Announcing the Re-release of Exchange 2010 Service Pack 1
Update Rollup 3 (V3)

On March 14^th Microsoft posted an announcement to the EHLO blog about removing Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1 due to an issue related to Blackberry devices.

The Exchange Servicing team has fixed the reported issue with E2010 SP1 RU3 and is making available a new version of RU3 for our customers, version 14.01.289.007, (KB2529939). We strongly
advise all customers install this newly released version of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP1 Update Rollup 3 and to discard any prior version of
RU3 (KB2492690) which you may have.

If so here is a nice 30 minute video on on some information you would see in that course.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/themasterblog/archive/2010/12/28/mcm-exchange-video-preview.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=10d2e48f-0846-40b6-b08f-d282309811a2

There are two common password scenarios that occur:

1. When a users password has expired and they attempt to logon to OWA the user fails to logon and receive a generic error message.

2. When a new user account is created and an administrator wants to force the user to change their password at next logon, however the user will not be able to logon to OWA

Exchange 2007 SP3 and Exchange 2010 SP1 have remedied the two issues above by creating a new module in IIS that detects a user has an expired password or the user account is set to “user must change password at next logon”. 

You may ask what do I need to do?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607232(EXCHG.80).aspx

1. Log on to the Exchange server that is running the CAS role by using an account that has local administrator rights

2. Start Registry Editor, and then locate the following registry subkey:

3. HLKM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA

4. Create the following DWORD value if it does not already exist:

5. Value name: ChangeExpiredPasswordEnabledValue type: REG_DWORDValue data: 1

6. Exit Registry Editor

7.  From a command window perform an IISReset

Let walk through some tests:

1. Create a new user called PwdTest

a. Open EMC

b.  Expand Recipient Configuration and select Mailbox

c. From the actions pane select New Mailbox

d. On the new Mailbox wizard select “User Mailbox” and click Next

e. Select New User and click Next

f.  Input PwdTest for the userId information and validate the check box “User must change password at next logon”

g. On the Mailbox Settings page leave the default and click Next

h. On the Archive Settings check the radius button “don’t create an archive” and click Next

i. On the New Mailbox page click New

j.  Click Finish to complete the mailbox creation

2. Now that we have created our new mailbox and have the account set to force a password change for our user we need to attempt to logon to OWA

a.  Open the OWA logon Page and attempt to logon with our new user PwdTest

b.  Notice we receive a generic password error message

3.  As we see the logon fails until we modify the Registry of our CAS server

a. Start the Registry editor : Start – Run –RegEdit
b. Expand to  HLKM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA

c. Create the following DWORD Value: ChangeExpiredPasswordEnabled

d.  Set the value to 1

e. Exit Registry Editor

f.  From a command window perform an IISReset

4.  Now that we have created the appropriate Registry key we can attempt to logon to OWA again

a.  Open the OWA logon page and attempt to logon with the PwdTest user

b. We are now presented a change password form

c. After completing the form you will receive and successful change message

d. You are now presented the OWA logon form again. Attempt to logon with the newly created password

e. you now have a successful OWA logon

Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | fl name,databasesizes

Name         : DB001

DatabaseSize : 141.8 GB (152,220,270,592 bytes)

 Name         : DB002

DatabaseSize : 98.17 GB (105,412,362,240 bytes)

Today in Exchange 2010 when a user logs onto OWA and selects the options button they are taken into what is now called the Exchange Control Panel or ECP which has added some functionality for users.  One problem that I have found is that Microsoft has provided users with some nice links telling them how to configure their mobile device or Outlook anywhere but those links directt users to Outlook.Com configuration which tends to generate support calls.

Those links are controlled by a file located here  C:\Exchange\ClientAccess\ecp\PersonalSettings\QuickLinks.ascx , this file can be copied and modified with company faq settings to direct users to the appropriate place. I must note that every RollUp applied or Service Pack will overwrite your custome file and you must recopy the file back to this directory.  The 2nd point I need to make is that every build of Exchange (after rollup or service pack) you need to copy the new file and modify that file because Microsoft could have made changes in security or configuration, reusing the same old file could cause issues.  You will also have to copy this file to each CAS server.

Lets logon to OWA and take a look at the default settings:

You can see when I hover over Connect  Outlook to this account the url is set to http://help.Outlook.com

Close OWA

1. On your CAS server browse to the following file C:\Exchange\ClientAccess\ecp\PersonalSettings\QuickLinks.ascx copy this file to your desktop so we can edit it

2.  Open the QuickLinks file with Notepad

3.  I have highlighted the section we are going to work on which is the Mobile section

4.  We are going to remove this line <div><asp:Literal ID=”ltlMobileDevices” runat=”server” Text=”<%$ Strings:QLPushEmail %>” /></div>

5.  Insert and href like this : <ecp:<P><A HREF=http://www.exchange-genie.com target=”_blank”> Configure your mobile device with Active Sync for Beta Mail </A></P>

6. Save our file

7. Rename the origianl file to .old or some other extension

8. copy and paste our new file into the following location C:\Exchange\ClientAccess\ecp\PersonalSettings\QuickLinks.ascx

9. Logon to OWA into ECP

10. Hover over the Mobile link and you will see the url now points to http://exchange-genie.com

The only 2 items you should modify in this file are related to Mobile and Outlook connections