to simulate multiple MAPI client requests against Exchange Server for testing purposes or Benchmarking.
Using admodify.net to administer and recover Exchange 2003: Date - Jan 23, 2007; Author - Chris Dalby; A look at how to use admodify.net to administer and recover Exchange 2003.
PFDavAdmin tool (Part 1): Date - Jan 18, 2007; Author - Neil Hobson; What the PFDAVAdmin tool is and what it can do for you.
Explaining Exchange Message formats: Date - Jan 11, 2007; Author - Marc Grote; How to configure Message formats on Exchange for interoperability with other messaging systems or mail clients.
Implementing Custom Recipient Policies: Date - Jan 04, 2007; Author - Marc Grote; What task the Recipient Update Service (RUS) has in an Exchange environment and how to implement custom Recipient Policies in Exchange 2003 with variables for the SMTP Prefix and how to Add/Remove/Change custom E-Mail Addresses with ADModify.NET.
Dealing with NDRs on Microsoft Small Business Server 2003: Date - Dec 19, 2006; Author - Markus Klein; How to deal with non delivery reports within Exchange Server 2003 as part of Small Business Server 2003.
Exchange 2003 SMTP Namespace Sharing: Date - Dec 12, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; How to share your Exchange Server 2003 SMTP Namespace with another Messaging System.
Hardening an Exchange Server 2003 Environment (Part 4): Date - Dec 07, 2006; Author - Rui Silva; Focusing on the client side of your messaging environment.
Removing The First Exchange 2003 Server (Part 2): Date - Dec 05, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; The remainder of the tasks you need to perform to ensure the first Exchange server can be decommissioned cleanly and successfully.
Migrating from Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2003 Standard Part 2 – Configuring Exchange: Date - Nov 30, 2006; Author - Chris Dalby; Steps necessary to migrate your Exchange organization from Small Business Server 2003 (SBS 2003) to Exchange 2003 Standard running on Windows Server 2003 Standard.
EXINFO tool: Date - Nov 28, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; How to use the ExInfo tool to collect and display Exchange Server 2000 and Exchange Server 2003 information.
Hardening an Exchange Server 2003 Environment (Part 3): Date - Nov 23, 2006; Author - Rui Silva; Techniques to help defend against spam, viruses and general e-mail attacks, or how Microsoft likes to call it, messaging hygiene.
Removing the First Exchange 2003 Server (Part 1): Date - Nov 16, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; What you need to watch out for when decommissioning the first Exchange 2003 server installed into an administrative group.
Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant: Date - Nov 14, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; How to use the Exchange Server Troubleshooting Assistant version 1.0.
Exchange 2003 Hacks: Date - Nov 09, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; This article takes a look at some of the lesser known Exchange 2003 hacks.
Hardening an Exchange Server 2003 Environment (Part 2): Date - Nov 07, 2006; Author - Rui Silva; This article covers the infrastructure aspects of security, namely what can be done to harden servers in particular and your network in general.
Sending 'As': Date - Nov 02, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; This article takes a look at methods for sending messages as another user, as well as distribution groups or public folders.
A User Comes and a User Goes: Date - Oct 26, 2006; Author - Amit Zinman; This article shows how to deal with overlapping and replacing Exchange users.
Migrating from Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2003 Standard Part 1 – Preparing your network: Date - Oct 24, 2006; Author - Chris Dalby; This two part series walks through the steps necessary to migrate the Exchange organization from Small Business Server 2003 (SBS 2003) to Exchange 2003 Standard running on Windows Server 2003 Standard.
Recovering Deleted Items in Exchange Server 2003 (Part 1): Date - Oct 19, 2006; Author - Anderson Patricio; This article explains how to recover deleted items at the mailbox store level and in Public Folders.
Windows 2003 Server Emergency Management Services: Date - Oct 12, 2006; Author - Lee Derbyshire; This article discusses Windows 2003 Server Emergency Management Services.
Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Spam Filtering: Date - Oct 10, 2006; Author - Markus Klein; This article takes an in-depth look at the spam filtering features provided with Microsoft SBS 2003 and how to implement them.
Hardening an Exchange Server 2003 Environment (Part 1): Date - Sep 26, 2006; Author - Rui Silva; This series of 4 articles explains what can be done to make an Exchange Server 2003 environment more secure.
Exchange Server 2003 Mailflow (Part 2) - Troubleshooting: Date - Sep 21, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; This article shows you how to troubleshoot message flow within the Exchange Organization.
Remotely Administering Exchange 2003: Date - Sep 14, 2006; Author - Amit Zinman; In this article we will discuss accessing the Exchange Management Console anywhere, anytime.
Exchange Server 2003 Mailflow (Part 1): Date - Sep 12, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how e-mail messages flow through Exchange Server 2003 for Intra-site and Inter-site Messaging.
How Recovery Storage Groups Work: Date - Sep 05, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; Recovery Storage Groups (RSG) are one of the most administrator friendly features of Exchange Server 2003 SP1. You may have used them already, and you may have had the same questions I’ve been asked. This article aims to answer those questions.
Public Folder Basics (Part 2): Date - Aug 31, 2006; Author - Amit Zinman; In the previous article I went over the most basic uses of public folders. However, as mentioned, public folders can be used for all kinds of purposes and have many features which are easy to overlook. In this article I will try to cover more of these features.
Implementing RPC over HTTPS in a single Exchange Server 2003 environment: Date - Aug 29, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to deploy RPC over HTTPS to connect your Exchange Server with your Outlook Client over HTTPS. This article specifically deals with a single Exchange / Domain Controller environment for small organizations.
Creating a Virtual Exchange Server for Exchange 2003 Clustering: Date - Aug 22, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you the detailed steps that are necessary to create an Exchange Virtual Server for Exchange Server Clustering with Windows Server 2003.
A Closer Look At Directory Service Access (DSAccess) - Part 2: Date - Aug 15, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; Here in part 2 of this article series we’ll take a look at how you can see the results of the tests that DSAccess performs, hard coding servers, cache information and a brief look at some performance counter information.
Public Folder Basics (Part 1): Date - Aug 08, 2006; Author - Amit Zinman; This article should server as a tutorial for beginners or occasional Exchange administrators, for setting up the folders and their permissions and points out the benefits of doing so.
A Closer Look At Directory Service Access (DSAccess) - Part 1: Date - Jul 20, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; In this two-part article I will take a closer look at what DSAccess is and what it does.
Backing Up Exchange with Data Protection Manager: Date - Jul 13, 2006; Author - Rui Silva; Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2006 can be used to help you protect your Exchange Server data. In this article I’ll show you how.
Securing E-Mails with S/MIME and Smartcards in Exchange 2003: Date - Jul 11, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you a high level overview of the necessary steps to secure E-Mails with Outlook 2003 and Smartcards.
Configuring Incoming and Outgoing Email for Windows Small Business Server 2003: Date - Jul 04, 2006; Author - Markus Klein; In this article we will discuss how to configure SBS 2003 to properly recieve and send mail using the wizard.
Creating Exchange Users with Excel (Part 2): Date - Jun 29, 2006; Author - Amit Zinman; In this article I will show you how to overcome certain problems and how to synchronize an Excel sheet with Active Directory.
Exchange Server 2003 and the Device Emulator 1.0 with MSFP: Date - Jun 27, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to simulate a Smartphone or another mobile device with MSFP (Microsoft Security Feature Pack) with the help of the Device Emulator 1.0 with MSFP to test and simulate the new Direct Push and Security features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2.
Finding Duplicate SMTP Addresses: Date - Jun 23, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the methods available for finding which object within Active Directory currently owns a duplicate SMTP address.
Exchange Internals – How the Exchange Core Components work together: Date - Jun 15, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you the Basic core services in Exchange Server 2003 and how they work together.
Using the Logparser Utility to Analyze Exchange/IIS Logs: Date - Jun 08, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to use the Microsoft Logparser Utility to analyze Microsoft Exchange Server/IIS log files.
Troubleshooting RPC over HTTPS (Part 2): Date - Jun 06, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; In this article we will look into problems that occur with SSL certificates, RPC proxy and Exchange server configurations.
MOM 2005 SLA Scorecard for Exchange: Date - Jun 01, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; In this article, I will look at what this scorecard is and what it offers you.
Transaction Logs, The Lifeblood of Exchange: Date - May 30, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; Transaction logs are a fundamental component of Exchange server and crucial to the proper operation of an Exchange server. This article hopes to leave you with a better understanding of what they are and how to manage them.
Storage Design – Have You Considered iSCSI?: Date - May 25, 2006; Author - Rui Silva; In this article I will test the HP NAS device I used in a previous article, this time with an iSCSI configuration.
Troubleshooting RPC over HTTPS (Part 1): Date - May 23, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; Part 1 of this article will shine a light on some common issues with client configuration and firewall settings when using RCP over HTTPS.
Exchange 2003 Mobile Messaging Part 4 – Accessing the Corporate GAL from your Mobile Device Using GAL Lookup: Date - May 18, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article we’ll take a closer look at the GAL lookup feature.
Configuring ISA Server 2004 as an Exchange Frontend Server in the DMZ (Part 2): Date - May 16, 2006; Author - Markus Klein; In this second article I will delve a little deeper into the configuration tasks that need to be done when configuring ISA Server 2004 as a Reverse Proxy Server in your DMZ which is protected by two other Firewalls.
Load Balancing Exchange Front-End Servers: Date - May 11, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; Many organizations cluster their Exchange back-end servers in an effort to provide high availability. This article will cover two methods you can use to load balance your front-end servers in an effort to maximize performance and availability.
JetStress Is Your Friend: Date - May 04, 2006; Author - Rui Silva; This article is a quick step-by-step guide for performing a Disk Performance Test with the GUI version of the tool JetStress 2004.
Exchange 2003 Mobile Messaging Part 3 – Installing, Administering, and Using the Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync Web Administration tool: Date - May 02, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article we’ll go through how to install and configure the Exchange Server ActiveSync Web Administration tool, as well as how to use the tool to initiate remote wipes, check transaction log entries, etc.
Implementing Captcha Validation with OWA 2003 and Forms-Based Authentication: Date - Apr 27, 2006; Author - Lee Derbyshire; In this article, I will give an example of how Captcha could be added to Outlook Web Access 2003 by modifying the FBA logon.asp file.
Exchange 2003 Mobile Messaging Part 2 - Uncovering the Device Security Policies: Date - Apr 20, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article we’ll uncover the new device security policies available in Exchange 2003 SP2.
Troubleshooting the Exchange Recipient Update Service (RUS): Date - Apr 13, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; The Exchange Recipient Update Service is an important component for a properly functioning Exchange organization. Typically it runs in the background without issue but when problems occur, mail flow suffers and it is important to get it fixed!
Explaining the order in which the Exchange 2003 (SP2) Connection Filters are applied: Date - Apr 11, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; This article will explain in which order the different connection filters included in Exchange 2003 (SP2) are applied during an SMTP session.
Understanding Exchange Access Control and Administrative Delegation: Date - Apr 06, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; Microsoft Exchange interacts with Windows at many different levels and uses different levels of administrative permissions to control access. The goal of this article is to help you understand the different levels of administrative rights and how to delegate these rights to your administrative staff.
System Center Capacity Planner 2006 Overview (Part 2): Date - Apr 04, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; In part 1 of this 2 part article, we looked at what System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) 2006 is, its installation requirements and how to start a new design using the Model Wizard. We’ll conclude our look at SCCP here in part 2, where we’ll cover the Model Editor, the Hardware Editor and the running of a simulation.
Exchange 2003 Mobile Messaging Part 1 - A look at the Microsoft DirectPush technology: Date - Mar 30, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; One of the most interesting features available in Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 is without doubt the new DirectPush technology (aka AUTD v2), which improves the mobile messaging experience for your end-users by providing close to real over the air (OTA) push technology. In this article, which is the first in a 5 part article series on mobile messaging using Exchange 2003 with SP2 applied and mobile devices running Windows Mobile 5.0 with the Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP) installed, we’ll take a closer look at the new DirectPush technology.
System Center Capacity Planner 2006 Overview (Part 1): Date - Mar 28, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; In December 2005, Microsoft shipped System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) 2006. In this two-part article, I want to give you an introduction to what SCCP 2006 is and how it can help the Exchange professional. Here in part 1, I’ll cover an overview of SCCP, its installation requirements and how to start a new design using the Model Wizard.
Exchange on NAS: Proved and Approved: Date - Mar 21, 2006; Author - Rui Silva; With the release of Windows Storage Server Feature Pack, putting the Exchange databases on a NAS device started to be a supported configuration, provided that the storage devices are Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) certified (i.e. with the “Designed for Windows” logo). I did some tests using an HP NAS device that proved to be a valid option for some particular configurations. This article is a short description of my experience.
Fixing a Damaged or Incorrectly Configured OWA 2003 Installation: Date - Mar 16, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I’ll explain how you can you fix a damaged OWA 2003 installation in a few minutes.
Exchange 2003 and Windows Storage Server: Date - Mar 14, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; All data shares one thing in common, and that is the requirement for dependable storage. With small to medium size businesses growing storage requirements, Windows Storage Server 2003 is becoming an affordable option to store data, and with Windows Storage Server 2003 Feature Pack 1 it can now support hosting Exchange transaction logs and database files.
Configuring ISA Server 2004 as an Exchange Frontend Server in the DMZ (Part 1): Date - Mar 07, 2006; Author - Markus Klein; Ever since ISA Server 2004 has been available, there have been quite different opinions on which is the best design strategy for publishing Exchange Server 2003 services securely on the web. Within this drill down we will delve a little bit deeper into the configuration details on how to make your Exchange Server 2003 publishing as secure as possible using ISA Server 2004 taking into consideration the ideas of the Exchange product team.
Sending Email without a Client: Date - Mar 02, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; Sending e-mail is typically done from an e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook. There may be times when you wish you could send an e-mail message without the need of a client application and thankfully there are a number of ways to accomplish this task.
Understanding and using the External Associated Account in Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2003: Date - Feb 28, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you some information about the External associated Account in Windows Server 2003 and how to use it.
Exchange System Manager and Domain Controller Selection: Date - Feb 21, 2006; Author - Neil Hobson; Exchange System Manager itself can be considered a client of many other different services, for it has to obtain different types of information from different sources. For example, Exchange System Manager uses the Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) to display information about mailbox resources as well as Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to display information about the queues within the Queue Viewer. As you might expect, it also has to contact Active Directory to retrieve information about the configuration of Exchange. In this article, I want to cover how you can determine which domain controller Exchange System Manager is communicating with to retrieve this information.
Explaining the new MAPI Access feature included in Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2: Date - Feb 16, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article we’ll have a look at the new MAPI access feature included in Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2. This feature makes it possible to enable or disable MAPI (Outlook) access on a per user-basis.
Creating Exchange Users with Excel (Part 1): Date - Feb 14, 2006; Author - Amit Zinman; In previous articles we discussed tools that create users and their mailboxes in Active Directory. LDIFDE has been mentioned and also VBScripts. However, the most powerful and flexible tool in my opinion is Excel. Excel can read information from various formats and can serve as a handy intermediary. You can manipulate the information in Excel as you find necessary before exporting it to Active Directory. A lot of data originates from Excel which is a common place for large tables. You can also combine data from a few sources into Excel.
A look at the Microsoft Exchange Server Profile Analyzer (EPA) Tool: Date - Feb 09, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article we’ll take a look at the Microsoft Exchange Server Profile Analyzer tool (EPA) which was released as a web release tool a couple of weeks ago.
Provisioning Outlook Web Access 2003: Date - Feb 07, 2006; Author - Rodney Buike; Outlook Web Access (OWA) in Exchange 2003 is now even more customizable than ever before. Provisioning OWA will allow you to remove certain features for security and performance reasons, or if you are providing hosted Exchange mailboxes, resell certain features as value added features.
How to change the POP3 / IMAP4 and SMTP banner in Exchange 2003: Date - Feb 02, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to change the banner for the POP3/IMAP4 and SMTP service in Exchange 2003. Changing the banner for these Exchange services enhances the security if an attacker and illegitimate users don't know, on the first try, which server is communicating with them. Please keep in mind that this is only one of several methods of securing the Exchange environment.
Creating and Using Moderated Public Folders in MS Exchange Server: Date - Jan 31, 2006; Author - Lee Derbyshire; Public Folders are one of the most useful features of Exchange Server. However, it’s possible that there are situations in which a folder’s visibility makes it desirable to have some extra layer of control, one final check, if you like, before something actually appears in full public view. This is where Moderated Folders come in. In this article, I will describe how you create and use a moderated folder in Exchange Server.
Understanding the LegacyExchangeDN: Date - Jan 24, 2006; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will discuss the LegacyExchangeDN and how to use the free LegacyExchangeDN tool from the Microsoft website.
Booking Resources with Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook System 2003: Date - Jan 17, 2006; Author - Markus Klein; After a successful implementation of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, the next step would be implementing lots of improvements within the working processes of the company and its organizational infrastructure. Many companies are willing to plan their company resources using Exchange and Outlook to make it easier for each employee to find out if a resource is already booked or still available.
In-depth look at the Public Folder Improvements in Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2: Date - Jan 12, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article we’ll take an in-depth look at the new Public Folder improvements included in Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2).
Rights Management Service and Exchange 2003 (Part 3): Date - Jan 10, 2006; Author - Santhosh Sivarajan; It is time to talk about custom templates since we have discussed built-in Do Not Forward templates in Part 2 of this document. In this part of the article, I will explain the procedure of creating and using custom templates. I will use the following scenario to better explain the use of a custom template.
Intelligent Message Filter version 2 (IMF v2): Date - Jan 05, 2006; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article we’ll have a closer look at the new Intelligent Message Filter (IMF) which comes with Exchange 2003 SP2. Since IMF is included in Exchange 2003 SP2 it’s no longer an add-on as was the case with IMF version 1, but has now become an integrated part of the Exchange Server 2003 product.
Rights Management Service and Exchange 2003 (Part 2): Date - Jan 03, 2006; Author - Santhosh Sivarajan; I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of my RMS document. Thanks to all who sent emails. As I explained in the previous part of the RMS document, my focus was to explain the RMS functionality from an Outlook 2003 client. I received a lot of questions regarding RMS and Exchange integration. RMS is not integrated with Exchange so you don’t need to have Exchange to use RMS. You can use RMS with any RMS aware application but RMS does require Active Directory.
Understanding Mailbox Enabled and Mail Enabled Recipients in Exchange 2003: Date - Dec 27, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you the differences between mailbox enabled and mail enabled recipients in Exchange 2003 and how to use them.
How to Regain Access to an Exchange Server 2003 Organization: Date - Dec 20, 2005; Author - Markus Klein; Exchange Server 2003 relies on a complex but detailed and strict access control hierarchy. This means that you as an administrator have to check whether any users will have any access to the Exchange Organization itself.
Demystifying the OWA 2003 FE/BE Logon Process: Date - Dec 15, 2005; Author - Rodney Buike; Effective troubleshooting requires knowledge of the processes taking place. By knowing the process taken when a user attempts to logon, troubleshooting Outlook Web Access (OWA) logon issues becomes a whole lot easier.
Explaining the Database size limit changes in Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2: Date - Dec 13, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In my previous article we had a closer look at the new Sender ID feature included in Exchange 2003 SP2, in this article I’ll show you how to configure and take advantage of the new database size limit increase in Exchange 2003 SP2.
Understanding the Exchange Information Store: Date - Dec 08, 2005; Author - Rodney Buike; We would like to welcome Rodney Buike to our team of authors as he presents his first article to MSExchange.org readers. The Information Store is the heart and soul of Exchange Server 2000 and 2003. Understanding the fundamentals of the Information Store is important for anyone managing an Exchange server.
Exchange 2003 – Performance Troubleshooting Analyzer Tool v1.0 (ExPTA): Date - Dec 06, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to use the new Exchange Server 2003 Performance Troubleshooting Analyzer Tool (ExPTA).
The Art and Science of Sizing Exchange 2003 (Part 3): Date - Dec 01, 2005; Author - Rui Silva; In the last 2 parts or this article series I covered the process of sizing the hardware for an Exchange Server. Now it’s time to validate the results, using some stressing tools and monitor software. You’ll also be glad to know that there are some tools that really can help and ease the sizing process.
The Importance of Auditing your Exchange 2003 Server(s): Date - Nov 29, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; As most of you already know, messaging is one of the most mission-critical services in our organizations nowadays. In this article I’ll explain why auditing the Exchange 2003 Server(s) in your messaging environment is crucial.
Exchange 2003 - Disaster Recovery Analyzer Tool (ExDRA 1.0): Date - Nov 17, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to use the new Exchange Server 2003 Disaster Recovery Analyzer Tool (ExDRA).
Rights Management Service and Exchange 2003 (Part 1): Date - Nov 15, 2005; Author - Santhosh Sivarajan; We would like to welcome Santhosh Sivarajan to our team of authors as he presents his first article to MSExchange.org readers. The purpose of this article is to explain the details of Rights Management Service (RMS) technology and how beneficial it is to your organization.
Exchange 2003 Message Tracking and Logging: Date - Nov 10, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to enable Message Tracking and Logging of Messages in Exchange Server 2003.
Configuring S/MIME Security with Outlook Web Access 2003: Date - Nov 03, 2005; Author - Markus Klein; Email Security has become increasingly important because of the possibility of man-in-the-middle attacks or the risk of an unknown third person that may sniff your SMTP traffic within the internet or even your intranet. In addition, in some countries there are laws preventing you from sending insecure email. Therefore Microsoft implemented the S/MIME standard in its Exchange Server architecture. The feature to encrypt or sign your emails became a default feature within all messaging and collaboration systems. Within this article we will look at how S/MIME has to be configured and how it works.
Configuring and enabling Sender ID filtering in Exchange 2003 SP2: Date - Nov 01, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; Now that the wait is over and Exchange 2003 SP2 has been released, I think it’s a good time to take a closer look at some of the new features in the service pack. In this article I’ll explain the purpose and benefits of enabling Sender ID filtering in Exchange 2003 SP2, as well as show you how to configure this feature.
Offline Address Book - Best Practice: Date - Oct 27, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you some tips how to implement Offline Address Books in Exchange Server 2003. This article deals also with some basics about Offline Address Books and the implementation of Offline Address Books in Outlook 2003.
The Art and Science of Sizing Exchange 2003 (Part 2): Date - Oct 25, 2005; Author - Rui Silva; Storage is the most critical component of an Exchange back-end server and it’s usually the cause of performance degradation. If your users are complaining about frequent Outlook messages saying that it’s trying to retrieve data from the Exchange Server, that’s probably a storage bottleneck. Good Exchange planning with proper disk sizing can prevent these kind of problems from happening.
Using the Exchange Dump Utility (ExchDump): Date - Oct 18, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you some information about the small but very helpful tool ExchDump. With the help of ExchDump you can collect a lot of useful information about your Exchange Servers.
Automating a Quicker Exchange 2000 or 2003 / DC reboot: Date - Oct 13, 2005; Author - Lee Derbyshire; For those of you running Exchange 2000/2003 on a Domain Controller, this article describes how to make sure that the Exchange services are automatically stopped before Active Directory, substantially improving shutdown/reboot time.
Using Microsoft Office Outlook Live: Date - Oct 11, 2005; Author - Robert J. Shimonski; Microsoft Office Outlook Live (or MOOL for short) is a subscription based service offered by Microsoft that combines MSN's Hotmail Plus service and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 so that you can have the freedom of having a fully flexible and functional e-mail client, without the responsibility of managing an e-mail server. Microsoft's popular Outlook 2003 client application can be used and with special connector software, you can have a good e-mail solution in minutes. In this article we will cover MOOL, as well as how to install it and discuss the benefits provided.
The Art and Science of Sizing Exchange 2003 (Part 1): Date - Oct 06, 2005; Author - Rui Silva; I’m pretty sure that it’s, at least, arguable that you can call it art. I don’t know either if it’s deep enough to be called a science. One thing I can assure you is that sizing an Exchange server can be a complex task and it requires not only the knowledge, but also a dose of sensibility and some previous experience with the Microsoft Server family of products. Although there are some pretty good documents from Microsoft about this subject, I’ll try to condense them all and include the main guidelines in this three-part article.
A Look at the Exchange Monitor 2003 Tool: Date - Sep 29, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I will show you how, with the help of a little 3rd party tool, you can monitor your Exchange 2003 server as well as the Exchange services running on it. It’s also possible to stop, start and restart services as well as enable and disable them. In addition, you can see the version and build numbers of the Exchange Servers.
Designing Outlook Forms (Part 2): Date - Sep 27, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; In the first part of the article, I concentrated on the very basics of using Outlook Forms by creating a sample Help Desk application. In this article we will learn how to improve the form's GUI and use form automation to improve the accessibility and usability of Outlook Forms.
Dual or Pass-Through Authentication in an Exchange 2003 Front-End/Back-End Setup: Date - Sep 20, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article, I will explain the differences between using dual and pass-through authentication in an Exchange 2003 front-end/back-end setup, where forms-based authentication isn’t enabled, and where the required Exchange services aren’t published through an ISA Server located on the perimeter network (aka DMZ, demilitarized zone or screened subnet).
Free/Busy Folders in Exchange Server 2003 in Depth: Date - Sep 15, 2005; Author - Markus Klein; With every Exchange Server environment, you as the administrator have to deal with the free/busy functionality and its problems. To understand how this works and what you have to consider in projects and processes, this article will dive a little bit deeper into this topic. We will have a close look at the system folder itself and how to deal with this topic during migrations and normal work troubleshooting topics.
Offline Address Book Integrity (OABInteg) Utility Explained: Date - Sep 13, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I’ll introduce you to the Offline Address Book Integrity (OABInteg) utility, which can be of great help when troubleshooting Offline Address Book (OAB) generation issues as well as OAB download issues.
Migrating from Notes Domino to Exchange 2003 using the Exchange Notes Connector: Date - Sep 08, 2005; Author - Markus Klein; In the past, lots of companies used Notes Domino Server as their primary messaging platform but, with the release of Exchange Server 2003, a lot of them are thinking of migrating to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. There are many 3rd party vendors selling migration tools for migrating Notes to Exchange but only few of them really have their own tool. A lot of these tools are add-ons relying on the Exchange Notes Connector. This means you should have a good idea of how it works and how it has to be configured. Within this article you will get a deep drill-down on the step-by-step migration process using the connector.
Public Folder Replication – Troubleshooting Basics: Date - Sep 06, 2005; Author - Neil Hobson; Public folders are important to Exchange because not only do they contain user data, they also contain important system information required for the smooth operation of your Exchange environment. Replicating these folders between Exchange servers can sometimes be troublesome and so in this article I want to look at the initial steps you can take to troubleshoot your public folder replication issues.
Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 BETA (build 7623.0) Exposed: Date - Sep 01, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I will go through the most interesting fixes, improvements as well as new features included in Exchange 2003 SP2. I will also take a look at some of the features we can expect to come with the Messaging and Security Feature Pack for Windows Mobile 5.0, which in conjunction with Exchange 2003 SP2 enable a faster, richer, and more secure mobile Outlook experience for your mailbox-enabled Windows Mobile 5.0 users.
SSL Enabling OWA 2003 Using a Free 3rd Party Certificate: Date - Sep 01, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I’ll explain how it’s possible to secure OWA 2003 with a free 3rd party SSL certificate. Yes that’s right, free, like in “permanently free”, not some kind of 30 day trial period.
A First Look at Exchange 2003 SP2: Date - Aug 24, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you some information about Exchange Server 2003 SP2 and some useful enhancements.
Planning for Your First Exchange Server: Date - Aug 18, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; Considerations for installing a single Exchange server for first time Exchange admins.
Monitoring Exchange and Finding Common Problems: Date - Aug 11, 2005; Author - Robert J. Shimonski; In our daily jobs as Systems Engineers and Administrators we come across systems that are in need of our help… and may even be asking for it. Beyond checking your Event Viewer’s, this article looks at some common issues you might find on the server you are running Exchange on. As a Network and Systems Consultant, I see many times that Exchange itself is not the problem, but the fact that Exchange is installed on a sub-par system. Either the server hardware isn’t enterprise class, or the minimum hardware requirements weren’t addressed. In this article, we will take a look at checking the fundamentals of your Exchange System and look at a real world production server suffering from a common problem.
Implementing iSCSI for Exchange Server 2003: Date - Aug 09, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article, I will show you how to move your Exchange Server 2003 databases to new disk space on a file server on which storage is published over iSCSI.
Windows-based SMTP Tar Pitting Explained: Date - Aug 04, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I’ll explain what SMTP Tar Pitting is all about, as well as show you how to implement this relatively new feature (at least for Windows-based servers) in your messaging environment.
Designing Outlook Forms (Part 1): Date - Aug 02, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; This article will show how to utilize the power of Outlook Forms combined with Exchange Public Folders by using a sample help desk example.
Configuring ISA to Redirect OWA Users to the Correct Directories and Protocols (Part 2): Date - Jul 28, 2005; Author - Thomas Shinder; Part 1 of this two-part series on how to redirect OWA users to the right site and protocol discussed the issues involved with creating redirects for users who enter incorrect URLs or incorrect protocols when accessing the OWA Web site. We also went over the initial configuration steps you can use to perform the redirects. In this, part 2 and final part of the series, we’ll go over the configuration steps from beginning to end and explain the rationale behind the steps. By the time you finish the procedure, users will be able to enter incorrect paths and incorrect protocols and still be redirected to the correct OWA Web site. The end result is fewer Help Desk calls.
Recovering a Failed Exchange 2003 Member Server Using the Disaster Recovery Switch: Date - Jul 26, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; What could be worse than facing a seriously corrupted mailbox store? Yes you guessed right – facing a completely dead Exchange Server. In this article I’ll shine some light on the steps necessary in order to restore an Exchange 2003 Member Server, that has experienced a major hardware failure causing a complete loss of data.
Restoring Exchange Server 2003 to alternate Hardware: Date - Jul 19, 2005; Author - Markus Klein; There are several steps you will have to do if you have to restore your Exchange Server 2003 System to alternate hardware. This is very often a task if your old Exchange Server box crashed and you did not have a chance to get the same or very similar hardware back. The goal now will be restoring your Exchange Server 2003 System on new hardware that is not the same as the old. Within this article we will get a drill-down on how this works and what steps and tasks need to be done to make things run properly.
The NoMAS Tool: Date - Jul 14, 2005; Author - Neil Hobson; Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS) can provide you with a useful tool called NoMAS. In this article I want to cover what the NoMAS tool is and under what circumstances you might want to use it.
Configuring ISA to Redirect OWA Users to the Correct Directories and Protocols (Part 1): Date - Jul 12, 2005; Author - Thomas Shinder; A frequent request I see on the ISAServer.org Web boards and mailing lists is for information on how to help hapless uses who can’t remember to enter the correct path or protocol to reach the Exchange Server’s OWA site. While it might seem like a simple issue to enter the path https://owa.domain.com/exchange into the Web browser Address bar and press ENTER, long experience tells us that this isn’t the case.
Disclaimer Fun: Date - Jul 07, 2005; Author - Rui Silva; These days almost every corporate e-mail has a disclaimer. Companies use them because of legal issues, as an advertising means or maybe because they think messages look nicer with a disclaimer. Since Exchange Server 5.5 Microsoft has provided a way of adding basic disclaimers to outgoing messages. Let’s see how things have evolved since then and what we can do to extend the provided capabilities.
Creating A Certificate For Outlook Web Access 2003 Using SelfSSL: Date - Jul 05, 2005; Author - Lee Derbyshire; Issuing certificates has historically been a fairly complicated process requiring the installation of Certificate Services, but a less well-known utility from the IIS6 Resource Kit Tools known as SelfSSL can make the process a lot easier.
Key Archiving and Recovery: Date - Jun 30, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to setup a Windows 2003 Enterprise CA for archiving and recovering keys for e-mail encryption.
Demystifying The Exchange Dial-tone Restore Method (Part 3): Date - Jun 28, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; We have reached part 3 which is the final one in the Demystifying The Exchange Dial-tone Restore Method article series. In this article I’ll show you how to make sure the Mailbox Store we previously restored to the Recovery Storage Group is in a consistent state, as well as provide you with the necessary steps in order to swap the restored Mailbox Store with the dial-tone database. Finally I’ll show you how to merge the two databases.
Scripting Exchange Using VBScript and ADSI (Part 3): Date - Jun 21, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; The first two parts of my scripting series discussed Exchange users in almost every possible angle. This third part of the series will go over ways for accessing Exchange objects, such as servers, storage groups and databases.
How to Set Size Limits for Messages: Date - Jun 16, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to set size limits for messages in Exchange Server 2003.
Disk Geometry: Date - Jun 14, 2005; Author - Rui Silva; The storage subsystem is one of the most critical elements on a Microsoft Exchange infra-structure, mainly because of the aggressive random I/O requirements of the Exchange Server 2003 database. The key to a healthy environment is proper configuration of the storage array, considering performance before capacity. One of the measures you can take is to realign the hard disk tracks with the Windows physical disk partitions, increasing performance up to 20 percent.
Managing Exchange 2003 With MOM 2005 (Part 3): Date - Jun 09, 2005; Author - Neil Hobson; The Exchange Management Pack Configuration Wizard can make configuring the Exchange management pack really easy and here I show you how. When you’ve done that, you should also check out the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer (ExBPA) management pack.
Demystifying The Exchange Dial-tone Restore Method (Part 2): Date - Jun 07, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In Part 1, I talked about what an Exchange dial-tone database is, also showing you how to create one. In this article (Part 2), I’ll delve a bit more into the Outlook 2003 Exchange Recovery Mode, as well as show you how to restore the crashed Mailbox Store to the Recovery Storage Group using NTBackup.
Optimizing your Exchange Server 2003 Deployment using Exchange Best Practice Analyzer 2.0: Date - Jun 02, 2005; Author - Markus Klein; Due to the many different theories about the best practice of configuring a Exchange Server 2003 deployment in an organization, Microsoft tried to give each administrator and consultant an easy way to deploy Exchange using Microsoft’s recommendations on best practices. With release 2.0 of the Exchange Best Practice Analyzer, Paul Bowden, the “father” of this tool, has provided a powerful tool for easily configuring and optimizing your Exchange Server environment. In this article you will get a brief description of the features of Exchange Best Practice Analyzer 2.0 and how to use it to optimize your configuration.
Managing Exchange 2003 With MOM 2005 (Part 2): Date - May 31, 2005; Author - Neil Hobson; In the second part of this three part article, I will take a look at what drives MOM 2005 as far as Exchange management is concerned: the Exchange management pack. Understanding what’s contained within the management pack is key to obtaining a firm grasp of what MOM 2005 can offer the Exchange professional.
Demystifying The Exchange Dial-tone Restore Method (Part 1): Date - May 24, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this three part series I’ll try to explain what the Exchange dial-tone restore method (aka the Recover now, restore later method) is all about, as well as inform when and why it can be a good idea to use this method in conjunction with the Recovery Storage Group (RSG) feature, when faced with one or more corrupt Mailbox Stores.
Managing Exchange 2003 With MOM 2005 (Part 1): Date - May 19, 2005; Author - Neil Hobson; We would like to welcome Microsoft MVP Neil Hobson to our team of authors as he presents his first article to MSExchange.org readers: In this three part article I will take a look at the highlights of what MOM 2005 can do for you, the Exchange professional. If you’re responsible for one or more Exchange servers and haven’t investigated MOM 2005 yet, then hopefully this series of articles will make you want to check out the product further.
Exchange 2003 Backup and Restore with NTBACKUP: Date - May 17, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will show you how to Backup and Restore your Exchange Server databases with the help of the built-in NTBACKUP from Windows 2003. I will show you the simplest form of Exchange Backup and Restore. For complete Exchange Server Backup and Recovery follow the links at the end of this article.
Just say NO to A/A: Date - May 12, 2005; Author - Rui Silva; In my opinion, e-mail is still the internet killer-app. And according to Forbes.com, Exchange is the number one corporate e-mail server. Should you use Exchange clustering? Well, it depends on your business needs and how much are you willing to lose for the downtime. Should you use Active/Active clustering? NO!
10 Tips to Optimize Exchange 2003 Performance (Part 2): Date - May 10, 2005; Author - Rui Silva; Performance is not only about tuning but also about preventing problems. Or maybe it all boils down to getting the most bang for the buck. In part 1 of this article I covered the first 5 tips to achieve better performance with Exchange 2003. In this last part I’ll talk about 5 more tips to help you make a better Exchange design and optimize your environment.
Using the Microsoft Exchange Server User Monitor (ExMon) tool: Date - May 05, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I will give you an introduction to Microsoft’s latest Exchange 2003 Server Web Release tool – Microsoft Exchange Server User Monitor (ExMon) which was announced on You Had Me at EHLO (aka Exchange team blog) the 7 April 2005. ExMon makes it possible for Exchange Administrators to view, evaluate and gather real-time data about the users in an Exchange environment.
Harnessing the power of Ambiguous Name Resolution (ANR): Date - May 03, 2005; Author - Erik Rozman; The computer industry loves acronyms. Acronyms save time, instead of having to utter long sentences and waste time; you can speak the latest buzzword in the form of an acronym and in addition to saving time you will also sound cool.... The following article deals with such an acronym - ANR.
10 Tips to Optimize Exchange 2003 Performance (Part 1): Date - Apr 28, 2005; Author - Rui Silva; We would like to welcome Microsoft MVP Rui J.M. Silva to our team of authors as he presents his first article to MSExchange.org readers. Everybody likes to keep their systems running smoothly and tuned for performance. For simpler scenarios with basic configuration you can probably use Exchange 2003 out-of-the box without ever having performance issues. But if you are responsible for a complex environment, then you have probably already felt the bitter taste of a system bottleneck. If you identify yourself with this description or if you are just a tweak fanatic, then this article is for you.
How to Automate the Exchange Server 2003 Installation: Date - Apr 26, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article, I will show you how to automate the Exchange 2003 installation process with the help of an unattended script.
Protecting Exchange 2003 Using the Windows Firewall: Date - Apr 19, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; How to use the Windows 2003 SP1-introduced port and application filtering options to protect your Exchange server.
Implementing Exchange 2003 Message Journaling: Date - Apr 14, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; Exchange 2003 provides a native Journaling feature which allows you to archive all incoming and outgoing e-mails for a specific mailbox store. Beginning with Exchange 2003 SP1 you can download EXEJCFG.EXE from the Exchange 2003 download site. EXEJCFG enhances the current Exchange archiving features to capture recipients on distribution lists, BCC recipients and other message details. In this article I will show you how to implement Exchange 2003 Journaling for e-mails.
Customizing Mailbox Limit Warnings with the Quota Message Service for Exchange: Date - Apr 12, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I will give you an insight into how you, with the use of the Quota Message Service for Exchange, can customize mailbox quota messages (aka mailbox limit warnings.)
Tape Backup Alternatives: Date - Apr 07, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; Tape backup is an old technology. It is sort of like the car engine. Though the technology has definitely matured, the basic principle and shortcomings have remained the same. In this article I will discuss backing to hard drives and DVD RAM drives for small and branch offices.
Implementing NNTP using Microsoft Exchange Server 2003: Date - Apr 05, 2005; Author - Markus Klein; If you decide to use Newsgroups in your Exchange Server 2003 organization, the first step is to choose between Local and/or Public Newsgroup implementations. If you want to implement Local Newsgroups it is quite easy and independent from Internet traffic. Public Newsgroups mean that your Internet traffic might increase a lot so you as an administrator should try to keep public information to a minimum only.
Scripting Exchange Using VBScript and ADSI (Part 2): Date - Mar 29, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; The first part of my scripting series discussed ways of accessing and searching for Exchange objects such as users and contacts in Active Directory. This second part of the series will go over creation of a new object, and over the most important attribute of an Exchange recipient, the e-mail address.
How to Speed up an Exchange 2000 or 2003 / DC reboot: Date - Mar 24, 2005; Author - Lee Derbyshire; Automatic Updates often require a reboot, and if you have a Domain Controller with Exchange installed on it, a reboot can take a very long time indeed. This article discusses why Exchange/DC shutdown takes such a long time, and (more importantly) what you can do about it.
Understanding Exchange Databases Disk Consumption: Date - Mar 22, 2005; Author - Erik Rozman; Exchange databases need disk space, once they run out of disk space they can not continue to function. My aim in this article is not to describe methods of preventing or solving the disk space problem(even though I will provide a tip or two)- my aim is to describe and explain the way that Exchange databases uses disk space.
Scripting Exchange Using VBScript and ADSI (Part 1): Date - Mar 18, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; In this article I will show you the basics of writing scripts in VBScript language using the ADSI interface provided by Active Directory for storing and retrieving Exchange information.
Dealing with Outlook Internet Headers: Date - Mar 15, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I’ll give you a brief introduction to Outlook Internet Headers. Being an Exchange Admin it’s essential you know what an Internet Header is and just as important know how to read it, especially in troubleshooting situations and when dealing with spoofed e-mail messages.
Using SMTPDIAG to Diagnose Exchange 2003 Related SMTP and DNS Problems: Date - Mar 10, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you some information about how to use SMTPDiag. SMTPDiag is a diagnostic tool that is used to determine if Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and Domain Name System (DNS) are configured to reliably deliver mail to an external e-mail address.
Adding Events to Multiple Mailboxes using Exmerge: Date - Mar 08, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; Add a holiday or some other company event to all the calendars without sending a meeting request.
Command Line-based Exchange Management using ExchMbx: Date - Mar 03, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; If you're a relatively experienced Exchange Admin with several years in the field, at one time or another you've probably missed the capability of managing Exchange related tasks via the command line console (CLI), but fear not those days are over now that we have ExchMBX.
Using the Exchange tools ISINTEG and ESEUTIL to Ensure the Health of your Information Store: Date - Feb 24, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you some information on how to use the Exchange tools ISINTEG and ESEUTIL. With the help of ESEUTIL you can defragment your Exchange information store offline, check the integrity of the store and repair the information store in case of emergency. ISINTEG is used to perform some tests on the information stores and to fix some errors.
Migrating Contacts and Distribution Lists from Outlook to Active Directory: Date - Feb 22, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; Use script magic to turn your Outlook MAPI based contact information to a lightening fast Active Directory, Exchange enhanced LDAP implementation.
IMF Managers: Date - Feb 17, 2005; Author - Amit Zinman; An overview of free IMF add-on tools allowing administrator to track which e-mails are blocked, view them, unblock them and more.
Exchange 2003 Real World Tweaks (Part 2): Date - Feb 10, 2005; Author - Robert J. Shimonski; In today’s high speed quick paced environments whether it be business or technology, it is essential to pay close attention to detail when attempting be a cut above the rest. Broken out into each subheading, you will find 15 tips that we consider very important points to cover when assessing your current Exchange environment. You will find Tips 8-15 in this article. Let's take a look at each in detail.
Using ADModify to Change Exchange Specific AD User Attributes in Bulk: Date - Feb 08, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I will give you an insight into how you, with the use of ADModify, can modify Exchange attributes on Active Directory (AD) users in bulk. If you’re an Exchange administrator in a relatively large organization you will quickly learn you can’t afford to be without ADModify.
Exchange 2003 Real World Tweaks (Part 1): Date - Feb 03, 2005; Author - Robert J. Shimonski; In today's high speed quick paced environments, whether it be business or technology, it is essential to pay close attention to detail when attempting be a cut above the rest. It's those finer, smaller details that can make the difference in life and sometimes, can be what makes you stand out. When counting on your company's email system, it's imperative that you consider working to making it the best running system you can.
Implementing High Availability for Outlook Web Access using Network Load Balancing: Date - Feb 01, 2005; Author - Markus Klein; Today nearly every company that is running Exchange Server 2003 publishes Outlook Web Access to provide their users with the ability to read and write emails from nearly all around the world. The only thing you need to have is a computer connected to the Internet. This means that it is now more important than ever that you provide high availability and high performance to your users. Windows Server 2003 provides a powerful solution regarding this topic: Network Load Balancing, formerly known as Windows Load Balancing. In this article we will see how to configure Network Load Balancing for Outlook Web Access Services.
Command Line Administration of your Exchange Full-Text Index with the help of MSSEARCH_ADMIN.VBS: Date - Jan 25, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article, I will show you how to administer the Full-Text index with a new command line tool – called MSSEARCH_ADMIN.VBS. This tool greatly expands the administration capabilities with a lot of missing features in the GUI administration (Exchange System Manager). You can use MSSEARCH_ADMIN.VBS with Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003.
Overview of the Exchange 2003 Resource Kit Tools: Date - Jan 18, 2005; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you an overview about the Exchange 2003 Resource Kit Utilities – called “All-in-One Exchange 2003 Tools” which you can download for free from the Microsoft Exchange website.
Exchange log disk is full, Prevention and Remedies: Date - Jan 13, 2005; Author - Erik Rozman; We would like to extend a warm welcome to Microsoft MVP Erik Rozman to our team of authors as he presents his first article to MSExchange.org readers. In the following document I will describe preventive measures that should help you avoid running out of disk space and in addition I will also describe possible remedies if this has (gasp) already happened.
Outlook Web Access 2003 Forms-based Authentication and the default domain dilemma - Part 2: Date - Jan 11, 2005; Author - Henrik Walther; In my first article I showed you how you could edit the Logon.asp page in order to login simply by using username instead of username@domain.com (UPN) and domain\username. I’ve got some excellent feedback from different Exchange admins already using similar methods and my idea with this article was to provide you with a few of the improved code snippets I’ve received.
Implementing the X.400 Connector - Is It Worth Using with Exchange Server 2003?: Date - Jan 06, 2005; Author - Markus Klein; Exchange Server 2003 Enterprise Edition still provides a X.400 connector. With Exchange Server 5.5 this was the default protocol and connectivity standard. With the release of Exchange 2000 Server Microsoft implemented SMTP as the default protocol for connectivity. Due to backward compatibility there is still a X.400 based MTA stack available. But it is only a stack and not a protocol implementation. The following article is a drill-down through the basics of X.400 and how to configure the X.400 connector. Afterwards we will then talk about in what cases we still need it.
OWA 2003 Caveats when Deploying Windows XP SP2 in Your Organization: Date - Dec 21, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I will show you some of the caveats you run into when deploying Windows XP SP2 in an organization where your users rely on the Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2003 client, and because many of the security enhancements included in Windows XP SP2 have been made to Internet Explorer (IE) there are plenty.
Simulating Stress for your Exchange 2003 Hardware using LoadSim 2003: Date - Dec 16, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; This article deals with testing a brand new Exchange server hardware in a lab environment by simulating Outlook activity.
Explaining Exchange 2003 Http Access (Part 2): Date - Dec 09, 2004; Author - Paul Baldwin; Outlook Web Access, Outlook Mobile Access and Exchange ActiveSync all use HTTP methods to access Exchange 2003. This article describes the mechanisms behind these features and explains why the features can sometimes be so awkward to configure.
Using WinRoute to determine the Routing status of your Exchange organization: Date - Dec 07, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you some information about how to determine the Routing status of your Exchange organization with the help of the WinRoute tool. WinRoute is a Microsoft Exchange Server 2000/2003 tool that you can use to determine the link state routing (LST) information that is known to the routing group master. You can use this tool for troubleshooting Message Routing in Exchange 200x environments.
Customizing the OWA 2003 Forms-Based Authentication Logon Page: Date - Dec 02, 2004; Author - Lee Derbyshire; In this article, we shall look at how you can make some visual changes to the MS Exchange 2003 Forms-based Authentication (FBA) logon screen.
Using OWA 2003 as the Default Mail Client in Your Organization: Date - Nov 30, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; Because Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2003 has become so feature-rich (in premium mode) and provides a user interface that closely matches Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 (also known as the Outlook MAPI client), provides far better performance and security than was the case with earlier versions, it’s getting more and more popular to use OWA 2003 as the default client among users within the organization (especially when speaking retail stores, schools and factory floors etc.)
Explaining Exchange 2003 Http Access (Part 1): Date - Nov 25, 2004; Author - Paul Baldwin; Outlook Web Access, Outlook Mobile Access and Exchange ActiveSync are all methods of accessing Exchange 2003 using HTTP, but making them all work together can be a bit of a nightmare. The problems multiply when users have email addresses selected from more than one email domain. This article explains the mechanisms behind these HTTP features so that you may avoid some of the common pitfalls.
Implementing a Two Node Cluster with Windows 2003 Enterprise: Date - Nov 23, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you a high level overview about the installation of Exchange 2003 on a Windows 2003 two node Cluster. This article doesn’t explain every necessary step for clustering Exchange, but it should give you an overview about the installation process and some basic handling.
Using the Exchange Migration Wizard: Date - Nov 18, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you an overview of the Exchange 2003 Migration Wizard (MAILMIG.EXE). With the help of the Migration Wizard you can simply migrate from a foreign messaging system or older Exchange versions to Exchange 2003. The wizard can help you to migrate from: Migration Files, MS Mail for PC Networks, cc:Mail, Exchange 5.5, Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise 4.x, Novell GroupWise 5.x, Internet Directory (LDAP via ADSI) and, Internet Mail (IMAP4).
Designing an Active Directory/Exchange 2003 environment using the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer: Date - Nov 11, 2004; Author - Markus Klein; A lot of companies are willing to implement Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 as their primary messaging and collaboration system. And therefore these companies need an Active Directory implementation. The question then often is: What’s the best way to design an Active Directory environment for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003? Within this article we will try to delve a little bit deeper in this designing process itself and will have a look at the best practices for implementation.
User, groups, distribution list and contact management with Windows 2003 Active Directory: Date - Nov 09, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you a detailed Step by Step solution how to create mailbox enabled users, mail enabled users, contacts and distribution list.
Neat OWA 2003 End-User Tips & Tricks: Date - Nov 04, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I will provide you with a few useful OWA 2003 end-user tips & tricks. First I will show you some of my favourite OWA 2003 keyboard shortcuts, and then I will move on and explain how you can improve the awkward OWA 2003 Attachment feature simply by installing the S/MIME ActiveX component. I will also show you how you can have multiple mailboxes opened through OWA using one username. Last but certainly not least I will give you an insider tip on how it’s possible to recover shift-deleted (aka “hard deleted”) mailbox items through OWA 2003.
How to add SPF support to your Exchange Server: Date - Nov 02, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; SPF (Sender Policy Framework) makes it easy to counter most forged "From" addresses in email, and thus helps to counter e-mail spam. GFI is offering an SPF module as freeware. In this article I will give you some information about the newest version of GFI MailEssentials 10.1 and how to setup the software with SPF integration.
Shared Hosting with Exchange 2003 (Part 2): Date - Oct 28, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; This article deals with hosting Exchange 2003 services for multiple customer companies by creating virtual Exchange organizations in a single domain.
How to Properly Configure File System Antivirus Software on Exchange Server: Date - Oct 26, 2004; Author - Dejan Foro; Improperly configured file system antivirus software on Exchange server can cause you serious problems. This article will show you how to properly configure file system antivirus software on Exchange server and avoid most common pitfalls.
How to completely remove a Exchange server or the entire Exchange organization: Date - Oct 19, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you a detailed overview of: How to remove Exchange Server 2003 from your computer; How to Remove the First Exchange 2003 Server Computer from the Site; and How to completely remove Exchange 2003 from Active Directory.
Using IIS Lockdown Tool to Secure Exchange Installations: Date - Oct 14, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; Exchange 2003 when installed on Windows 2003 is secure by default. However, Exchange 2000 and 2003 on Windows 2000 are not very secure because IIS 5, the Windows 2000 built-in web server installed installs some components that are not required for Exchange and can be exploited by hackers. True, Firewalls may protect you, but nowadays sophisticated viruses and Trojans may attack you from inside, catching you unaware. Learn how to secure Windows 2000 IIS for Exchange 2000/3 installations.
Exchange Memory Allocation: Date - Oct 12, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; Deciding how much memory to use for Exchange is rarely an exact science. Large organizations might have statistics for Exchange usage so they can plan according to charts, but even then the planning might fail if user's mail usage changes or a virus spreads internally. Any Exchange hardware or software problem might also prove to be too much for systems that usually run smoothly. This article will deal with how much memory Exchange servers should have and how to deal with servers with large RAM.
Protecting Microsoft Exchange with ISA Server 2004 Firewalls: Date - Oct 11, 2004; Author - Thomas Shinder; Nobody likes to start from scratch. This is especially true if you have a well established network and firewall infrastructure that’s working for you. Why would you want to go and change everything just to add a new application layer intelligent firewall to your setup? Things are working already and you haven’t been successfully attacked for at least 6 weeks. This article shows how you can place an ISA 2004 firewall on your network to protect your Exchange Servers with minimal changes to your current network topology. Check it out!
Forestprep and Domainprep Explained in Detail: Date - Oct 07, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you a detailed overview of the Microsoft Exchange Forestprep and Domainprep process.
Configuring Mobile Devices to connect to Exchange Server 2003: Date - Oct 05, 2004; Author - Markus Klein; With Exchange Server 2003 you have the possibility to use mobile devices to connect to your Exchange Server 2003 environment. Generally there are two ways to connect: through Outlook Mobile Access and, Exchange Active Server Sync. Within this article we will have a closer look at the configuration and the implementation of Exchange Active Server Sync and especially what has to be done to configure your device properly to make it work.
An Overview of the Sender Policy Framework: Date - Sep 30, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you some information about SPF – Sender Policy Framework and its implementation. Some statistics state that nearly 75% of all e-mail traffic is Spam, sometimes called UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email). To help against this threat, several vendors are developing solutions against Spam. One solution is SPF. What is SPF? SPF is a solution to fight against email address forgery. SPF makes it easier to identify spam mails, viruses and worms.
Step-by-Step: Migrating Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003 Using New Hardware: Date - Sep 28, 2004; Author - David Fosbenner; Migrate your mail system from Exchange 2000 Server running on a Windows 2000 Server system to a new server running Exchange Server 2003 on Windows Server 2003. This scenario will take you through all Exchange-related issues from adding your first Windows Server 2003 system to unplugging your old Exchange 2000 system when finished.
Installing and Configuring SBS 2003: Date - Sep 22, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; Implementing Microsoft's small business full featured package from an Exchange 2003 perspective. This article will not detail all the countless features of SBS 2003. Instead, it will focus on installing SBS 2003 as an Exchange server that also features file and monitoring services.
Overview of the ADC (Active Directory Connector): Date - Sep 16, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you an overview of the Microsoft Active Directory Connector (ADC). I will give you some background information about the ADC and its functions.
Access Your Exchange 2000 / 2003 Mailbox With WebDAV: Date - Sep 14, 2004; Author - Lee Derbyshire; There are several Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that you can use to access an Exchange 2000 or 2003 Mailbox. WebDAV is not the easiest to learn, but can often be the most convenient. This article is an introduction to the topic.
Enabling Freedocs access through Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2003: Date - Sep 07, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I will explain what Freedocs are all about as well as explain how you can benefit from enabling access to FreeDocs through OWA 2003. In Exchange 2000 (and prior versions) access to FreeDocs via OWA was enabled by default, but as many other things this was changed in Exchange 2003 (as part of Microsoft’s secure by default initiative.)
Configuring Exchange 2003 HTTP Remote Access: Date - Sep 02, 2004; Author - Paul Baldwin; This guide presents a configuration for ensuring the Exchange 2003 HTTP remote access features (Outlook Web Access, Outlook Mobile Access and Exchange ActiveSync) work together harmoniously both in single-server Exchange deployments and more complex frontend-backend deployments. This guide also illustrates how the use of ‘Integrated’ authentication can provide internal Outlook Web Access users with ‘transparent’ logons.
Using General Purpose Public Folder Trees in Exchange 2003: Date - Aug 31, 2004; Author - Mark Fugatt; If you are going to allow people outside of your organization to use Exchange to collaborate with each other you don’t really want to give them access to your default Public Folders, so in this article we will look at creating a new Public Folder tree, a new Public Folder Store, how to allow access to it via a web browser, and some of the configuration options you might want to apply.
Mailbox Management: Date - Aug 24, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you an overview of Exchange 2003 Mailbox Management. We will cover the following topics: Mailbox creation, Recipient Policies, Mailbox Management, and Mailbox Recovery.
Configuring SMTP for Branch Deployments: Date - Aug 19, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; An overview of setting up SMTP flow in a sample medium sized Exchange organization.
Domain Rename – Rename a Windows 2003 Forest with Exchange 2003 installed: Date - Aug 17, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you a Step by Step solution how to rename a Windows 2003 domain with Exchange 2003 installed. This article will not explain every step how to do a domain rename. This is documented in the “Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing Domain Rename“. You will find the link at the end of this article. The Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Domain Rename Tool provides a supported methodology to rename one or more domains in an Active Directory forest. The DNS name and the NetBIOS name of a domain can be changed using the domain rename procedure. Note that implementing domain rename is a complex undertaking that requires thorough planning and a good understanding of the domain rename procedure.
Recovering Mailboxes with Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1: Date - Aug 12, 2004; Author - Markus Klein; If someone already tried the Exchange Server 2003 Beta 2 he should have found out that at least one feature was missing in comparison to the final release. With the Beta 2 you were able to reconnect a mailbox that was mounted via the recovery storage group feature with a user from your Active Directory. So it was quite easy to configure and no Exmerge utility was needed at that time. With its final release things changed and you have had to use Exmerge to recover the mailbox. Now with Service Pack 1 this feature is back.
Outlook Web Access 2003 Forms-based Authentication and the default domain dilemma: Date - Aug 10, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; Okay so you have enabled Forms-based Authentication (FBA) and your users can now logon to Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2003 either by typing domain\username or username@domain.com. But ever since you enabled FBA your users have found it annoying they can’t type username anymore, the other day even the CEO told you his opinion about it, and he definitely wasn’t satisfied so you better come up with a solution.
Administering Public Folders with Exchange 2003 and PFMIGRATE: Date - Aug 05, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you an overview about basic Public Folder Administration Tasks with Exchange 2003 and the use of tools like PFMIGRATE.
The Hidden Power of Sender and Recipient Filtering: Date - Aug 03, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; Filtering in Exchange 2003 can be a powerful tool in the right hands. It can help you to protect your mail server, especially in a single server or branch scenario when no mail relay is provided and ease the load off your regular anti virus and anti spam packages if it is used right.
Configuring SMTP Logging to an Access Database: Date - Aug 01, 2004; Author - Mark Fugatt; In this article we will look at how you can configure Exchange to perform SMTP logging to an Access database.
Using Telnet to connect to Exchange 2003 POP3 mailboxes and using SMTP to send e-mail for troubleshooting purposes: Date - Jul 29, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you tips for troubleshooting Exchange 2003 POP3 access and SMTP E-Mail transfer using the good old Telnet client. Why am I writing an article about POP3 and SMTP troubleshooting with the help of Telnet? Telnet gives you some powerful information about every connection step for POP3 or SMTP processes.
Things to Do When Your Exchange gets Blacklisted: Date - Jul 27, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; One day you get a lot of phone calls regarding mail not getting anywhere and your SMTP queue is full of junk. This could easily get you into panic and much calls to outside expensive consultants. Instead, a few steps can rid you of these attacks. This article will deal with how to get your Exchange server out of block lists and stop attacks at the same time.
Site Consolidation Tools for Exchange Server 2003: Date - Jul 22, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; In this article I will give you a step by step solution to deploy the Site Consolidation Tools for Exchange 2003 in Mixed Mode. Have you ever tried to move a Mailbox between different administrative Groups in Exchange 2003 Mixed Mode? – It doesn’t work. What do you do when you are deploying an Upgrade from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003? What do you do with the Outlook Profiles? How can you update these settings to reflect the new Server? The answer is easy. Install Exchange 2003 SP1 and the updated version of the Exchange 2003 Deployment Tools and life will go easier. You will see this later in this article.
Protecting Exchange against Spam: Date - Jul 20, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; Unsolicited e-mail, more commonly known as spam is a rising and complex problem. Unlike viruses, spam mail does not have a clear and cut signature. Anyone could send you an e-mail you wouldn't want to receive so determining which e-mail you definitely would not want to accept can be tricky. Various anti-spam packages exist. However, integrating them into your mail systems is not trivial. They have so many options that may help you prevent spam but can also cause a lot trouble and increase "where is my mail" type help desk calls. I hope to cover most aspects of combating spam here to make it easier for you to decide which solution is best for your needs.
Configuring the InterOrg Replication Tool: Date - Jul 15, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; The Inter-Organization Replication tool was initially released as part of Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 SP3, with an Update for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. This tool is used to replicate public folder content and free and busy information between different Exchange organizations. It allows the coordination of meetings, appointments and contacts. In this article I will give you a step by step solution to setup an InterOrg Replication between two different Exchange 2003 Organizations.
Securing SMTP Connections to Specific Servers: Date - Jul 13, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; SMTP is basically a non-secure protocol. E-mail fraud and spoofing is not difficult to do. This means anyone can send you an e-mail posing as someone else. Moreover, SMTP mail is typically sent in clear text and can be intercepted on the way by anyone using "sniffers", programs that record network activity. In this article you'll learn how to send and receive encrypted mail.
GAL Sync with the Identity Integration Feature Pack (IIFP): Date - Jul 08, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; The Windows 2003 Forest is the logical boundary of Exchange 2003. Microsoft recommends deploying only one Active Directory Forest whenever possible. There are many reasons for single forest deployment beginning with the administrative overhead through the need to synchronize the Global Address Lists of Exchange 2003 between two forests to provide a central GAL. But what if you have more than one forest with Exchange 2003 (through a merger or acquisition)? In this article I will explain in high level steps how to synchronize the GALs (Global Access Lists) of two Exchange 2003 organizations with the help of IIFP. This article should give you an overview about this complex process.
Configuring an SMTP Connector: Date - Jun 30, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; You can configure an SMTP Connector to connect your Exchange Organization with the Internet or with another organization using SMTP as a transport protocol. This article explains in detail how to configure an SMTP Connector in Exchange 2003.
Defragmenting your Exchange Database: Date - Jun 24, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; This article deals with the importance of shrinking your Exchange database using the ESEUTIL tool. Defragmenting your database is a good practice though should not be overdone due to its disk intensive nature. It is a useful tool but as all tools should be dealt with care when used in a production environment.
Exchange Backup Strategies: Date - Jun 22, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; The ability to restore Exchange is important but not trivial as there are various options to choose from. Taking the time to evaluate these options can be critical and save you time and money if you make the right decisions.
Using ExMerge to recover a Single Mailbox or Mailbox Item: Date - Jun 17, 2004; Author - Markus Klein; As already described in one of my last articles about Exchange Server 2003 you do not have to install a second Exchange Server environment in an isolated forest to restore a single mailbox or a single mailbox item. You can use the recovery storage group to restore a mailbox database onto your running Exchange Server 2003. After having done this you now have to extract the mailbox you want to recover using the ExMerge utility.
Using Microsoft Exchange Intelligent Message Filter: Date - Jun 16, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; Finally Microsoft has released the new Exchange Intelligent Message Filter (IMF) - a SmartScreen-based Exchange 2003 add-on specifically developed to help Exchange Admins reduce the amount of unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) also known as spam received by their users.
Microsoft Outlook Web Access 2003 Web-based Administration: Date - Jun 15, 2004; Author - Lee Derbyshire; The Microsoft Outlook Web Access 2003 Web-based Administration tool provides a long-awaited way of easily (and safely) making UI changes that previously required direct manipulation of the registry.
Securing Exchange Server 2003 & Outlook Web Access: Chapter 5 on MSExchange.org!: Date - Jun 10, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; Get a glimpse into Henrik Walther's recently published book - Securing Exchange Server 2003 & Outlook Web Access! This essential book serves as a comprehensive checklist to all of the security-related configuration consoles in Exchange. Best of all, it's written in a "get to the point" style that clearly explains exactly what you need to know about installing, managing, and troubleshooting. This chapter focuses strictly on OWA security OWA authentication, enabling SSL on OWA, restricting user access, allowing password changes through OWA, and redirecting HTTP to HTTPS.
Status Monitoring: Date - Jun 08, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; Exchange 2003 Standard and Enterprise offers the feature to monitor the Server status of the Exchange Servers in your Enterprise. If some of the monitored services and other Resources (RAM, CPU, Services) are in “Warning state” or “Critical State” you receive a status E-Mail or a customized action provided by a script notification. This article explains in detailed steps how to configure Monitoring and E-Mail notification.
Exchange 2003 Service Pack 1 Review: Date - Jun 03, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; Step by step guide to installing the latest Exchange service pack and quick overview of some of the new features.
Choosing the Right Storage for Your Exchange Server: Date - Jun 01, 2004; Author - Amit Zinman; Choosing the right storage solution depends on balancing budget and functionality. Knowing about alternatives is always good since having a cheaper solution is better than having no solution at all. This article provides an overview of the hardware used to store the Exchange operating system and databases.
Managing Mobile Access with Exchange Server 2003: Date - May 25, 2004; Author - Markus Klein; With Exchange Server 2003 we have some integrated mobile access features with the Microsoft messaging solution. In this article we firstly discuss the chances and risks of providing mobile access in Exchange and then describe the best practises configuring these ones.
Implementing a Full-Text Index for your Information Store: Date - May 21, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; Microsoft Exchange 2003 Server can create and manage full-text indexes for mailbox stores and public folders to provide users to search in message or public folder contents. With the help of full-text indexing, the content in an exchange database is indexed with the result of faster content searching. This article gives you best practices for deploying full-text indexing with Exchange 2003 Server.
Restricting users from Sending and Receiving Internet Mail in Exchange 2003: Date - May 19, 2004; Author - Mark Fugatt; This article is an update on how to restrict Exchange 2003 users from receiving and sending Internet based email.
Using the Exchange 2003 Mail Wizard: Date - May 11, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; “I will be back” – said Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator I – This is true for the IMW (Internet Mail Wizard) in Exchange 2003. Available first in Exchange 5.5, left in Exchange 2000 and new in Exchange Server 2003. This article explains in detail how to use the Exchange 2003 Mail Wizard to configure Internet E-Mail Access for your organization.
Queue Viewer Improvements in Exchange 2003: Date - Apr 28, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; Being an Exchange Administrator involves several different maintenance tasks, one of them is to regularly check if mail messages flows properly through your X.400 and SMTP Virtual Server queues, which is where the Queue Viewer contained in the Exchange System Manager comes into the picture. In this article I will introduce you to the Queue Viewer improvements found in Exchange 2003, as well as give a brief description of the different queue types available.
Getting Help and Information When You Need It: Date - Apr 26, 2004; Author - Mark Fugatt; Getting help when you need it is not as complicated as you may think, there are many "self service" options available to you in the form of newsgroups, forums, discussion lists, blog and websites. In this article I hope to provide you with some valuable resources that you can use to build your knowledge of Exchange.
Configuring Outlook 2003 for Offline Use with Exchange 2003: Date - Apr 19, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; When you use Outlook 2003 with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, you can configure some folders in your mailbox for offline use, that is, you can use the contents of a folder without a Network connection. This article explains in detail how you can create, use, and synchronize offline folders.
Moving Mailboxes with the Exchange 2003 Move Mailbox Wizard: Date - Apr 15, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; In this article I will spend some time covering the much improved Move Mailbox Wizard found in Exchange Server 2003. The new Move Mailbox Wizard has been improved in several areas, its now possible to move up to 4 mailboxes at the same time (called Multithreading), you can decide how corrupted items are handled, mailbox moves can now be scheduled and there are different options for reporting etc.
Troubleshooting and Monitoring Exchange Server 2003 Message Flow: Date - Apr 08, 2004; Author - Markus Klein; Nowadays, with the great success of Exchange Server 2003, you have to prepare yourself on what action to take should message flow related problems occur. To ensure that you, as an administrator, become aware and recognize any problems before your users have reported them, you will need to make use of monitoring. This article will describe how to monitor your server queues and how to react if there are any problems.
Exchange 2000 Key Management Server Migration to a Windows 2003 CA: Date - Mar 29, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; Exchange 2003 uses the Windows Server 2003 PKI architecture to provide secure e-mail services for Exchange users. Exchange 2000 KMS is no longer supported. The Windows 2003 Enterprise CA provides central key archiving and recovery. This article explains in high level steps how to migrate an Exchange 2000 KMS database to a Windows Server 2003 CA.
SSL Enabling OWA 2003 using your own Certificate Authority: Date - Mar 17, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; Why spend money on a 3rd party SSL certificate, when you can create your own for free? In this article I will show you step by step how you create your own SSL Certificate, which among other things is needed in order to properly secure Outlook Web Access on your Exchange 2003 Server.
Providing E-Mail Defense in Depth for Microsoft Exchange with the ISA 2004 Firewall SMTP Message Screener: Date - Mar 09, 2004; Author - Thomas Shinder; There’s no doubt that spam is public enemy number one, not only to the e-mail administrator, but also to the firewall admin. Spam clogs Internet connections, wastes corporate bandwidth, reduces employee productivity and consumes valuable Exchange Server software and hardware resources. Spam, together with its evil cousins e-mail worms and viruses, represent the primary threats against corporate networks today. Find out how the ISA 2004 firewall protects your Exchange Server by acting as the first line of defense against spam and viruses.
Exchange 2003 Outlook Web Access Themes: Date - Feb 28, 2004; Author - Lee Derbyshire; Ever since its first appearance, many Exchange Admins have attempted to customize the Outlook Web Access user interface. In Exchange 2003, the concept of 'themes' makes things a little easier. This article explains some of the theory.
Implementing System Policies in Exchange Server 2003: Date - Feb 24, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; An Exchange System policy provides a new way to apply common settings to servers, public folder stores and mailbox stores for all or selected objects in an Exchange administrative group. This article explains in detail how to implement a mailbox store policy.
Implementing Email Security with Exchange Server 2003: Date - Feb 11, 2004; Author - Markus Klein; Has anyone ever considered Email Security (S/MIME) within their Exchange Server 2003 network environment? As complex as it was to configure with earlier versions of Exchange Server, now it’s equally easy to implement with Exchange Server 2003. The only requirement is a Windows Server 2003 certificate authority with configured automatic certificate enrollment.
Joining the Branch Office to the Main Office with the Firewall for Microsoft Exchange - ISA 2000 : Connecting to the Main Office Exchange Server from the Branch Office using RPC over HTTP: Date - Feb 06, 2004; Author - Thomas Shinder; The new Outlook and Exchange 2003 RPC over HTTP feature is great for users stuck behind restrictive firewalls. But what if you want to put the RPC over HTTP proxy server on the ISA firewall machine itself? No problem! Check out this article for all the step by step procedures.
Doing an in-place upgrade from Exchange Server 2000 to 2003: Date - Jan 29, 2004; Author - Henrik Walther; We would like to welcome Microsoft MVP Henrik Walther to our team of authors as he presents his first article to MSExchange.org readers. As companies seems to start their Exchange 2003 deployments way faster, than was the case with Exchange 2000, I thought it was about time to provide you with information on how you handle an in-place upgrade from Exchange 2000 to 2003.
Query-based Distribution Groups: Date - Jan 16, 2004; Author - Marc Grote; A query-based distribution group is a new additional type of distribution group in Exchange 2003. This new type of distribution group provides the same functionality as a standard distribution group; however, instead of specifying static user memberships, a query-based distribution group allows you to use an LDAP query to dynamically build membership in the distribution group (for example All employees with a special group membership). Using query-based distribution groups we can reduce the administration costs dramatically. However a Query-based Distribution Group needs more Server resources like CPU power and RAM.
Configuring the Outlook 2003 RPC over HTTP Client: Date - Jan 05, 2004; Author - Thomas Shinder; The RPC over HTTP protocol allows your full Outlook 2003 MAPI clients to connect to Exchange 2003 Servers using HTTP/HTTPS. This solves the problem remote Outlook 2003 users have when located behind restrictive firewalls. The trick is to figure out how to properly configure the Outlook 2003 client to use this protocol. If you have remote users who need to access Exchange 2003 via Outlook 2003, then check out this article and see how to configure Outlook 2003 to use RPC over HTTP.
Configuring ISA Server 2000 to Support Outlook 2003 RPC over HTTP - Part 1: Preparing the Infrastructure and Configuring the Front-End Exchange Server: Date - Dec 29, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; Exchange Server 2003 allows Outlook 2003 clients installed on Windows XP Service Pack 1 and above full MAPI client access to Exchange Server 2003 resources using the new RPC over HTTP protocol. RPC over HTTP allows the RPC commands required for full Outlook 2003 MAPI client access to be wrapped or "encapsulated" in an HTTP header and passed through proxies that allow outbound HTTP/HTTPS (SSL). ISA Server 2000 is the ideal firewall to provide the highest level of protection for your Exchange Servers while at the same time allowing the rich functionality the Outlook RPC over HTTP client provides. Check out part 1 of this series on how to configure the ISA firewall to allow secure RPC over HTTP connections to your Exchange 2003 Server.
Microsoft Live Communication Server (LCS): Date - Dec 29, 2003; Author - Marc Grote; Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003 is a manageable and extensible instant messaging server (IMS) that provides a real-time collaboration solution. It enables corporations to reach, collaborate, and respond to information more quickly as compared to telephones and e-mail. In this article we'll walk you through the steps that are involved while installing and configuring the Live Communications Server.
Implementing Outlook Web Access with Exchange Server 2003: Date - Dec 23, 2003; Author - Markus Klein; Following the implementation of Exchange Server in a company it is often desirable connect to users mailboxes using Web Access. Especially with the new release of Exchange Server it is quite interesting to use OWA because you have nearly all the functionality as Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. Within this article we provide a detailed step-by-step guide for implementing Outlook Web Access. Priority will be given to security issues at every stage of the implementation.
Dealing with Localization of Outlook Folders: Date - Dec 17, 2003; Author - Amit Zinman; This article provides a few tips and tricks for making sure that Outlook folders are using the language you want when Exchange is involved.
Outlook Mobile Access (OMA) in Exchange Server 2003: Date - Dec 10, 2003; Author - Marc Grote; Marc Grote presents his first article for MSExchange.org and we are pleased to welcome him on board. Exchange 2003 provides a new cool Feature called Outlook Mobile Access (OMA). OMA allows users to access Exchange data by using mobile devices. Exchange 2003 provides two services for mobile users: Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and Microsoft Outlook Mobile Access. This article is based on Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition (Build 3790), Exchange 2003 Enterprise RTM and the Mobile Browser Simulator / Gateway from Nokia.
Testing Mail Flow using Outlook Express: Date - Dec 04, 2003; Author - Amit Zinman; Sometimes, in order to troubleshoot mail problems you can use a handy tool installed on every Windows 2000/2003 server, Outlook Express. Outlook Express is a powerful SMTP diagnostic tool. It's availability on almost all mail servers and workstations makes it easy to play Sherlock Holmes finding clues regarding mail problems.
Configuring a Spam and Attachment Filtering SMTP Relay on the ISA Server 2000 Firewall - Part 1: Installing and Configuring the SMTP Services and Remote Domains: Date - Dec 01, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; Spam is a major threat to the Internet and corporate networks today. Spam clogs Internet routers and gateways, usurps bandwidth on corporate Internet links, and consumes processor cycles and disk space on corporate SMTP relays and mail servers. Criminal spammers are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to circumvent spam filtering applications. The more complex the spammer’s attack methodologies used to avoid detection, the more processor intensive the spam whacking applications must be. These processor cycles are robbed from other applications and services running on the same machine and often require that you dedicate a single box to spam filtering. This two part article shows you with detailed step by step instructions on how to make your ISA Server 2000 firewall into a front-end spam filtering SMTP relay.
Using the SMTP Connector Internally: Date - Nov 26, 2003; Author - Amit Zinman; Although all of us Exchange administrators would like to have Exchange as the sole mail server, sometimes more SMTP mailers exist. The following article explains how to configure Exchange to relay mail for these systems.
Using Mail Relays to Enhance Exchange Security: Date - Nov 19, 2003; Author - Amit Zinman; Virus, Trojan and denial of service attacks are quite common these days and Exchange is a popular target for these attacks due its popularity and inherent vulnerabilities. Mail relays can be used to thwart most attacks. I'm constantly discovering that although the concept of mail relays is not new they can be used against the latest sophisticated attacks, just long as they're not the weakest link in the chain of e-mail delivery.
Improvements in Exchange 2003: Date - Nov 11, 2003; Author - Jakub Synoradzki; Not everyone has managed to migrate to Exchange 2000 yet, while others choose to ignore it completely, and continue using Exchange 5.5. Meanwhile, Microsoft has introduced a new upgrade – the 2003. This is related to the appearance of a new MS Windows 2003 version, the operating system to provide a really good tandem with Exchange 2003. As we will see further on, when using Exchange 2003 without combining it with Windows 2003, it loses most of its functionality.
Migrating from Exchange Server 5.5 to Exchange Server 2003: Date - Oct 30, 2003; Author - Markus Klein; Many companies are still using Exchange Server 5.5 as their primary email and collaboration system. With the end of Microsoft’s support of this release within 2003 they have to decide to move to a new release of Exchange Server. Within this article you will get a detailed overview on how to migrate an Exchange 5.5 directory to a new Windows Server 2003 supported Exchange Server 2003 environment. Because an in place upgrade is not supported, it won’t be covered in this article.
Introducing the ISA Server 2000 Exchange Server 2000/2003 Deployment Kit - Getting the Most Out of The Firewall for Microsoft Exchange Server: Date - Oct 24, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; The ISA Server 2000 Exchange 2000/2003 Deployment Kit is here! Answers to all your questions regarding Exchange Server publishing and remote access to Exchange Server services via ISA Server firewalls are found in the kit. Check out this article for an intro to the kit and download links.
The Firewall for Microsoft Exchange Server - Supporting ISA Server 2000 Publishing of Exchange Server 2000/2003 with SMTP Relays Part 1: What is an SMTP Relay and Why You Should Use One: Date - Oct 16, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; SMTP relay issues are very common for Exchange Server administrators who need their mail servers to connect to the Internet. The problem is that there aren’t a lot of good descriptions of what SMTP relay is, how it works, why you want one, and what problems you might encounter with them. This series on SMTP relays will help prevent you from becoming the victim of an RBL'er and improve the performance of your Exchange Servers. Check it out!
Announcing Beta 2 of the ISA Server 2000 Exchange Server 2000/2003 Deployment Kit: Date - Oct 15, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; Thanks to everyone who contributed suggestions, recommendations and enhancements to the ISA Server 2000 Exchange Server 2000/2003 Deployment Kit beta 1 release. I’ve been able to incorporate a number of changes and additions to the ISA Server 2000 Exchange Server 2000/2003 Deployment Kit documents based on your suggestions. If you haven’t seen a change based on your suggestion made yet, don’t worry. I’m still trying to catch up with your mail and will make the changes ASAP. I appreciate the input you’ve sent to me a tshinder@tacteam.net and hope to get even more.
Migrating from POP3/SMTP servers using the M Drive: Date - Oct 09, 2003; Author - Amit Zinman; Moving users from using an internal POP3/SMTP server can be a tricky and costly business, with many pitfalls. The Exchange IFS "M" Drive can be used to ease some of these migration scenarios.
Shared Hosting with Exchange 2003 (Part 1): Date - Sep 30, 2003; Author - Amit Zinman; Active Directory and Exchange allows you to provide service to more than company without the need to build a separate domain / forest for each hosted company. The following article describes a simple shared hosting scenario where multiple sister companies are shared using the same Active Directory domain and can interoperate with each other.
Providing Secure Remote Access for the Full Outlook MAPI Client using the Exchange RPC Filter: Date - Sep 26, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; You can allow remote Outlook 2000/2002/2003 clients to connect to your Exchange Server and take advantage of the full functionality provided by the Outlook MAPI client. Unlike Outlook Web Access, full Outlook MAPI client functionality allows remote users to take advantage of the entire set of mail and groupware features provided by Exchange Server. But you must do this securely. Check out this article to find out how.
Using Outlook 2003 to connect to Exchange 2003 using RPC over HTTPS: Date - Sep 23, 2003; Author - Amit Zinman; Using Windows 2003/XP's new RPC over HTTP feature, Outlook 2003 clients can now connect to Exchange 2003 by encapsulating regular RPC/MAPI communications in HTTPS communications.
Implementing and Configuring Blacklist Support in Exchange Server 2003: Date - Sep 17, 2003; Author - Markus Klein; Spam filtering software based on keywords, etc. is only one brick in the wall guarding against Spam; another one is to implement black- or block-list support within your messaging and collaboration environment. With the new release of Exchange, Microsoft implemented the functionality to filter every incoming email whether the sender is on a blacklist or not. Within this article you will learn how blacklists work and how you can configure support with Exchange Server 2003.
Secure Exchange Server 2003 POP3 Publishing: Date - Aug 26, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; Your users can access their corporate email via the POP3 protocol using the Exchange Server 2003 POP3 service. However, in order to secure user credentials and data moving between the email client and server, you have to use SSL/TLS security. Check out this article and find out how to use ISA Server 2000 to provide secure POP3 access.
Exchange Server 2003 Mailbox Recovery: Date - Aug 01, 2003; Author - Markus Klein; Presenting his first article for MSExchange.org, we are pleased to welcome Markus Klein (MCSE & MCT) to our team of authors. With the new release of Exchange Server, Microsoft provides some more ways to easily recovery a mailbox from an online backup or if it is accidentally deleted. Within this article we will have a close look at these new features.
Publishing Exchange 2003 Outlook Web Access (OWA) with ISA Server 2000 - Table of Contents: Date - Jul 17, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; I recently finished a five part series on how to publish the Exchange 2003 Outlook Web Access Web site using ISA Server 2000. The inspiration behind this series was the realization that ISA Server 2000 provides an absolutely unique ability to protect my OWA 2003 Web sites in a way that no other firewall in its class can do. Check out this series *before* you publish that OWA 2003 site!
Publishing Exchange 2003 Outlook Web Access (OWA) with ISA Server 2000 - Part 3: SSL Bridging Drill Down and Requesting a Web Site Certificate: Date - Jul 11, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; We continue our series on publishing Exchange 2003 OWA sites with a drill down on SSL to SSL bridging and the importance of Web site certificate configuration. Then the steps by steps for obtaining the Web site certificate and exporting it are discussed. Come on in if your wresting with OWA publishing and certificate assignment!
Publishing Exchange 2003 Outlook Web Access (OWA) with ISA Server 2000 Part 2: Understanding SSL Bridging and Installing an Enterprise CA: Date - Jul 09, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; In the first part of this series on how to publish the Exchange 2003 OWA site using ISA Server 2000, we went over some of the advantages the Exchange 2003 OWA site has over previous versions and a high level overview of the steps required to make the internal Exchange 2003 OWA available to external network users via ISA Server 2000 Web Publishing Rules. In this article we'll look at how the ISA Server firewall uses SSL bridging to provide a unique level of protection for your Exchange 2003 OWA site
Publishing Exchange 2003 Outlook Web Access (OWA) with ISA Server 2000: Date - Jul 08, 2003; Author - Thomas Shinder; ISA Server 2000 is the firewall of choice when publishing Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 services. If you are running, or plan to run, Exchange 2000 or 2003 services and want to make those services available to external network users, then it behooves you replace any existing firewall setup you current have in place and use an ISA Server 2000-based firewall offering. Check out this series on OWA 2003 publishing to get off to a good start.
Exchange 2003 Active Directory Connector Wizardry: Date - Jun 23, 2003; Author - Amit Zinman; Migration from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 was a bit of a headache for those who tried it, especially using the early versions of ADC, the component used to synchronize Exchange 5.5 and Active Directory. Microsoft will soon release Exchange 2003, which is not a great leap in design as Exchange 2000 but basically, the same product with some additional capabilities, improved web interface and Windows 2003 operating system support. The Exchange 2003 ADC has evolved to make basic migration scenarios more easy using automated and wizard based mechanisms. Let's look at some of the changes.
Exchange 2003 Beta 2 – Improvements and Questions: Date - Jan 24, 2003; Author - Amit Zinman; Exchange 2003 is supposed to be a minor upgrade of Exchange 2000, mainly delivering improvements based on customer feedback. Exchange 2000, a major leap from Exchange 5.5 had some incomplete features and stability issues. Some features have been added through services packs (STM files virus checking, fault tolerant domain controller access, and more) and some have been saved for the new code named Titanium version. Some of the new features are only available when installed on the Windows 2003 platform, some only when used with the upcoming Outlook 11 client, also in its beta cycle.
Email Exploit Detection - A revolutionary way of protecting networks against current and future email attacks: Date - Jul 11, 2002; Author - The Editor; An exploit uses known vulnerabilities in applications or operating systems to execute a program or code; it "exploits" a feature of a program or the operating system for its own use, such as to execute arbitrary machine code, read/write files on the hard disk, or gain illicit access...