You receive the following error in the Lync Deployment Wizard when installing the Lync Monitioring Server role:

I confirmed that both the “Message Queuing Server (MSMQ)” and “Message Queuing Directory Service Integration” features were installed.

The issue was that Message Queuing Server (MSMQ) had been in installed in “Workgroup mode”

To verify if Message Queuing Server (MSMQ) has been installed in read-only mode, navigate to the properties of the feature in Server Manager and select the security tab and you should be presented with the error below:

Solution:

Uninstall then reinstall both the “Message Queuing Server (MSMQ)” and “Message Queuing Directory Service Integration” features.

After deploying a few new laptops in our organisation I found that sometimes I would loose the GUI notification in the taskbar that would tell me the percentage complete of the encryption of the hard drive.

This command ran in command prompt should give you the status of where the disk is currently at:

manage-bde.exe –status

Cheers

Paul

Just a quick way to change your IP, Subnet Mask and Default gateway via command prompt

1. First Run “netsh int ipv4 show interface” and note down the name of the adapter of which IP settings you want to change.



2. Now the next command will change the IP configuration for you ( Please note “Local Area connection” was the name of the adapter i wanted to change.

I wanted to set the following settings
IP 192.168.1.1
Mask 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway 192.168.1.254

Command
set address “Local Area connection” static 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.254

We came across an issue recently when trying to create a test mailbox for our SCOM monitoring.

On the Exchange Sever we ran the following script to create the test mailbox “New-TestCasConnectivityUser.PS1”

However the command produced the following error “CreateTestUser : Mailbox could not be created. Verify that OU ( Users ) exists and that password meets complexity requirements.”

To resolve this we specified the DN name of the OU in the New-TestCasConnectivityUser.PS1 script by editing the following line in the PS1 script.

$OrganizationalUnit = “Users”

We changed this to

$OrganizationalUnit = “CN=Users,DC=Domain,DC=CO,DC=UK”

We then re-ran the script and all worked fine

The update for Windows Phone 7, Mango, is due to be released this autumn:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/cmpn/mango-overview.aspx

Below are some of the confirmed features:

• Third-party Multi-tasking
• Twitter integration in People Hub
• Office 365 and SkyDrive support in Office Hub
• Internet Explorer 9 Mobile
• Improved application discovery
• Custom ringtones support
• Over-the-air Podcasts Download
• Better marketplace navigation
• Bing Search “Extras”
• Multiple Live Tiles per app
• Revamped Games Hub
• Expanded language support
• Configurable background services
• Microsoft Lync Mobile app
• 1500+ New APIs (Motion Sensor, Gyro, Sockets, Database and more)
• Private and Beta Marketplace and Parental Controls

After configuring your Active Directory domain to store BitLocker and TPM Recovery Keys:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd875529(WS.10).aspx

The following command can be run to configure pre Bit Locked machines to backup their recovery key to AD:

1. Open an administrative command prompt
2. manage-bde -protectors -get C: -type recoverypassword
3. manage-bde -protectors -adbackup C: -id {Insert the numerical ID here}

We had the following alert appear on our Exchange Server recently.

“Process powershell.exe (PID=19640). Object [CN=Username,OU=Mailboxes,OU=OU,DC=Domain,DC=com]. Property [HomeMTA] is set to value [Domain.com/Configuration/Deleted Objects/Microsoft MTA
DEL:d016338e-12ce-409b-a82a-da6217c8e67f], it is pointing to the Deleted Objects container in Active Directory. This property should be fixed as soon as possible.”

Basically the issue is that the user referenced in event has an incorrect homeMTA value. If you browse to the user via ADSI edit and view the attribute homeMTA you will see that it references deleted objects.

To sort this issue run the following command

get-mailbox –identity USERNAME | Update-Recipient

I am currently doing some testing around the new Office 365 suite with my own test beta account. I have just verified my test domain and was now looking to changing some of the Exchange setting in Office 365 but I could not find the way to do it using the online GUI.

After a bit of research I realised that I can connect to my Office 365 Exchange environment via PowerShell and run commands as you would with an on premise Exchange 2010 server.

I have created a script for this which will prompt you for your Office 365 credentials, simply copy the lines below and paste them in notepad and save the file as whatever you like just make sure it has a .ps1 extension at the end, I have called mine office365.ps1:

$cred = Get-Credential
$s = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell -Credential $cred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
$importresults = Import-PSSession $s

NOTE: You may need to run the following command in your PowerShell in order for the Import-PSSession command to work correctly: Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Once the file has been created, open up a PowerShell window and run as administrator. To run the command, change directory into where you saved the file and then run it (.\office365.ps1 and press enter). The script should then prompt you for your Office 365 credentials:

Put in your Office 365 username as user@domain.onmicrosoft.com and then put in your password and click on OK.

As the script runs you will get a warning message like the following that can be ignored:

WARNING: Your connection has been redirected to the following URI:
"https://pod51013psh.outlook.com/PowerShell-LiveID?PSVersion=2.0 "

If the script runs successfully then you should return to the PowerShell prompt. A good test to see if this has worked is to run the Get-Mailbox command over one of your users in the Office 365 environment to see if you can get information about their mailbox:

This will give you a limited amount of Exchange PowerShell command line functions as compared with an on premise Exchange 2010 environment but it will give you all the basics required to make advanced changes to your Office 365.

Hope this helps.

Paul

I recently registered a test domain in order to get it set up on my Office 365 account that I am currently testing. I seemed to have a lot of trouble verifying the domain by adding in the TXT record that was required for the verification. I kept getting the following error message:

I blamed this on DNS propagation and left if over the weekend. I then came back today to try and verify the domain and I got the same error. I ensured that the record was set up exactly as the instructions told me but still no dice.

The way that I got it to verify was to select the domain that was in the status of verifying and then click on “Remove Domain”. Once it was removed I simply tried adding it again and the domain was verified without any problems:

Hope this helps.

Paul

We have come across a problem with the new Service Pack 1 for Office and the CRM 2011 client for Outlook.

The symptoms are that calendar reminders do not pop up in Outlook which can cause some major problems for the end users.

We found that in our environment, if we removed the CRM 2011 client for Outlook the reminders would start working again. We then reinstalled the CRM client and found that the issue came back. Disabling the CRM add-ins in Outlook had no effect.

This issue is currently being investigated by Microsoft Product Support. I will keep you posted of any fixes that are announced.

Cheers

Paul