Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Exchange Mailbox Permissions Issue

A while back we came across a nice "hidden feature" of Exchange that occurs after migrating mailboxes cross Forest. Again, its been a while, but I thought I would blog about it anyway.

Here is the problem description:

A migration of user, group, contact, etc. took place by migrating these objects with ADMT 3.0 from one Forest (W2K03 Native) to a new Forest (also W2K03 Native), including SidHistory.

Directly after that, the mailboxes of the users were migrated from Exchange 2003 in the old Forest to Exchange 2007 in the new Forest using the Move-Mailbox CmdLet.

Everything seemed fine.... until an admin tried to remove some mailbox permissions from a mailbox using the Remove-Mailboxpermission CmdLet. He got the following error message:

"Remove-MailboxPermission : Cannot remove ACE on object "CN=Migrated Mailbox,OU=....." for account "New Domain\migrated user" because it is not present"

Hmmm... when looking at the permissions on the migrated mailbox (Get-Mailboxpermission) it clearly stated that the user that was specified in the Remove-Mailboxpermission CmdLet has rights. The user was displayed in the following format: New Domain\Username.

First we thought a type-o was made or someting in the CmLets, but after some investigation all seemed to be fine with that. So what was happening here then?


The Solution:

What is happening here is the following. The name that is displayed when doing a Get-Mailboxpermission is actually not correct. The reason why it states "New Domain\Username" is SidHistory. Under the hood, the "OLD Domain\Username" still has permissions. To be more specific, the permissions are still pointing to the OLD Domain Sid of the user.

When performing the Get-Mailboxpermission, Exchange translates this OLD Domain Sid to the "NEW Domain\Username" based on the SidHistory value in AD of the migrated user.

To test this we removed the SidHistory of the migrated user in the NEW Domain. Because at that moment the Trust between the Forests was still active, when doing a Get-Mailboxpermission you would now see the permissions in the form of "OLD Domain\Username". If the Trust would be gone, this would state the old Domain Sid of the user because it would not be able to resolve the account name anymore.

Now when performing the Remove-Mailboxpermission on the mailbox for the same user based on the syntax of "OLD Domain\Username", it worked without issues. Without a trust you could even use the old Domain Sid of the user to remove the permissions, same thing.

Because removing SidHistory could have a big impact, a call was logged with MS. After sending a lot of info about this to MS we ended up in a conference call with Redmond discussing this issue. Basically MS told us that this is by design, and if you would migrate between Forests using SidHistory, you would first need to "clean up" all mailbox permissions before doing a Move-Mailbox....... right.

To me a simple option to just add another parameter to the Move-Mailbox Cmdlet that would enable you to just choose if you want to translate the mailboxpermissions to the value or not, could just do it. But MS thought differently.....

Basically the only option to solve this issue after a migration, is to clean up SidHistory. Yes, I know, you should always do this to finish a migration clean. In small migrations this is maybe not a real issue, but in large scale, phased migrations this in general is an issue. Maybe not after all objects have been migrated, but you still have that time in between the start of the migration and the end, in which you will not be able to remove mailbox permissions. A not so nice alternative is to grant explicit Deny permissions to the user if the user should not have rights on the mailbox at all anymore. But if you just want to change the permissions, you will not be able to.

Wim.

Microsoft released Clinic 10052: Introduction to Enhancements in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

"This 1-hour clinic describes the various enhancements in Office Communications Server 2007 R2 clients and devices, conferencing, mobility, Office Communicator Web Access 2007 R2, and voice.

This clinic covers the following topics:
- Office Communications Server 2007 R2 clients and devices
- Audio, video, and Web conferencing
- 2007 R2 version of Office Communicator Mobile
- Office Communicator Web Access 2007 R2
- Call delegation
- Response Group Service
- Team-call group"

https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/courseDetail.aspx?courseId=112782&tab=overview

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Using Remote Desktop Sharing in a dual screen environment

I really love Remote Desktop Sharing in the R2 release of the MOC! When using a dual screen setup you have the ability in the MOC to choose which of the two screens to share, or you can share them both.












This way you have full control over what the other side can see and cannot see. When sharing both screens it looks something like this:












Friday, February 13, 2009

OCS 2007 R2 MOM/SCOM Pack delayed

The Communications Server Team announced that the OCS 2007 R2 SCOM MP release has been delayed :-(

http://communicationsserverteam.com/archive/2009/02/12/367.aspx

A new Exchange 14 video available on the Exchange Team Blog

Multi browser support (Firefox and Safari), conversation view (like threads), and most importantly: Presence and IM integration in OWA!

Check out the video at:

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/02/12/450639.aspx

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Availability of the Forefront Security for Office Communications Server (FSOCS)

MS announced the availability of the Forefront Security for Office Communications Server (FSOCS) RC. This release is currently available for the FSOCS TAP and CAG customers only. Final release of FSOCS is planned for March of this year.

C2ICT and "The new way of working" event.

Yesterday two colleagues and I had were present at the C2ICT stand at the MS event "The new way of working" (Het Nieuwe Werken) in 't Spant in Bussum (The Netherlands). We had a great spot right at the entrance of the exibition hall. It was quite busy at the event.

During lunch, MS organized a lunch carrousel which consisted of three time slots of about 20 minutes in which we could tell something about the way C2ICT thinks about the new way of working. Emphasis for us was a quick scan that we can do for organizations to check if they are ready the implement the new way of working using OCS as tool. What we noticed in the last year or so, is that many organizations want OCS, but they have no clue if the end users will adopt this way of working. Additionally we try to help organizations decide on the features they really need in their organization. The Quick Scan can be devided into two parts. The first part is an organizational scan. This is the most important part and has nothing to do with technology. Optionally a technical scan can be done in which we go through the IT infra to see were the bottlenecks are.

We also had a mobile OCS R2 lab with us. A lot of people were very interested in the new R2 features, especially the Response Group service stuff. So the lab was a great way of already showing people the R2 release before MS did in the final session of the day :-)

For more info see http://www.c2ict.com/uc and http://www.c2ict.com/page/brochures

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Attendant Training available

MS published a really good slidedeck and videos focussed on training people for using the R2 Attendant. The set can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=92ae62f2-5fb4-43da-a98c-9dff32ea97fa&DisplayLang=en

Of course it is a high level training, but it is a good start when you want to play with the attendant (or let your users play).

With thanx to Joachim for pointing this one out.

OCS R2 RTM available!

In addition to my previous post find below the links to the RTM release software for OCS R2:


OCS 2007 R2 Eval
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=45&p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=3d619c8c-6540-4f2d-b78e-5b4c25780adb&u=details.aspx%3ffamilyid%3d67A3DE72-7DBD-4E0B-92A5-29D0B46009A7%26displaylang%3den

OC 2007 R2 Eval
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=45&p=2&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=3d619c8c-6540-4f2d-b78e-5b4c25780adb&u=details.aspx%3ffamilyid%3d535637AF-D92F-41B1-BF0C-54A526A88247%26displaylang%3den

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Attendant
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141218

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Client
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141220

Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Group Chat Server
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141219

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Administration Tool
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141221

Office Communicator Phone Edition
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141222

CoMo - MSI - Pocket PC
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141380

CoMo - MSI – Smartphone
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141381

CoMo - OTA - Pocket PC
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141382

CoMo - OTA - Smartphone
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141383

UCMA 2.0 SDK - 32 bit
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=140790

UCMA 2.0 SDK - 64 bit
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=139195

Speech Language Packs (12 langs)
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=139197

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Planning Tool
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141223

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit Tools - 64 bit
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141224

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 SDK
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=141225

Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 SDK released

Yesterday MS released the 2.0 version of UCMA. The Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 is a managed-code platform that empowers developers to build applications that provide access to and control over Microsoft’s Enhanced Presence information, instant messaging, telephone and video calls and audio/video conferencing. It enables both text based, as well as voice based - speech technology enabled – conversations and collaboration.

The UC Managed API 2.0 is intended to support the development of server side, middle-tier applications targeting Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. It contains a SIP stack, a media stack as well as powerful speech engines for both automatic speech recognition (ASR) as well as speech synthesis (TTS).

The UCMA 2.0 can be used to communications-enable your business software and processes and can be used to create outbound applications like alerts or notifications and surveys, as well as inbound speech technology enabled interactive voice response applications and automated agents, a.k.a. query response bots. The API gives access to the presence information available in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and can be used to build role agents that use Microsoft’s Enhanced Presence information to streamline communications between people.

More advanced developer scenarios enable applications like Automated Call Distributors, that do skill based routing, Conferencing Services, like conference access control, custom client gateways, which can interface e.g. with other communications networks, Interactive Voice Response platforms and speech servers using the Microsoft ASR and TTS engines.

  • The UCMA 2.0 Core SDK abstracts away most of the Office Communications Server SIP/SIMPLE based protocols by offering an API that exposes almost all of the features of the protocol, but is simpler to understand and use.
  • The UCMA 2.0 Speech API is a server grade speech API, that allows developers to build multi channel speech recognition and speech synthesis enabled applications using Microsoft’s state of the art speech technology.
  • The UCMA 2.0 Workflow API is an higher API abstraction layer of the UCMA Core and Speech APIs that adds unified communications Windows Workflow Activities to the .NET 3.5 SP1 Workflow Foundation for querying presence and IM or speech technology enabled dialogs in Workflow based applications build e.g. on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007.

For the 32bit version, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=768efa33-6606-4b2b-809a-6c69274621d3&displaylang=en

For the 64bit version, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b20967b1-6cf5-4a4b-b7ae-622653ac929f&displaylang=en

Monday, February 2, 2009

UC Click Thru Interactive Demo

MS released a click thru interactive demo on UC last week.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9A7D929B-2134-414F-B6C3-6FFF25FB78A8&displaylang=en

Exam 70-638: Configuring Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Updated for R2

Microsoft has updated the 70-638 exam to reflect the R2 changes. Below the link to the preparation guide for this exam.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exams/70-638.mspx

Recording Converter for Live Meeting 2007

I found this tool on the MS site to convert recorded Live Meeting content to a single wmv file. This makes it much easier to make these sessions available online for others to view them.



The tool can be found here:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101215971033.aspx