With the recent launch of Office365 I was very excited at the thought of moving my existing BPOS account to a new Office365 tenant. I signed up, removed my “cgoosen.com” domain from my BPOS account and went through the process of adding it to Office365. I thought the whole process was going really well until I tested it by sending myself an email from another external account. I immediately received a “550 5.4.1 Relay Access Denied” error which seemed a little strange. After some research on the Office365 Community forums I realised that this seems to be a common issue with people moving a domain from BPOS to Office365.

I ended up calling Microsoft Customer Support and after some trial and error here is how I fixed it.

The first thing you need to do is use PowerShell to connect to your Office365 tenant, make sure you have the correct versions of Windows PowerShell and Windows Remote Management (WinRM) installed and configured on your computer. If you are running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, you don't have to install anything. If you are running anything else, see the link at the bottom of the post. By default, PowerShell’s execution policy is set to “Restricted” that means that scripts won’t run so before we try to connect, we need to change that. Open PowerShell and execute the following cmdlets:

Get-ExecutionPolicy – verify that it is set to “Restricted”

Lets change it to “RemoteSigned”. PowerShell will now run any scripts that you write yourself and scripts downloaded from the Internet only if those scripts have been signed by a trusted publisher:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Now we are ready to connect to our Office365 tenant. Execute the following cmdlets:

$LiveCred = Get-Credential

Enter your Office365 admin credentials in the dialog

$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $LiveCred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection

Import-PSSession $Session

Once connected you, execute the following cmdlets:

Set-AcceptedDomain -Identity "yourdomain.com" -OutboundOnly $True

Set-AcceptedDomain -Identity "yourdomain.com" -OutboundOnly $False

You may need to allow around 40mins for replication, after that you should be able to receive mail again without the “550 5.4.1 Relay Access Denied” error.

If you are using running anything other than Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, see this link for information on Install and Configure Windows PowerShell.

For more information about connecting to Office365 via PowerShell, click here.

One of my favourite tools is the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant. The Deployment Assistant asks you some questions about your particular Exchange environment and, based on your answers, it provides a checklist with instructions that are designed to help you deploy Exchange 2010 quickly and easily. Each step has a huge amount of valuable information to guide you through your deployment.

The Exchange Team recently announced that they have updated the Deployment Assistant to include a rich coexistence scenario for organizations interested in maintaining some users on-premises with Exchange 2010 and some users hosted in the cloud by Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises. This information is only available in English at this time and requires Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

The Exchange Server Deployment Assistant can be found here.

The Exchange Team are looking to learn a bit more about your public folder topologies and usage scenarios. They have created an anonymous survey that asks about things like usage scenarios, folder management habits or thought process around public folder data organization.

If you have 15 minutes to spare, I’m sure they will appreciate it! The survey can be found here.

I recently posted about an issue with Exchange 2007 SP3 RU3 that could result in database corruption. The Exchange Servicing team has fixed the reported issue with RU3 and is making new version of RU3 available to customers, version 08.03.159.002, (KB2530488). They strongly advise that all customers install this newly released version of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 3 and to discard any prior version of RU3 (KB2492691) which they may have.

Update Rollup 3 Installation Guidance:

Customers with RU3 already installed within your Exchange environment

It is not necessary for you to uninstall the existing RU3 within your environment. The new RU3 package can be installed over the top of the existing package installed on your servers.

Customers with previous SP3 RU’s installed within your Exchange environment

You can simply install the new version of the RU3 package.

General RU Installation Guidance:

Note for deployments that leverage Forefront Security for Exchange: For those of you running Forefront Security for Exchange perform these important steps from the command line in the Forefront directory before and after this rollup's installation. Without these steps, Exchange services for Information Store and Transport will not start back up. You will need to disable Forefront via "fscutility /disable" before installing the patch and then re-enable after the patch by running "fscutility /enable" to start it up again post installation.

I recently posted about the availability of Update Rollup 3 for Exchange 2007 SP3 and Exchange 2010 SP1 and then followed up by posting about an issue impacting some customers which have RIM BlackBerry devices connecting to Exchange 2010 SP1 with RU3.

Over the weekend, the Exchange Product Group was made aware of an issue which may lead to database corruption if you are running Exchange 2007 Service Pack 3 with Update Rollup 3.

The issue was introduced in Exchange 2007 SP3 RU3 by a change in how the database is grown during transaction log replay when new data is written to the database file and there are no available free pages to be consumed and is of specific concern in two scenarios:

1. When transaction log replay is performed by the Replication Service as part of ensuring the passive database copy is up-to-date and/or
2. When a database is not cleanly shut down and recovery occurs.

When this issue occurs, the following similar events are logged in the Application Event log of the Mailbox server:

• Event Type: Error
  Event Source: ESE
  Event Category: Logging/Recovery
  Event ID: 454
  Description: Microsoft.Exchange.Cluster.ReplayService (12716) Recovery E20 SG1\DB1: Database recovery/restore failed with unexpected error -4001.
• Event Type: Error
  Event Source: MSExchangeRepl
  Event Category: Service
  Event ID: 2097
  Description: The Microsoft Exchange Replication Service encountered an unexpected Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) exception in storage group 'SG1\DB1'. The ESE exception is a read was issued to a location beyond EOF (writes will expand the file) (-4001) ().
• Event Type: Error
  Event Source: MSExchangeRepl
  Event Category: Service
  Event ID: 2095
  Description: Log file D:\logs\SG1\E200006AFAE.log in SG1\DB1 could not be replayed. Re-seeding the passive node is now required. Use the Update-StorageGroupCopy cmdlet in the Exchange Management Shell to perform a re-seed operation

While only a small number of customers have been affected to date, the Product Group believe the risk is significant enough that they are recommending all customers to uninstall Exchange 2007 SP3 RU3 on all Mailbox Servers and Transport servers. Uninstalling the rollup will revert the system back to the previously installed version. They have also removed the Exchange 2007 SP3 RU3 download from the Microsoft Download Center and from Microsoft Update until we are able to produce a new version of the rollup.

It is strongly recommended that the below actions are taken to ensure that no data loss or outage is experienced.

For environments leveraging CCR and/or Standby Continuous Replication (SCR)

If you note the listed events in your environment the following steps must be taken in order to restore your high-availability configuration:

1. Rollback the CCR Mailbox server hosting the passive database copies and any SCR target Mailbox servers to the previously installed version (e.g., Exchange 2007 SP3 RU2) by uninstalling RU3.
2. Re-seed all database copies on the CCR Mailbox server and any SCR target Mailbox servers hosting the passive database copies.
3. Verify the database copy status is healthy for all passive copies.
4. Perform a switchover and rollback the remaining CCR Mailbox server to the previously installed version (e.g., Exchange 2007 SP3 RU2).

If you are not seeing these events in your continuous replication enabled environment, we recommend the following steps:

1. Rollback the CCR Mailbox server hosting the passive database copies and any SCR target Mailbox servers to the previously installed version (e.g., Exchange 2007 SP3 RU2) by uninstalling RU3.
2. Perform a switchover and rollback the remaining CCR Mailbox server to the previously installed version (e.g., Exchange 2007 SP3 RU2).

For environments leveraging Single Copy Clusters (SCC)

1. Rollback passive nodes within the SCC environment to the previously installed version (e.g., Exchange 2007 SP3 RU2) by uninstalling RU3.
2. Perform a switchover and rollback the remaining SCC Mailbox server nodes to the previously installed version (e.g., Exchange 2007 SP3 RU2).
3. Restore and recover any damaged databases leveraging a last known good backup.

For environments leveraging standalone Mailbox servers

1. Rollback the standalone Mailbox servers to the previously installed version (e.g., Exchange 2007 SP3 RU2) by uninstalling RU3.
2. Restore and recovery any damaged databases leveraging a last known good backup.

For Hub Transport and Edge Transport servers

1. Rollback the standalone transport servers to the previously installed version (e.g., Exchange 2007 SP3 RU2) by uninstalling RU3.
2. Recover damaged mail.que databases by following the steps in Working with the Queue Database on Transport Servers.

Microsoft recently announced that they are in the process of updating pricing for the Hosted BlackBerry Service for Exchange Online to make it available free of charge. From the 16th of March 2011, BlackBerry mobile e-mail for new Exchange Online customers is now free through the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).  For existing customers, a further announcement is expected later this month on how to take advantage of this change.

In addition, Hosted BlackBerry service will be available for free with Office 365 after it launches later this year.

There have been reports of an issue impacting some customers which have RIM BlackBerry devices connecting to Exchange 2010 SP1 with RU3. The product team are working with RIM to identify the exact scenarios, narrow down the root cause of the problem and identify a suitable resolution for it. During this time the download page for Update Rollup 3 has been disabled.

If you are seeing duplicate messages being delivered when an email is sent from a BlackBerry device and you have RU3 installed within your Exchange 2010 environment, contact Microsoft Support for assistance in troubleshooting the issue you’re experiencing.

It is recommended at this time that everyone hold off deploying RU3 until they have identified and resolved the issues. If you have already deployed RU3 and you are not seeing any issues within your environment, leave RU3 in place at this time.

The Exchange CXP team recently released Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2007 SP3 and Exchange Server 2010 SP1 to the Download Center. Release via Microsoft Update will occur on March 22nd 2011.

These updates contain a number of customer reported and internally found issues since the release of RU2. Both updates resolve a number of issues, in particular for Exchange 2010 it resolves more than 40 issues.

For a detailed list of these issues, visit the following links:

• Update Rollup 3 for Exchange 2007 SP3
• Update Rollup 3 for Exchange 2010 SP1

Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2007 SP3 and Exchange Server 2010 SP1  is currently scheduled to release in May 2011.

As always, those of you running Forefront, be sure you perform these important steps from the command line in the Forefront directory before and after this rollup's installation process. Without these steps, Exchange services for Information Store and Transport will not start back up. You will need to disable ForeFront via "fscutility /disable" before installing the patch and then re-enable after the patch by running "fscutility /enable" to start it up again post installation.

To download these updates, visit the following links:

• Update Rollup 3 for Exchange 2007 SP3
• Update Rollup 3 for Exchange 2010 SP1

This one is slightly off topic, but I thought I would share it nonetheless. I recently came across a post about someone who upgraded through every version of Windows from 1.0 to 7.

What is truly impressive about this is that there is some 20 years of application compatibility to be witnessed. Here is the very impressive video:

The first thing I noticed when I watched this was that the author never installed Windows ME. I have since found his “FAQ”:

1) Why Didn't you Install ME?
Since Windows ME cannot be upgraded to 2000, I chose to install 2000 straight from 98 as it was chronologically the next release. I might do an "alternate history" version to see what going from 98 to ME to XP looks like.
2) Did Doom 2 and Monkey Island work in Windows 7?
Yes. Sorry I didn't point that out explicitly in the video.
3) Can you do the same thing with Mac OS?
I don't know enough about Mac OS to be able to say, and I would not be the best person to do that experiment as I have never been a Mac user.
4) Where are you from?
Scotland.

Last week the Windows Server team announced the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1), along with Windows 7 SP1. On February 16, both will be available to current customers of the Windows Volume Licensing program, as well as subscribers to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and TechNet. On February 22, both will be available to all customers through Windows Update and will also come preinstalled on new servers ordered.

"Is Exchange supported running on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1?" The Exchange team have confirmed that the following versions of Exchange are supported to run on Windows 2008 R2 SP1 (the RTM version of SP1):

• Exchange 2010 SP1
• Exchange 2010 RTM
• Exchange 2007 SP3

There are a couple of things to note:

• Exchange 2007 was not supported to run on Windows 2008 R2 at all before Exchange 2007 SP3.
• Windows 2008 R2 SP1 includes all the hotfixes required to install Exchange 2010 SP1 so if you're installing Exchange 2010 SP1 on a server running Windows 2008 R2 SP1, you don't need to install these hotfixes separately.