I must say that from all the articles I wrote for MSExchange.org, Shared Hosting with Exchange 2007 was the one I received more comments from (which is good).

Besides the usual help requests, I got some really nice comments and suggestions. One of these suggestions was from Nick Russo and had to do with the AD attribute addressBookRoots.

As you may recall, in part 2 of the article, I state that we must add the distinguished name of each Address List to the addressBookRoots attribute.

Nick alerted me that this could break Offline Address Book creation/replication, so I decided to do some further investigation. Knowledge Base Article 297801 says:

“You cannot specify both a parent container and a child of that parent as an address book root. For example, if you enter All Address Lists as an address book root, it has to be the only address book root. All your other address lists are listed under All Address Lists; if you enter both the parent object and child objects that exist under this parent object, you enter the child objects more than once. When you do so, Check Names and all other Global Address List and NSPI operations do not succeed.”

Then I checked my test environment and noticed that, although the picture from the article shows the “All Address Lists”, I only have the CONTROL AL and KAOS AL in my lab.

The official document from Microsoft, Configuring Virtual Organizations and Address List Segregation in Exchange 2007, doesn’t mention addressBookRoots either.

So, here’s my advice:

1. Leave the attribute addressBookRoots as it is, everything should work as expected.
2. If you decide to add other Address Lists, in case they are a child of “All Address Lists”, remove this entry from addressBookRoots as it may break Offline Address Book creation/replication.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about Migrating Exchange Server to Windows Essential Business Server.

If you downloaded this document, you’re probably interested to know that the document has been recently updated to version 1.2.

Microsoft has just released the May update for the Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter.

“Install this update for Windows Mail to revise the definition files used to detect e-mail messages that should be considered junk e-mail or that may contain phishing content.”

The update is available through Microsoft Update or you can click the following links, according to your OS architecture:

• Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter (x32)
• Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter (x64)

As usual the update comes with the corresponding Knowledge Base article:

• Description of the definition updates for Windows Mail (KB905866)

Technorati : windows mail, junk email, spam
Del.icio.us : windows mail, junk email, spam

If you use .PST files, you’ll be glad to know that the latest version of the Outlook 2007/2003/2002 Add-in: Personal Folders Backup has been released. It now supports Outlook 2007.

Brief Description
The Personal Folders Backup download creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals, in Outlook 2002 and later versions, making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up.

Overview
Backing up your Microsoft Outlook information is quicker and easier with the Personal Folders Backup feature. Personal Folders Backup creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals, in Outlook 2002 and later versions, making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up.
With Personal Folders Backup, you can choose which of your .PST files you wish to back up, and how often you wish to back them up.
Each .PST file contains all of your Outlook folders, including the Inbox, Calendar, and Contacts. You can have a single .PST file (usually called “Internet Folders” or “Personal Folders” in your Folder List), but you might also have an additional .PST file that you use for archiving (”Archiving Folders”). Personal Folders Backup lets you back up any or all of these .PST files.

Note: Personal Folders Backup only backs up .PST files. If you have a Microsoft Exchange Server mailbox, your server mailbox folders are likely backed up regularly by your server administrator.

Note: If you are using an East Asian operating system (such as Korean language WinMe) with an English version of Microsoft Office, you will be unable to use this download.

Note: This version was updated October 31, 2003, and it fixes an issue with the browsing functionality on Microsoft Windows 98 and Microsoft Windows ME.
For additional details and assistance refer to Using the Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders Backup tool.

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Service Pack 3; Windows 98 Second Edition; Windows ME; Windows Vista; Windows XP

• This download works with the following Office programs:
  • Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
  • Microsoft Outlook 2003
  • Microsoft Outlook 2002

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the availability of a technical document and a webcast about Storage Design for Exchange Server 2007.

The correspondig podcast is now available to download: How Microsoft IT Implemented New Storage Designs for Exchange Server 2007.

Overview
How does Exchange Server 2007 enable a large enterprise to increase mailbox quotas globally by a factor of ten and still lower storage costs, reduce maintenance complexities, and simplify data recovery processes? Microsoft IT was able to take advantage of Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) in new mailbox server designs based on direct attached storage (DAS). Advantages of CCR and DAS over alternative configurations will be discussed along with how MSIT was able to eliminate storage as a single point of failure while at the same time lowering costs to two dollars per gigabyte.

Microsoft released yesterday an updated version of the standalone Exchange Server 2007 SP1 help file.

Brief Description
This download contains a standalone version of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Help.

Overview
The Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Help can help you in the day-to-day administration of Exchange. Use this information to guide you through Exchange Server 2007 SP1 features, tasks, and administration procedures.

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Release Notes also got an update.

Microsoft released the Unified Messaging Web Service Sample.

Brief Description
The Unified Messaging Web Service Sample describes how to create proxy classes that interact with the Unified Messaging Web service. The proxy classes make it easier to implement the interaction between the client and the Web service.

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000; Windows 2000 Advanced Server; Windows 2000 Professional Edition ; Windows 2000 Server; Windows 2000 Service Pack 2; Windows 2000 Service Pack 3; Windows 2000 Service Pack 4; Windows Server 2003; Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1; Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition for 64-Bit Itanium-Based Systems; Windows Server 2003, Datacenter x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition for Itanium-based Systems; Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition; Windows Vista

• Access to computers that are running Exchange Server 2007 that have the Client Access and Mailbox server roles installed.
• Wsdl.exe 2.0, which is included with either Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Software Development Kit (SDK).
• Visual Studio 2005, to build the project that contains the Unified Messaging sample.

Do you know Windows Essential Business Server?

Would you consider migrating your Exchange Server to this platform?

If your answer was yes, then you should probably read this technical document: Migrating Microsoft Exchange Server to Windows Essential Business Server.

Overview
This document explains how to migrate existing mailboxes, offline address book generation processes, and public folder replicas to the Windows Essential Business Server Messaging Server. If your environment already includes Exchange Server, you must still migrate it to take full advantage of the integrated security and monitoring features in Windows Essential Business Server. Your existing servers will continue to function in the Exchange Server organization, but certain roles and features must be handled by Windows Essential Business Server.

I got this one from Jason’s Blog.

Paul O’Brien, a Microsoft MVP for Mobile Devices and MoDaCo network Founder wrote this neat application - DupeDeDupe - that allows you to remove duplicate contacts from your mobile device. It works with Windows Mobile 5+ and Pocket PC.

“It is an EXE only (copy to your device and run), which has a basic GUI which allows you to scan for duplicates, and then choose (after being told your duplicate count) whether to remove them. Contacts are compared based on ‘File As’, field, ‘Email’ field and ‘Home / Work / Mobile’ phone fields. If all those fields match, it’s deemed a duplicate.“

How many times have you read something on the official Exchange documentation that you don’t totally agree?

Have you ever thought that maybe you could help improve that same documentation? Did you know that your opinion really matters?

All the technical documentation on Microsoft TechNet provides on the top right corner a feedback mechanism that allows you to rate the content and to write some additional comments.

The Exchange User Education Team will then analyze all the comments provided and they will also review the pages with the lowest ratings.

For the Exchange 2003 documentation, you can not only provide feedback but also write your own content. At the bottom of each page you’ll see the Community Content:

The Community Content feature for Microsoft documentation provides the ability to add and edit content notes, similar to a wiki. Examples include code samples, tips, undocumented scenarios, links to additional resources, etc. Anyone is welcome to contribute or edit content.

For further information, read this post at the You Had Me At EHLO Blog: Content Feedback: BRING IT ON.