Office Communicator Custom Presence States

23/04/200917/08/2009Ståle Hansen 3 Comments

Any Post starting with this disclaimer means that this post was not written by me however I liked it and added to my blog. I will also include the link to the original or similar post to provide credit to the original author

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb963925.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/toml/archive/2007/11/30/oc-custom-presence-states.aspx
http://blog.tiensivu.com/aaron/archives/1341-Little-known-Office-Communicator-2007-feature-Custom-Presence-States.html
http://blogs.technet.com/brettjo/archive/2008/08/19/communicator-and-ocs-tech-tip-8-custom-presence.aspx

Office Communicator 2007 offers a few user defined areas, the Note, your location and Custom Presence

Please note something important – there is no defined custom presence that includes the Yellow (away) status. The reason is that it is not supported as it was deemed to be a value that you wouldn’t set yourself but would be set based on your activity. I would agree with that for Away but Be Right Back I can set but it is what it is. What happens if you set one of the states to the Yellow (away) states – none of the custom presence items show.

Another item to note that can be a bit annoying – you can’t sign in with the custom presence, you have to sign in with a standard state and then change. My approach is to pick the state that matches what I will eventually select with my custom text.

Universal limitations

You can only define up to 4 custom entries.
Maximum length of the custom presence description is 64 characters.
XML customState availability can be set to “online”, “busy” and “do-not-disturb”.
If you want the custom states set for everyone on the computer system instead of the current user, you need to change the .REG file from HKCU to HKLM. (Mostly only useful for TS servers)

Here is syntax for presence.xml used for what you see and a reg file syntax is also included. Please note that you can put the xml anywhere just update the reg file syntax for the correct path.

NOTE: The LCID=”1033″ specify the language of the clients you want the custom presence to be displayed . 1033 is english, if your contacts have clients with different languages you need to find the corresponding language code. See list of locale ID (LCID): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/goglobal/bb964664.aspx You can have multiple languages for the same state so that it works for different clients. If you use the program that you can download at the bottom of this post you need to manually change the LCID in the generated xml

<customStates>
    <customState ID=”1″ availability=”online”>
        <activity LCID=”1033″>Out and about – use mobile</activity>
        <activity LCID=”1044″>Out and about – use mobile</activity>
    </customState>
    <customState ID=”2″ availability=”Busy”>
        <activity LCID=”1033″>Down in the lab – use mobile</activity>
        <activity LCID=”1044″>Down in the lab – use mobile</activity>
    </customState>
    <customState ID=”3″ availability=”busy”>
        <activity LCID=”1033″>Reviewing program documents</activity>
        <activity LCID=”1044″>Reviewing program documents</activity>
    </customState>
    <customState ID=”4″ availability=”do-not-disturb”>
        <activity LCID=”1033″>Executive Briefing with Customer</activity>
        <activity LCID=”1044″>Executive Briefing with Customer</activity>
    </customState>
</customStates>

and here is the syntax of the reg file

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator]
@=””
“CustomStateURL”=file:///C:/Users/toml/Documents/presence.xml

A program has been written to automate this process

Setting the Pre-Req’s on Vista and MOC R2

Amending the registry:

1) Start –> RegEdit.exe

2) Navigate (by double clicking) to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator

3) Change the EnableSIPHighSecurityMode key name to be 0

4) Right click EnableSIPHighSecurityMode –> Modify –> change it to 0 –> OK

It should look like this:

5) Close the registry editor.

Go here to download the tool: http://www.confusedamused.com/notebook/communicator-2007-custom-presence-tool/

View the Microsoft Keynote at VoiceCon Orlando 2009

22/04/200914/05/2009Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

Here is the video of the Microsoft keynote speaker at VoiceCon 2009. It is always interesting to hear what is important to focus on in the time that comes.

Keynote delivered by Gurdeep Singh Pall, Corporate Vice President, Unified Communications from Microsoft

See other videos at the VoiceCon 2009 homepage

Exchange 2010 Database Availability Groups

21/04/200919/05/2009Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

I found a post at Henrik Walther Blog over at MSExchange.org that talk about DAG. http://blogs.msexchange.org/walther/2009/04/18/exchange-2010-database-availability-groups/

It is one of the most interesting new features in Exchange 2010. Here is a list of the new DAG functionality from the blog.

The new Database Availability Group (DAG) HA/site resilience feature replaces CCR/SCR/LCR
Also note that SCC has been deprecated/cut with Exchange 2010
DAG built on the functionality we know from CCR and SCR, that is it still uses asynchronous log shipping and replay etc
An interesting thing about DAGs is that you’re no longer required to form a cluster before you install the MBX server role
The limited cluster features that are used by DAGs (primarily cluster heartbeat and quorum) are configured automatically when adding the first MBX server to the DAG and thereby more or less invisible to the administrator
With DAG you can have up to 16 copies of a Mailbox database
In addition, you can also have other Exchange 2010 server roles such as HT and CAS installed on the MBX server which is member of a DAG
Also, you can have DAG members located on different subnets and in separate AD sites

This image over at MSExchange.org describes very well the most important changes in the EMS for administrators regarding DAG.

How to Install Exchange Server 2010 Beta

21/04/200921/04/2009Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

This is a link to Scott Schnoll’s weblog where he goes through a step by step guide to install Exchange 2010 Beta. It is an interesting read and I followed his steps when installing the beta in my own lab environment. Click this link to visit the guide. I found a few gotchas in Brian Ricks’s blog

After installing it myself i have some gotchas and experience

The beta does not support coexistence with older Exchange versions, not even Exchange 2007. So when i tried to install it in my lab environment the readiness check stopped me and I ended up creating a new domain for the Exchange beta
Got the “The WinRM client cannot process the request”. This is because the wrong version of WinRM was installed. Download WinRM 2.0 CTP3 here

Web Services InternalURL powershell configuration

21/04/200913/01/2010Ståle Hansen 3 Comments

If you are using a loadbalancer in front of the ClientAccess server or want to reconfigure the internal URL to point to http and not https you need to reconfigure a couple of services with the correct url so that autodiscover functions properly. To do so I have created a simple script to ease the process using powershell. The script does the following:

The server path is specified in the variable
Then we use -identity * if you have more than one instance you need to specifiy wich instance you want to configure
The url is generated using the variable and the default location of the services files
After reconfiguring the services we do a test of the connectivity to verify the configuration
Note that custom user credentials is used so that default credentials is not nessesary
OWA internal url has to be set manually

To run the script do the following:

Copy this into a txt file and rename it to a ps1 file
Navigate to the location where the file is saved
Use tab to get the correct run syntax

NOTE: This script has been updated in a post related to Exchange 2010 here: https://msunified.net/2010/01/13/configure-exchange-2010-internalurl-powershell-script/

$urlpath = "http://exchange-server.yourdomain.com"

Set-AutodiscoverVirtualDirectory -Identity * –internalurl “$urlpath/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml”
Set-ClientAccessServer –Identity * –AutodiscoverServiceInternalUri “$urlpath/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml”
Set-webservicesvirtualdirectory –Identity * –internalurl “$urlpath/ews/exchange.asmx”
Set-oabvirtualdirectory –Identity * –internalurl “$urlpath/oab”
Set-ActiveSyncVirtualDirectory -Identity * -InternalUrl "$urlpath/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync"

Test-WebServicesConnectivity -MailboxCredential (Get-Credential <Netbios domain name>\<username>) -TrustAnySSLCertificate
Test-activesyncConnectivity -MailboxCredential (Get-Credential <Netbios domain name>\<username>) -TrustAnySSLCertificate

Configuring custom email address policies using powershell

20/04/200913/01/2010Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

If you want to configure email address policies with custom setting you need to do this by using powershell. Here you see an example where the reply e-mail address is set to a custom address. The template used below changes spaces in given names and surenames to “.”. This gives the user with the name of Martin Steven Williams the email address of Martin.Steven.Williams@msunified.net.

By typing smtp with capital letters the system sets this address as the primary smtp address. Additional addresses should have smtp as shown below

Set-EmailAddressPolicy -Identity “Default Policy” -EnabledEmailAddressTemplates SMTP:”%r .%g.%r .%s@msunified.net”, smtp:%m@msunified.net

This can be expanded upon by replacing and converting nordic characters to compatible character like this: “%r .%råa%ræa%røo%rÆA%rÅA%rØO%g.%r .%råa%ræa%røo%rÆA%rÅA%rØO%s@msunified.net”

Server 2008 Certification

20/04/200920/04/2009Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

Here is an overview of what it takes to get the MCITP Certifications on Server 2008

MCITP: Server Administrator — Focuses on day-to-day operations and management

Exam 70-640 (earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration)

Exam 70-642 (earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Configuration)

Exam PRO: 70-646 (earns MCITP: Server Administrator)

MCITP: Enterprise Administrator — Validates your skills focused on Windows infrastructure design

Exam 70-640 (earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration)

Exam 70-642 (earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Configuration)

Exam 70-643 (earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration)

Exam 70-620 (earns MCTS: Windows Vista Configuration)
Exam PRO: 70-647(earns MCITP: Enterprise Administrator)

For upgrade from MCSA and MCSE the follow exams needs to be taken

Exam 70-648: TS: Upgrading Your MCSA on Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008, Technology Specialist
Earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration and MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Configuration

Exam 70-649: TS: Upgrading Your MCSE on Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008, Technology Specialist
Earns MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Configuration, MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure Configuration and MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure Configuration

Visit the official Microsoft site for complete overview

New Features in Exchange 2010

20/04/200916/08/2009Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

dd203064_exchange_logo_gifen-us2cmsdn_101

There is some new features in Exchange 2010 and the ones that I am most excited about is Database Availability Groups (DAG) and the new features in Outlook Web Access. Elan Shudnow have created a more comprehensive list of new features, check it out here

See Webcasts here http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/05/26/451465.aspx

Changing the Queue Database path in Exchange Server 2007

17/04/200931/07/2009Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

http://msmvps.com/blogs/andersonpatricio/archive/2007/06/12/changing-the-queue-database-in-exchange-server-2007.aspx

If you do a default installation of Exchange 2007 the queue database config is located in “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Bin\EdgeTransport.exe.config” and the database is stored under “C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\data\Queue\” as default. To change this settings, we should open the file EdgeTransport.exe.config in this file we have to parameters:

QueueDatabasePath: Database path (mail.que and trn.chk files)
QueueDatabaseLoggingPath: transaction logs path (*.log and *.jrs files)

Now, let’s change both parameters for the c:\Database folder, as shown in the figure below.

Click on the image to see in the original size (readable)

After changing the config file, we have to methods do accomplish our queue database moving process:

Moving the current database

Click on Start / Run and type services.msc click OK
Stop the service called Microsoft Exchange Transport
Move the database files(mail.que and trn.chk) from original location to the new place
Move the transactions log files (*.log and *.jrs) from original location to the new place
Start the Microsoft Exchange Transport service