The name cannot be matched to a name in the address list for a valid user - Exchange 2010

In some cases, I hide old users in Exchange Management Console so they don't appear in the global address list.  I had done that with a certain user, and I kept trying and trying to no avail to configure his Outlook.  I kept getting "The name cannot be matched to a name in the address list for a valid user."  I could log in to webmail for the user, and I could log on to a laptop as the user with no trouble - but Outlook could not find the user during mailbox setup/configuration.

The error:

The solution (uncheck "hide from Exchange address lists")

exporting mailboxes to PST on Exchange 2010

I went through the very good instructions here to export an Exchange 2010 mailbox to PST:
http://exchangeserverpro.com/export-mailboxes-exchange-server-2010-sp1/

But I kept getting errors when doing the mailbox export request.  I didn't track the error, but I'm about 90% sure that the error was related to the file path I was exporting to.  I was attempting to export to a file path of "\\servername\e$\filepath\username.pst"

Once I changed the export path to \\servername\sharename\username.pst - the export succeeded.

Stupid, but something to remember.

creating a CSR for a UCC SSL certificate on Exchange 2010 or SBS 2011

I installed an SBS 2011 box this weekend and I wanted to install a UCC SSL certificate on it. I get my certificates from godaddy, and this was the method I used in the Exchange Management Console to create the CSR that godaddy needed.

http://www.digicert.com/csr-creation-microsoft-exchange-2010.htm

Here is the text in case that link ever gets moved or taken down:

Open the EMC

Select "Server Configuration" in the menu on the left, and then "New Exchange Certificate" from the actions menu on the right.

When prompted for a friendly name, enter a name by which you will remember this certificate in the future.

This name is not an integral part of your certificate request.

Under Domain Scope, you can check the box if you will be generating the CSR for a wildcard. Otherwise, just go to the next screen.

If you do select that box for a wildcard, skip to step 7.

In the Exchange Configuration menu, select the services which you plan on running securely, and enter the names through which you connect to those services, as prompted.

At the next screen, you will be able to review a list of the names which Exchange 2010 suggests you include in your certificate request. Review those names (using our SAN Name Help tool if necessary, and add any extra names at this point.

Your Organization should be the full legal name of your company.

Your Organization unit is your department within the organization.

If you do not have a state/province, enter the city information again.

Click "Browse" to save the CSR to your computer as a .req file, then Save, then Next, then New, and then Finish.

You should now be able to open the CSR as a notepad or wordpad file, and you will want to copy the entire body of that file into the online order process.

sending as an alias on an Exchange server

There's no easy way to send as one of your aliases on an Exchange server. Let's say your primary email address is dave@abc.com with two aliases of helpdesk@abc.com and dave@xyz.com. Logic would say that you could add the FROM field in your Outlook message and put in one of your aliases. Well, this doesn't work.

There are two workarounds to allow you to send as your aliases. I'll describe them both and give links on how to implement them:

1) create a POP3 account in the local Outlook that does not ever actually POP anything and uses the SMTP info for the Exchange server and the email address for the alias

http://www.messageops.com/office-365-tools-resources/sending-as-secondary-alias-in-microsoft-exchange-online/

2) create a distribution list with a single member (the user). Assign send as permissions to that mailbox for the user and then the user can use the FROM field. The down side is that you might be adding many different fake distribution lists for each time a user needs to send as an alias.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/msonline/archive/2010/02/23/notes-from-the-field-support-for-multiple-aliases.aspx

Both solutions are lame, but I'll be implementing option 1 from this point forward.

connecting Outlook 2003 to an Exchange 2010 server

Using its default settings, Outlook 2003 won't connect to an Exchange 2010 server (nor will Outlook 2007 that has been upgraded from Outlook 2003). Exchange 2010 requires encryption between clients and itself when doing MAPI connections. As such, you need to make that change from the default settings on Outlook 2003. Just check the box for "encrypt data between Microsoft Office Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server" on the security tab after clicking on the more settings button when setting up an Exchange account.

Windows Server Backup - Exchange backup fails at consistency check

I have a single server setup where the server runs Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010. The backup kept completing with warnings saying that the consistency check failed for Exchange.

EDIT - the steps from my original post below also work. But a much easier solution is to enable circular logging on the Exchange database that is failing. Then mount and dismount then Exchange database. All the logs will disappear. Get a good backup and then disable circular logging.

Original post below:

I'd also get event log errors saying that certain log files were missing. There was a point where I had deleted some log files to address space issues. And since the backup wasn't finishing, the log files kept failing to get flushed.

I doubt this is the advisable way to handle this, but this is what I did:

a) delete all log files

b) Backup all edb's.

c) Check shutdown status of your .EDB

eseutil /mh "Full Path to your EDB"

d) eseutil /p "Full Path to your EDB"

/p is hard-repair

e) eseutil /d "Full Path to your EDB"

/d is desfragment

f) isinteg -s servername -fix -test alltests **

** my isinteg would not run, but I was able to mount and run the databases without running isinteg. Not best practice, but it kept giving me references to a log file for isinteg that didn't seem to exist.

After running the eseutil commands, my database mounted and I was able to get a good backup.

Tool for message tracking in Exchange 2010 is now called "Tracking Log Explorer"

I had been getting very frustrated with the tracking tools in Exchange 2010 as message tracking kept leading me to the Outlook Web App web interface, which I find unhelpful.

But then I found that what I'm used to seeing as Message Tracking is now called "Tracking Log Explorer" and near the same location.

Open Exchange Management Console -> Tools -> Tracking Log Explorer

It works the same was as Message Tracking in Exchange 2007

sending spam to junk email folder on Exchange 2007/2010

When configuring actions on detected spam on Exchange 2007 and 2010, there is no option to send it to the junk email folder when configuring it on the EMC. This is absurd. It looks like this (shown here are the actions on the content filter):



As stupid as it is, the way you can configure an SCL to be sent to the junk e-mail folder is through the PowerShell.

This command will send all junk with an SCL of 4 or higher to junk e-mail:

Set-OrganizationConfig -SCLJunkThreshold 4

I put this command on all my Exchange servers. I also disable all outright rejection of spam. Users hate it when legitimate email gets rejected. All spam goes into the junk email folder.


More info on this issue is located here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb738127(v=exchg.80).aspx

BES Express installation thoughts

RIM released a new version of their free server side enterprise software in early 2010. There are some big benefits of the new version (Blackberry Enterprise Server Express 5.0 over Blackberry Professional Server Express). Three huge advantages to the new version - 1) you can install it on 64 bit systems, 2) you no longer need the BB Enterprise plan on your devices to use Blackberry Enterprise (though you need BB Enterprise plan to do wireless activation - without it, you need to do wired activation through the desktop software), and 3) the server license is free and so are all device licenses.

You can get the software here:
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/business/server/express/?iid=BESX_Software_landing

The install wasn't too different from the previous version of the server software, but what's great is that RIM made a great installation guide and one that included a great screen shot walk-through.

Here's the text guide:
http://docs.blackberry.com/en/admin/deliverables/14335/BlackBerry_Enterprise_Server_Express_for_Microsoft_Exchange-Installation_and_Configuration_Guide--984521-0120054149-001-5.0.1-US.pdf

Here's the screen shot walk-throug:
https://www.blackberry.com/blackberrytraining/web/_content/indexExternal.html?cc=3731382d30323036335f42455358496e7374616c6c&cx=3230393930313031&cl=656e&cg=636f6e6669675f6c6f76655f707572706c652e786d6c

I was setting up BES Express on a Windows 2008 R2 machine with Exchange 2010 on it. The truth is that I had some trouble with the instructions. There were several things that the guide told me to do that I couldn't. I had trouble setting send as permissions to besadmin. I had trouble granting log on locally as a permission to besadmin (option was greyed out). I also couldn't get this command to work (I edited it as appopriate for my domain):
Add-ADPermission -InheritedObjectType User -InheritanceType Descendents -ExtendedRights Send-As -User "BESAdmin" -Identity "DC=,DC=,DC="

So in my case, luckily, I had already created another bedadmin account when my domain was a 2003 domain - but overall, minus the issues on this Exchange 2010 install, which I was luckily able to work around, the new version is a welcome change.

certificate mismatch when opening Outlook clients on Exchange 2007/2010 servers

After moving from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010, I found all my Outlook 2007 users on the LAN were getting this error:



The certificate it was referencing was the FQDN for the external name of the server. But it was accessing Exchange through the internal name. The solution was KB94072

Easy fix once you know what to look for. You're telling Outlook to use the external name - which is resolvable through internal DNS.

adding anti-spam features to single server Exchange 2010

I built a single Exchange 2010 box, as opposed to one with an edge server - and there were not anti-spam features present. Normally, you'd find the anti-spam features in edge transport in the Exchange Management Console (EMC).

But since there is no edge transport server, you can add the anti-spam functionality (so that it appears in Organization Configuration -> Hub transport and some in Server Configuration -> Hub transport. In each case, there's an anti-spam tab.

To add it, enter these commands:

1. Run the following command from the %system drive%/Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Scripts folder.

./install-AntispamAgents.ps1

2. After the script has run, restart the Microsoft Exchange Transport service by running the following command.

Restart-Service MSExchangeTransport