Test Layout

We have a client that wants a very specific email signature attached all outbound email messages. They are a fairly small client with about 20 users. So, manually configuring Outlook worked for them. Where it fell apart was all the mobile devices that they use. They have both iPhones and iPads for various users. By default iPhones and iPads don't sent HTML email. And there is no built-in method for creating messages with graphics such a logos in the signature. I did have some success copying an HTML signature from an existing email and pasting it into the signature for an iPhone, but the results were inconsistent. Some devices properly sent the signature with the logo and other didn't. Even more frustrating, sometimes it started working fine and then stopped. The solution is to implement Exclaimer Signature Manager for Exchange (www.exclaimer.com) on the Exchange server. Exclaimer manages the signature at the server level instead of at the device level. So, we don't need to...

We have a client with a misbehaving service. An older version of Tomcat that runs a web application. The Tomcat service tries to restart itself at 1am each night but as often than not, it ends up hanging in the stopping phase. At this point, I manually kill the process and start the service. After going through this process for a while, I figured we better script this and make it a scheduled task. Here is the script: $tom = Get-Process tomcat6 Stop-Process $tom.id Start-Sleep -s 5 Start-Service tomcat6 The script loads the process tomcat6 into the variable $tom. Then it stops the process based on the process id of $tom. If you try to pass the entire process object it fails. Then the script pauses for 5 seconds and starts the tomcat6 service. I found that if I didn't have a pause between killing the process and starting the service, the service wouldn't start. I'm assuming this is because the process is not stopped entirely before it gets to starting the service. Putting in ...

I was browsing an online forum recently and saw someone with an issue creating dynamic distribution groups in Office 365. The mailing lists were based on the Office property. However, to accommodate users that work out of multiple locations the poster was trying to put a comma separated list in the Office property. Then for the distribution group the poster wanted to do a recipient filter including something like: Office -like '*location1*' This syntax works properly for on-premises Exchange but won't on Office 365. I assume that it is because Office 365 is trying to limit the load these queries place on the infrastructure. In Office 365, you can't start your query with a wildcard. So, you can search for 'location*' but this only returns true if the value is at the start of the string. The second bright idea I had was to fake it out and put a dummy value first. The I could use two wildcards to get the same effect. So, the query would be for 'X*location1*...

It's pretty common to rename user accounts in your organization. This is typically done when a person gets married. In a large organization, this happens fairly often. If you are syncing with Office 365, you want to change the user id there also. Unfortunately, this is a manual process. Let me explain.... Let's say that I have a user with the UPN of Byron.Test@conexion.ca in my organization. When I first run Dirsync, this UPN is synchronized in Azure AD and Office 365. I can not use this UPN for authenticating to both on-premises services and Office 365. Several months later I meet the lady of my dreams and get married. Now I change the on-premises information including the UPN. So, my new UPN on-premises is Byron.Dreamy@conexion.ca. The updated last name, display name, and UPN show as synchronized when I view the logs in DirSync. However, in Office 365, the new UPN never appears. In Office 365, I still need to authenticate as the original UPN of Byron.Test@conexion.ca. While t...

In Exchange 2010 when you generate an address list or dynamic distribution group containing Users with Exchange mailboxes this includes room and equipment mailboxes. If you want to exclude resource mailboxes, you'll need to use PowerShell to set the recipient filter. Here is a command that creates an address list for users with Exchange mailboxes, which includes resource mailboxes: New-AddressList "MailboxUsers" -RecipientFilter {(RecipientType -eq 'UserMailbox')} Here is a command that creates an address list for user with Exchange mailboxes, but excludes resource mailboxes: New-AddressList "MailboxUsersNoRooms" -RecipientFilter {(RecipientType –eq ‘UserMailbox’) –and (-not(ResourceMetaData –like ‘ResourceType:*’))} There is an oPath filterable property named IsResource however, I couldn't use that for address lists because there is no LDAP equivalent and the cmdlet errored out.

The simplest way to find old unused computer accounts is by using a PowerShell query. You can use Get-ADComputer to do the query. In smaller environments, you can do a simple query for all computer accounts sorted by LastLogonDate. This query puts the oldest logon dates at the top: Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Properties LastLogonDate | Sort-Object LastLogonDate | Format-Table Name,LastLogonDate The -Filter parameter is required, by using an asterisk, you are querying for all computer accounts. You need to use the -Properties parameter because the Get-ADComputer cmdlet doesn't query for all computer account properties by default. So, you can use the -Properties parameter to specify that LastLogonDate should be retrieved. Be aware that servers will be included in this list and that LastLogonDate is not entirely accurate when identifying whether servers are in use. For example, I just did a query for a client with an active application server that shows the LastLogonDate as being three ...

This was such a strange issue that I don't know if this post will ever help anyone. I just need to write it for therapy...... Starting on Friday of last week, I got reports from one client that some emails were not being delivered. This has happened to clients in the past when they were on block lists. So, my first step was to check some block list tools to see what's up. Each of the block list tools indicated that the IP was not being blocked. Some of the antispam appliances have block lists that are not checked by the typical web sites. So, I tried to dig into it a bit further. One of the sites that was being blocked is a local university and I know several of the server/email admins there. So, emailed, explaining that I figured it was an antispam issue. They sent me the site to check block list for their appliance and it came up clean. In fact, they said my request for delivery wasn't showing up in the logs at all. I should also note that access to ports other than 25 wa...

This web page allows you log on with your Google account (which was required when getting the device online) and shows the location of your device. You can wipe it if you lost it. You can also ring it to find it in your house. https://www.google.com/android/devicemanager The hard part is remembering the credentials for your Google account if you don't use it very often.

If you have existing user accounts in your hybrid environment, and want create a mailbox in Office 365 for those users, you can use the Enable-RemoteMailbox cmdlet. However, when you try to use Enable-RemoteMailbox you commonly get the following error: The address '@yourtenant.mail.onmicrosoft.com' is invalid: "@yourtenant.mail.onmicrosoft.com" isn't a valid SMTP address. The domain name can't contain spaces and it has to have a prefix and a suffix, such as example.com. This error occurs because the cmdlet is not building the RemoteRoutingAddress properly. This address is used for routing messages to the Office 365. So, we need to create that RemoteRoutingAddress property as part of a piped command or script. I've seen several examples using piped commands, but I prefer a script because I find it easier to follow the logic. Here is the script I used recently: $users = get-user -OrganizationalUnit "OU=xx,DC=domain,DC=com" -RecipientTypeDetails U...

Exchange Online/Office 365 does not have dynamic distribution groups. So, in a hybrid deployment, it's not possible to synchronize dynamic distribution groups from on-premises to Office 365. There are two work arounds: Option 1 If you like scripting, you can create a script that updates the membership of a normal distribution group. You'll need to run the script as a scheduled task. The main benefit to this method is that it is contained entirely within the on-premises environment. There are two drawbacks to this method: It's not actually dynamic, so there is a lag time from when new members are created and when they're added to the group. It's relatively complex to create the script and schedule a powershell script to run as a task with the correct snap-ins loaded. Option 2 My preferred option for this is to create a contact in Office 365 that points at the dynamic distribution group on-premises. This allows you to continue using true dynamic distribution groups on...

When you implement Office 365, you are using Exchange Online for email. Exchange Online is regularly changing the limits that apply for things like the size of the mailbox and attachment sizes. This web page is maintained with the up to date information on limits for Exchange Online: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/exchange-online-limits.aspx