Outlook 2016 and Exchange 2010

There i was thinking that Microsoft was trying to outsource Exchange......

TBH I'm starting to dislike Office 365 with its licensing scenarios and so on, but then again its a cheaper option in some aspects than using Office Pro + Exchange.

ANYWHO!!!!

Outlook 2016 was released and failed to incorporate a manual method to connect to exchange from outside the company, in other words its method to connect to an onsite exchange server would be the same as connecting to Office 365.

So the steps we need to complete are as follows (Assuming your exchange server has been setup correctly for autodiscover internally):

-Setup autodiscover.yourdomain.co(m)

Create this as a CNAME that resolves to your current mail server's external address or MX record

-Create new Exchange certificate to include autodiscover.yourdomain.co(m)

Import it into exchange GUI and check IIS for correct bindings

http://www.careexchange.in/how-to-use-a-self-signed-certificate-in-exchange-2010/

If you are using SBS for this then you will have to install the Web Enrollment feature for the currently installed CA.

If you are missing the "WebServer" template within the web enrollment you will HAVE to use this command from a CMD:

Certreq.exe –submit –attrib “CertificateTemplate:webserver” C:\RequestFile.req NewCertName.cer

Then:

Certreq.exe –accept NewCertName.cer

If the first command comes up with an error regarding being (Incomplete) then look at this article:

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/3544-microsoft-exchange-2010-annoyance-certificate-wizard-incompatible-with-certificate-services.html

It says that you need to open the .req file and re save it with ANSI encoding.

-Copying the certificate

Go to the Certificate Authority and copy the newly created certificate to a Base64 file.

-Test your autodiscover setting

Using https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/

-Install root certificate on client PC

Copy your CA's root certificate to your external clients computer and install it into Trust Root Certs store.  The above link explains this.  If there is a certificate problem Outlook will not connect.

-Setup Outlook 2016 to connect using autodiscovery setting

Enter your details into outlook 2016 and cross your fingers for 3 green ticks

Through this process you will be going too and fro between these articles so becareful not to get lost.

So fear not it is possible to still use Exchange with Office 2016

Create an Email address policy based on a Database

We have a client who has 2 different databases within their exchange server, i needed to have different primary SMTP addresses for the recipients within these 2 database.  The main policy added an email based on the Alias of the user which was fine for the first database but needed a different primary email for the second database.

So again i went to the Internets and found this very helpful article.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/exchange/en-US/e464e76e-47b0-4323-987f-82f40421ef5b/apply-email-address-policy-to-database?forum=exchange2010

What i did first was i created a basic policy within the GUI and made sure that the email address was what i wanted it to be i.e %s%1g@domain.com, I made sure i didn't apply the policy yet, if you do you will apply those changes to ALL email enabled users.  Then went to the management shell and ran this command:

Set-EmailAddressPolicy "test" -RecipientFilter { (Database -eq "CN=General Database,CN=First Storage Group,CN=InformationStore,CN=Exchange2003ServerName,CN=Servers,CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=contoso,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=contoso,DC=com") }

Use get-mailbox | fl to get the distinguished name of the server, once you have run this command goto the policy within the GUI, right click and apply immediately.  You will see it has a filter on it so you know you have been successful in applying the filter.

-Fr33ze

Licensing for Terminal Server 2012

I had an issue where i believe i'd setup the licensing correctly for 2012 R2, seems there are a few things i need to do behind the scenes if i want a simple Session host that allows my client to connect to the terminal server via RDP.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2013/09/20/rd-licensing-configuration-on-windows-server-2012.aspx

This article above shows how to achieve this, but there is some small fine print that allows you to connect to a licensing server when none of those above steps seems to get a connection.

To guarantee that your TS will connect to a licensing server at all:

Run POWER-SHELL as Administrator

Run the following commands:

To configure the license server on RDSH/RDVH:

$obj = gwmi -namespace "Root/CIMV2/TerminalServices" Win32_TerminalServiceSetting

$obj.SetSpecifiedLicenseServerList("License.contoso.com")

Note “License” is the name of the License Server in the environment

To verify the license server configuration on RDSH/RDVH:

$obj = gwmi -namespace "Root/CIMV2/TerminalServices" Win32_TerminalServiceSetting

$obj.GetSpecifiedLicenseServerList()

To change the licensing mode on RDSH/RDVH:

$obj = gwmi -namespace "Root/CIMV2/TerminalServices" Win32_TerminalServiceSetting

$obj.ChangeMode(value) - Value can be 2 - per Device, 4 - Per user

To validate the licensing mode:

$obj = gwmi -namespace "Root/CIMV2/TerminalServices" Win32_TerminalServiceSetting

$obj. LicensingType

$obj.LicensingName

Once you have run these commands refresh the licensing page and you will see no more yellow warnings.

The issue seems to be related to not having a connection broker installed, if you don't have this installed then you will need to run these commands.

I personally do not need a connection broker but if you have more than 1 terminal server and need to contingency then it maybe required.

-Freeze