Mailhelp

You’ve seen several posts on the Outlook Team Blog focused on ways to help you more effectively manage your incoming e-mails and appointments in Outlook. Office Labs has also been exploring some innovative methods to help people manage the vast amounts of information they receive on a daily basis.

To help alleviate this information overload, Microsoft Office Labs released Email Prioritizer last week on www.officelabs.com. The prototype – inspired by Microsoft Research’s “Priorities” project – is an add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 that was built by the Office Labs development team here in Redmond. Email Prioritizer provides a “do not disturb” button that temporarily pauses new email arrival from ten minutes up to four hours. Email Prioritizer will also assign priority ratings of 0 to 3 stars to incoming mail to help users focus their attention on the most important email messages.

While we encourage you to test out our prototypes, they are unsupported concepts with no plans for inclusion in any products.   Please direct any feedback you have on Email Prioritizer to Office Labs at emailpfb@microsoft.com.

Thanks!

Steve Geffner
Program Manager, Office Labs

Just wanted to post a quick note that yesterday we have released a new Scalable Networking Pack (SNP) hotfix rollup package for Windows Server 2003. This is all in relation to a blog post on the subject that we have posted a while ago. Mike has posted an update about this new rollup hotfix on his blog, you can check it out here: http://blogs.technet.com/mikelag/archive/2008/08/28/scalable-networking-pack-rollup-released.aspx -

One of the problems I often hear about from Outlook developers is that the sequencing of a particular event isn’t ideal for what they are trying to do. While sometimes this can be a hole in the Outlook platform, more often than not it’s because the developer isn’t using the best event for the scenario they are trying to build. Outlook often has multiple events that fire related to particular actions in the UI, and choosing the right event is important to ensure data consistency. For example, recently I was helping a partner team who wanted to examine the contents of a meeting request when the user has actually sent the request. During this event, they would compare the state of the meeting in their system against the meeting that the user was sending, and fix up any inconsistencies in their database. The developer had found the AppointmentItem_Send event in the object model, and naturally presumed that was the right event to use. However, they started to notice that inconsistencies were occurring between items in Outlook and their database. Multiple-client issues aside, the problem is because of the event they used. The Item_Send event fires when the user clicks the Send button on sendable items (Meeting requests, e-mail messages, etc). However, there are cases where the user can back out of sending the item after they click the send button. In this particular case, when a meeting is changed, the user is sometimes given a choice to send the updates to added/removed recipients, or to all recipients. If the user clicks cancel on this dialog, the send is canceled even though the Send event has fired. To work around this issue, I instructed the developer to listen for the Application_ItemSend event instead. This event fires after the user has committed to sending the message and ensures that the recipients on the item reflect the state of the item after the inspector has been closed. Likewise, there is a Close event on each of the item classes, as well as a Close event on the Inspector object. To ensure that you inspect the contents of the item after all edits have occurred, catching the Inspector_Close event will provide you with the best chance to see that information. After Item_Close has fired, there is still a chance the user will back out of the changes (for example, if they click No to save their changes). There are times where using the Item_Close and Item_Send events are very useful though. For example, if you want to be able to cancel the event and prevent the item from being closed or sent, these events have a Cancel parameter which can be set to True to prevent the action from occurring. The more deterministic events on the Inspector and Application object are not cancelable, because that would affect their determinism.

Taskline automatically schedules Outlook's task list. With Taskline, you know when each of your tasks is likely to start and finish, enabling you to meet deadlines with confidence. Taskline can also display tasks in Outlook's calendar. Taskline adds the ability to schedule different types of tasks to different time slots, for example work tasks during the day and personal tasks at evenings and weekends.Version 3

Message Pad for Outlook replaces phone message pads, Post-It Note or bits of paper for your phone messages. Messages can be picked up remotely using email enabled mobile devices. Workgroup management to allow office groups to maximize productivity (requires Microsoft Exchange). Fully integrated with Outlook. Free evaluation.

There have been some blogs on VSS backups in the past. Over last few months, we have worked on several cases where troubleshooting VSS was required. Seeing that the documentation around how to troubleshoot this is somewhat lacking, we decided to put together this blog post. This post will give you VSS troubleshooting tips using publicly available tools.

Introduction

Exchange-aware VSS backups are supported for both the active and passive storage groups and databases. The passive copy backup solution we provide is VSS-only, and it is implemented by the Exchange Replica VSS Writer that is part of the Replication service. Streaming backups are only supported from the active storage groups. You cannot use streaming backup APIs to back up the replica database. A VSS backup program must be used with a VSS Requestor for the Exchange writer.

With Exchange Server 2007, it is possible to run two separate VSS backup jobs against the same Exchange server. With Streaming Backups in Exchange Server 2003, while it was possible to run two backups at the same time versus two different Storage Groups, it was not possible with VSS. With VSS in Exchange Server 2003 it was not possible to back up SG2 until the backup completed on SG1. The Exchange 2007 Writer also allows you to restore Exchange data to an alternative location. The Exchange 2003 Writer did not allow retargeting VSS restores to a location other than the original path.

VSS backups cannot be restored to the replica location using the Exchange Writer, but they can be restored to an alternate location which could the replica copy folder directory.

In Exchange 2007 the store VSS writer allows for restores to ANY storage group, including RSG. It also allows for restores of databases to a folder location (not associated with an SG), where Jet is then used to replay logs into the database to bring it to a consistent and mountable state. Then it can be ported anywhere.

Troubleshooting Volume Shadow Copy Service

The Volume Shadow Copy Service is installed by default on a Windows Server 2003 server. It is set to start manually and will run if a requester (Backup program) can use the writers in the system. Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 addresses some critical problems affecting the performance of VSS. KB 914962 provides a list of all the updates on the service pack. You can then install just the updates for VSS. However, it is recommended that the full service pack be installed. An update rollup package 940349 is available to resolve some Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot issues in Windows Server 2003.

Additionally, depending on the symptoms, there are many hotfixes/articles that are available to correct top VSS issues. Some of them are listed below:

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/833167
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915331
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930800
• http://support.microsoft.com/?id=910250
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923628
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933779

Before a backup is run, we need to ensure the Exchange writer is in a stable state with no errors. We can check this on an exchange server by running the command "VSSadmin list writers" from the command prompt.

The output of this command should provide all writers registered with VSS. Check the State of the Writers. If the state is anything other than Stable, it might be a cause of concern; however, it does not necessarily have to be a cause of backup failure. If the Exchange writer is not in stable state (in "Retryable error" state as shown below) then we have to restart the information store service on the exchange server to get the exchange server in stable state.

Upon restarting the information store service, you should see "No error" as shown below.

vssadmin list providers - This command lists the registered volume shadow copy providers. It should ideally be "Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider 1.0". You can change it through the registry, if you need to. Here is the screenshot obtained by running the command on a working server:

By default, we would see only the Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider. However, some Backup software use their own providers and we may see an additional provider if such Backup software is installed.

A good result on both commands is extremely necessary. For more information on the use of VSSADMIN, try running vssadmin /? on the command prompt for a list of other tests available.

In case you find that the output of the vssadmin list writers command is blank, there might be registry corruption that is preventing the system from picking up and displaying the correct information. This is documented on KB 940184. It explains how you can recreate the list of VSS writers

If we still have problems, we can enable VSS tracing. To do so, refer the below article http://support.microsoft.com/?id=887013

Make sure you have installed the latest version of the backup client.

BETEST

We can run the BETest tool to take VSS backup of the Exchange storage group. BETest is a test requestor that can be used to test the Exchange VSS writer. Betest can perform most of the operations that a VSS requestor will perform. With Betest you can take a VSS Snapshot of your active and replica Databases on an Exchange 2007 Server.

BETest can be obtained by downloading and installing the Volume Shadow Copy Service SDK 7.2 from

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0b4f56e4-0ccc-4626-826a-ed2c4c95c871&displaylang=en

The default location for the i386 version of BETest is:

C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft\VSSSDK72\TestApps\betest\obj\i386

Note: There is also an AMD64 compiled version available. Always change to the directory of your operating system version before running BETest.

1. Once the tool is installed, we need to verify which writers are available, by running the following command:

Betest.exe >AvailableWriters.txt

2. In addition to the BETest.exe file you will need to create a Components.txt file which will contain information that BETest requires.

Components selection file format:

"<WriterId>": "<component-logical-path>" {"target" # "new target", ...}, ..."<component-logical-path>" : '"<subcomponent-logical-path>,...";

3. Open the AvailableWriters file using Notepad.  Go to Edit |  Find, type:  Microsoft Exchange Writer

Look for: <WriterId> 

Copy this information you find under the Exchange Writer to create a Components.txt file which BETest requires.

<writer-id> is in standard GUID format

Ex: 76fe1ac4-15f7-4bcd-987e-8e1acb462fb7

<component-logical-path> is either logical-path, logical-path\component-name or component-name-only (if there's no logical path)

Ex: Microsoft Exchange Server\Microsoft Information Store\ServerName\ GUID for a specific storage group

Example of Components.txt file:

"{76fe1ac4-15f7-4bcd-987e-8e1acb462fb7}":"Microsoft Exchange Server\Microsoft Information Store\<Server Name>\68e5b198-468e-4328-8e8d-8d5276b8e355 ";

This sample contains two GUIDS, the first one is the Exchange Writer, and must not be modified.  The second GUID is for a specific storage group(s).   Even if you have more than one storage group, we can still choose to run against only one, so the test won't take too long.  In this example, the tool will run the backup of only one Storage Group.

Note: To get the GUID of the Storage Group, use LDP to navigate to the Desired Storage Group:

For Exchange Server 2007, you can use the following cmdlet

Get-StorageGroup <SG name> |fl Guid

4. One thing to keep in mind is that streaming backups are only supported from the active storage groups. If you want to backup your passive copy the only solution is to run a VSS backup. If this is CCR cluster or if you are using LCR and want to backup the replica copy, the path will look similar to the following:

For CCR Replica Copy:

"{76fe1ac4-15f7-4bcd-987e-8e1acb462fb7}":"Microsoft Exchange Server\Microsoft Information Store\Replica\<CMS Name>\<GUID of Storage Group>

For LCR Replica Copy:

"{76fe1ac4-15f7-4bcd-987e-8e1acb462fb7}":"Microsoft Exchange Server\Microsoft Information Store\Replica\<Server Name>\<GUID of Storage Group>

NOTE: The success or failure of a streaming backup is not indicative of the Exchange Writer. A streaming backup might be a valid workaround for failing VSS backups, but its success or failure is not indicative of the health of the Exchange Writer.

5. After the file Components.txt is created, we can start doing the backup using BETest by running the following command:

BETEST.exe /B /E /T 1 /S output.XML /C components.txt /D c:\betest > output.txt

In this example, the backup will be created under the C:\Betest directory.

If this backup fails with an error, there is a problem with the Exchange writer. In order to troubleshoot, we will need the Output.txt file for us to review the errors.

You can also run the following command without the /E switch.

BETEST.exe /B /T 1 /S output.XML /C components.txt /D c:\betest > Output1.txt

6. There is also a newer version of BETEST available with the Windows SDK. Instead of being text-based, the components.txt is XML-based.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530721(VS.85).aspx

There are several VSS issues fixed with Exchange Server 2007 SP1 and Roll-ups.

- Nagesh Mahadev and Matt Richoux

Share this post :

The third session in the MCS Talks Infrastructure Architecture Webcast series will build on the previous sessions by sharing MCS field experience of how messaging solutions are being implemented today. Enterprises face many decisions when deploying Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 from the choice of underlying operating systems through to implementing a topology that provides a high level of service to the end user. We'll discuss why and how enterprises are consolidating messaging services and infrastructure, we'll look at how Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 exists within the data center and how to achieve high levels of resilience and availability. Consideration will also be given to controlling client access, message delivery options and optimizing network bandwidth. Finally we'll wrap up the session by looking at how Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager can be used to backup and recover data.

Register online here.

After reading some of the feedback on our post about removing items stuck in your outbox, I realized that a lot of people are trying to send some pretty large files through e-mail. Putting any issues with your e-mail service provider’s limits on large messages aside, sending large attachments through e-mail is still a bad idea for a number of reasons:

• Your recipients might not be able to receive your large files: While your e-mail server may allow you to send a large attachment, your recipient’s e-mail server might reject the message.
• Your e-mail might put your recipients’ mailbox over quota: Sending a large attachment in e-mail might put your recipient’s mailbox over the maximum amount of e-mail data they can have in their mailbox, preventing them from receiving other messages.
• Your e-mail might put your own mailbox over quota: Since each e-mail you send is retained in your sent items folder, sending large attachments to other people counts against your mailbox quota as well, which could put you over your own quota and prevent you from receiving e-mail.
• Attachment Bloat: When a file is attached to e-mail, it has to be encoded to be sent in the e-mail. This encoding process causes attached files to become 1.37 times larger than they were on your computer. For example, if you send a 10MB file through e-mail, you’ll actually send 13MB of data.
• As soon as you send it, your files will probably be out of date: It often happens that you send a file and as soon as you send it, you realize you forgot to add that one important sentence or to make that one change. Once you’ve sent it, it is too late to make an update. Your recipients’ copies will always be stale. In addition, by sending out your files as attachments, you are creating additional copies which may take on a life of their own.

Fortunately, there are a lot of alternatives for sending files to people over the Internet which avoid these problems while making sure your files get to the destination safely and securely. Depending on the type of files you want to send, the following are some of the options available to you. All of these alternatives basically boil down to:

Put your files in a shared location and then send a link.

Sending E-mail Inside Your Organization/Company

Sharing files with others inside your organization can be accomplished in a number of ways.

Documents: Use SharePoint

If your organization uses Office SharePoint Server and provides you with a My Site you can upload your files to your My Site’s Shared Documents library, and then include a link to the file in your e-mail message. Even if your organization doesn’t provide a My Site for you, there still may be a SharePoint document library where you can upload the file and send a link. (Ask your resident IT Professional if you have a SharePoint Site you can use.) A side benefit is that if your recipients will always have access to the latest version, instead of a stale attachment. Copying a link from SharePoint can be a little tricky. When you have the SharePoint document library to which you’ve uploaded your file open, right click on the link to the document, and select Copy Shortcut. Then you can paste the shortcut into your e-mail and send it.

Documents: No SharePoint? Use a Shared File Server

If your organization doesn’t have SharePoint, you may have a shared file server or other location where you can copy the file and allow others to access the file without needing to send it through e-mail.

Sending Personal E-mail (i.e. outside your organization/company)

If you want to send files to people outside your organization, or you use Outlook at home or school, there are lots of other ways to share files, depending on the type of file.

Documents: Use an Office Live Workspace or Windows Live SkyDrive

If you don’t have SharePoint in your organization or are using Outlook outside of work, you can get some of the benefits of SharePoint by signing up for a free Office Live Workspace. With a Workspace, you can access and store files for yourself or share documents with other people and collaborate directly in your Workspace. If you don’t need the full power of a Workspace, consider using a file sharing website that lets you upload any file and share those files with other people. For example, using Windows Live SkyDrive you can upload up to 5GB of files for yourself, to share with other people, or share with everyone.

Pictures: Use Photo Sharing Sites

If you are sending pictures to someone, consider resizing those pictures before you send them. With modern digital cameras, each picture can be 3MB or more when you download them from your camera. Consider reducing the size of your pictures and then sending them through e-mail. You can find out more information on how to have Outlook automatically resize your pictures for you on Office Online. If you don’t want to resize your pictures, you can use any number of photo sharing websites where you can upload your pictures and then send a link to them in an e-mail message. For example, you could use Windows Live Spaces, Flickr, or SmugMug.

Videos: Use Video Sharing Sites

With video files, I highly recommend uploading video clips to a video sharing website or a general file sharing website. If your video is something you wouldn’t mind anyone seeing, you could upload it to a video sharing website like MSN Video or YouTube. If you want to keep your video private, consider treating the video like a document and using a method described in the Documents section above. These are just some of the options you have for sending files to other people instead of attaching them to an e-mail. When you use one of these alternative ways to share files with your friends, family, or colleagues you help them keep your mailbox and theirs clean, and you can be sure that your file will be available no matter what service or program your e-mail recipients are using.

Exchange 2007 was the first release of Exchange to include Unified Messaging (UM) and this was the first time many of our customers started considering replacing their existing voice mail systems with UM. As with any new technology, many have sent in questions or concerns regarding the legal implications of UM, and how to control the voice mail messages once they're inside Exchange. If you aren't familiar with Exchange UM and the benefits it provides to both end-users and IT professions, please check out more information here: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/unifiedmessaging/default.mspx . However, some companies have been hesitant to store voice mail and e-mail in the same system, fearing that it will create increased legal risk by making voice mails more "discoverable" or somehow less manageable. We got this initial feedback during our TAP and beta trials of Exchange, so we worked with the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP. They studied this problem and created a white paper to summarize their findings. If you read through the white paper, you'll notice two things. First, the white paper concludes ".that no aspect of Exchange alters, by increasing or decreasing, the record retention obligations of these organizations in the U.S. or E.U. ." That is, if a company is obligated to retain voice mail messages, it doesn't matter if they're stored in Exchange 2007 UM or somewhere else - they still need to be retained. Likewise, if voice mail messages have been deleted in the normal course of business prior to an obligation to retain them, the fact they were in Exchange 2007 UM doesn't create a new obligation to retain where no obligation existed before. Secondly, the white paper notes that Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging offers significant advantages for a company that may need to retain and produce voice mails. Features that were considered especially helpful included being able to visit a single system to access, query, and produce both voice mail and e-mail; and having a single repository (rather than multiple repositories) to apply retention policies. The complete white paper is available here if you're interested: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/unifiedmessaging/dataretentionwp.mspx There are additional benefits that Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging provides for companies seeking to reduce cost and increase flexibility in addressing e-discovery requirements. They fall into two categories:

1. Ensuring that voice mails are not retained beyond policy during the normal course of business.
2. Being able to quickly and easily retain voice mails to meet preservation obligations in the face of impending litigation.

For a good overview of our compliance features if you're not already familiar with them, check out the Exchanger Server 2007 Compliance Tour here: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/compliance/compliance-tour.mspx Ensuring that voice mails are not retained beyond policy during the normal course of business: To meet this first category of requirements, you can implement a transport rule and modify some settings to easily control how you retain voice mail.

1. Use a Managed Default Folders setting to automatically expire voice mails after X days. Also note that these policies can be applied differently at the user- or group-level, as well as for the entire organization.
2. Use Transport Rules to prevent voice mail being from being forwarded outside the organization, based on attributes Exchange automatically adds to a voice mail message:

1. Use Journaling settings to ensure that voice mail is not journaled to any external system. Additionally, in case you didn't know, Exchange does not journal voice mail by default. To change this setting or verify your existing settings, an administrators can use Set-TransportConfig or Get-TransportConfig cmdlets described here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201690(EXCHG.80).aspx
2. Use Exchange ActiveSync settings to prevent voice mails from being forwarded to Mobile devices. This policy is somewhat draconian, as it prevents all attachments from being forwarded to mobile devices, not just .wma files.
3. Customize the voice mail message template to remind users of the company policy about voice mail retention. Administrators can create a message of up to 512 characters that appears on every voice mail message using Set-UMMailboxpolicy -VoiceMailText, described here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124903(EXCHG.80).aspx

Ensuring that voicemails are retained to meet preservation obligations in the face of impending litigation: Once you have Exchange retaining voice mail to be consistent with organizational policies, you may need to change that based on impending litigation.

1. Instantly implement a retention hold on an effected user's mailbox, using either the Set-Mailbox cmdlet or the EMC. The retention hold can be indefinite, or have a set start and end date. This command can also be combined with the Get-Mailbox cmdlet, allowing you to easily select an OU, etc.
2. Easily transcribe voice mails, by providing a text field right next to the "play" controls on the voice mail message where the end user can make notes. These transcribed notes are searchable with Exchange's full-text search engine, allowing the message to be quickly retrieved later.
3. Assist users in the process of identifying relevant information by providing a litigation-specific Managed Custom Folder. This could automatically create a folder in the end user's Mailbox, with a name like "Contoso Litigation" and a descriptive label, such as "Please store any and all email, voice mail, and faxes related to Contoso Litigation in this folder"
4. Easily export voice mails to another mailbox for review using the Export-Mailbox cmdlet with the -Subject "Voice Mail" parameter. This allows Exchange administrators to create separate accounts for the purpose of reviewing voice mails, while leaving the original messages in place.

In Summary: Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging does not change a company's obligation to retain voice mail. However, by using Exchange UM, organizations will find it easier to control voice mail. It will also be easier to implement a retention policy that applies to e-mail, voice mail, and fax messages. Should it become necessary to prepare for litigation, Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging reduces the cost of accessing, querying, and producing voice mail. - Chris Chalmers TECHNOLOGY SPECIALIST

Remote Out-of-Office for Exchange in a server-based application that allows users to remotely manage Out of Office settings for other users, or themselves without Outlook, or any additional applications. Once users are configured with permissions to control other users Out-of-Office settings, managing another user's Out-of-Office settings is as easy as sending an email.