Lukas Beeler's IT Blog

Outlook Anywhere / Outlook Autodiscovery on Windows 2008 still has some problems.
Read this most excellent post that has all the details.

Long story shorts: Modify the hosts file, remove the IPv6 localhost (::1) and then add hosts entries for your server. I would recommend against disabling IPv6 on the Exchange server, as this is probably not a recommended or supported configuration.

The root cause is that Outlook 2007 can’t contact a DC/Domain Controller using RPC over HTTP/Outlook Anywhere when used on Windows Server 2008.

Also note that NTLM Authentification for Outlook 2007/Outlook Anywhere is broken on Windows Server 2008.

On my personal Machine (and all other machines in my office, running Vista and Office 2007), Communicator 2007 has been demanding an Outlook update since i’ve installed it (Outlook-Update erforderlich). Clicking it leads to this empty Microsoft page.

I have no idea why it demands this, because i’ve installed all the Office 2007/Outlook Updates there are, and even more funny I only found a single reference to this problem (this newsgroup posting).

The suggestion in said post was to contact Microsoft Support, which i’m not allowed to do. The problem does not exist on the Windows XP machines running Office 2003 (we don’t have any machines running XP/Office 2007). As such, i’m stumped.

Does anyone else know this problem?

Update: According to this post in the OCServer Blog, this icon works in English Environments and should remind users to install KB936864. However, i do have this package installed (according to systeminfo).

So i’ve been playing with Office Communication Server 2007 to pass time. Thanks to the Microsoft Partner Licensing Program we can use this software internally, in production, without paying anything.

After playing with it in VMs for a few days, I decided to deploy it internally. Of course, the current deployment is not very integrated – our PBX is years old, and we have no chance to get any decent sort of integration, and we’re not yet on Exchange 2007 (though this is planned). As such, I didn’t expect to much usefulness out of. Boy, was I wrong.

OCS 2007 is several products in one, and it has a few drawbacks in a small business deployment (because it was designed for bigger environments). The price of the product isn’t prohibitive for a small business – 1500 CHF for the server, and 100 CHF per CAL (for Standard versions – the Enterprise versions are more expensive).

So, what features can one expect from OCS2007?

Services

Instant Messaging

One of the OCS2007 functions is an internal Instant Messaging server, with all the standard features you probably already know from ICQ, MSN et al. This part could easily provided by using e.G. an internal Jabber server and a Windows Jabber client like Pidgin. So why use OCS2007 for instant messaging? The reason is easy: Integration. The server software integrates into your Active Directory environment. You extend the AD schema, and all the user information is stored directly in Active Directory, with no need to maintain yet another user database. While that’s an advantage, it not much of a selling point (because the CEO usually doesn’t care if need 3 more minutes to add a user).

So let’s talk about integration on the client. After installing Office Communicator (the IM/VOIP client for OCS) on the client, you will notice full IM integration into Outlook, see the status of all the recipients and senders of the mail. This is a very nice feature, because it offers you information at a glance, without having to open the IM GUI to see whether someone is available for a quick follow up or not. But it gets better: this Integration also works in Sharepoint Services 3.0 and MOSS 2007. Also, the Unified Messaging part of Exchange Server 2007 integrates nicely into OCS 2007. You can check your voicemail using OCS 2007, with a fully graphical interface (similar to how the iPhone handles it’s voicemail)

Besides the ability for instant messaging, there is another very important feature – at least in our company: availability and presence. We have a HQ and a branch office, and our HQ is split over three floors. So usually it’s not easy to tell if someone is at his workplace or not. While Outlooks calender helps to establish the general whereabouts of a person, its not at-a-glance, and it doesn’t help if the person just isn’t at his desk (for whatever reason).

Office Communicator sets your presence to away at the instant you lock your machine, which people do when they walk away from their desk. As such, you can tell whether someone is currently working at his desk or not. This is very cool, and helps to save time on unnecessary phone calls to which no one answers.

There’s also a web client – Office Communicator Web Access. At the first glance, it is indistinguishable from the full desktop client, so the web interface is very nicely done.

Voice over IP (SIP)

OCS 2007 is also a fully blown VoIP solution. I can’t talk about this part too much – i haven’t worked with the mediation server or more enterprise VoIP integration (as said, our PBX doesn’t support that).

The Softphone client, integrated into the Office Communicator works nicely though, the voice quality is normal, and we didn’t have much problems using it over WAN lines.

You can also connect hardware IP phones to OCS2007, which should work with standard SIP phones – not having one, i didn’t test this. There are some very nice looking OCS specific IP phones out there.

Live Meeting

I’ve attended a few Webcasts done using Live Meeting 2005. With OCS 2007, you can now host Live Meetings (using the 2007 client) directly in your company, with no need for any hosted services. This feature might not be terribly useful if you’re working for a single-location Small Business, but it can be a timesaver when spread across the country (or world). Live Meeting also integrates into Outlook (see the above screenshot).

It works flawlessly, and i had few problems using Live Meeting. Didn’t really deploy this into production yet, though.

And more

OCS 2007 can also do a lot more stuff than i mentioned here. Most of this, like CDR and Archival is not necessary (or financially viable) in Small Businesses, so I didn’t invest too much time.

Drawbacks

So, what are the drawbacks of OCS 2007 in a Small Business? The main point i see here is that you need at least three servers – a Standard Server (hosting all the services), a mediation server for connecting to your PBX, and an Edge server offering internet connectivity. These are at least three OS instances that need to be maintained. Add to that the cost of either a proper virtualization server, or a few 1U boxes, and you’ll get into unviable price regions pretty soon.

For basic functionality, you can leave both the Mediation and the Edge server away. This means no integration with your PBX, and no external access to your server – at least in theory.

If you just need external access to IM, you can create appropriate SRV records in your public DNS, and forward port 5061. This will not result in a clean service, but it’s better than nothing. But without a proper edge server, you won’t be able to access other IM networks. Not cool.

Microsoft should really make single-server deployment possible, but probably we’re too small of a market to make this financially viable.

So what’s my conclusion? If you’re an SMB, give OCS2007 a try. It’s a very cool software, and the basic IM functionality isn’t that expensive.

Office is available as a trial version for download, and as a preinstalled trial called Office Ready PC.

Both a trial versions of office, but there is a very, very important difference:

Office Ready preinstallations accept MLK keys.

The downloadable trial version does not accept them.

If you have a new computer and bought an MLK package, you’re out of luck. Consult a local hardware reseller which has an Office Preinstallation Kit (OPK).

If you’re running Outlook 2007 against an Exchange 2003 server, and have alerts generated by Sharepoint Services 3.0, you will notice very strange effects within Outlook, namely MAPI Error messages, mails that are not openable, etc.

The problem is a bug in Exchange 2003 – there is even a hotfix available in KB930807. However, this Hotfix is not publicly downloadable. You will need to contact Microsoft PSS, in order to get the Hotfix.

And here is where it gets interesting. If you’re running a native language version of your Microsoft Software, Support is only available by phone, for the small sum of 450 US$ – this fee is usually waived though if you just request a hotfix. For original US-English language software, support is also available by E-Mail, for much more reasonable 150 US$.

I’ve tried requesting the Hotfix by E-Mail, and it worked fine (though they referred me to the Phone Support option). It worked fine, and Microsoft provided me with the appropriate Hotfix.

The good thing is, that these problems will be mostly over because both Vista and Longhorn Server are true multilanguage Operating Systems.

Recovering deleted items in Outlook 2003/2007 works great.

However, some users reported that not all deleted items were visible in the “Recover deleted items” dialog. The reason for this was that they didn’t just delete the file, but instead used shift-delete to delete the file immediately, skipping the recycle bin.

In this case, the deleted item is not visible through selecting the recycle bin, and then “Recover deleted items”. Instead, you must select the Inbox, and then the “Recover deleted items” option. This is not as obvious as it should be.

After migrating several users into our Exchange server, which were first defined as an external contacts (for proper forwarding), everything worked fine.

However, one user was unable to send mail to the new users. It generated a bounce/NDA, and failed to deliver. I first checked the Exchange Server, and everything seemed to be perfect. I then walked this user through the procedure of selecting the user from the address book, and then sending the mail. This worked.

At first, i was baffled, but then i remembered about the external contacts – the external contacts where defined as X.400 addresses, which coexisted with the new users for a short while. so the external contacts had different X.400 addresses than the new users. (I did handle the SMTP Addresses correctly, but not the X.400 ones).

But the external contacts where deleted, and no longer in the GAL or the OAB. But Outlooks address cache for type-ahead finding of contacts is independent of these two address sources. And that’s what the user used. You can delete entries in this cache by selecting them with the cursor keys, and then pressing the delete key. Seems logical, but i haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere explicitly.

I recently ran into an interesting problem related to Active Sync and Cached Exchange Mode in Outlook 2003.

In this case, the user running Outlook 2003 was connected to the exchange server through a WAN link, and has just imported a rather large .pst file, which was being uploaded to the Exchange server.

At that point, i tried to configure Active Sync on the PDA (through a GPRS connection), but it just hung while retrieving the folder list. An Event from Source “Server ActiveSync” and ID 3005 was logged on the Exchange-Server. At first, i thought the device (running PocketPC 3.0) had issues with the Exchange server, but that wasn’t the case. When i quit Outlook (and it stopped uploading from the local store to the server), everything was fine.

I waited until Outlook finished uploading, and from that point on Active Sync didn’t have any issues.

It seems that Active Sync doesn’t work when the Exchange Server is receiving files from a client.

No, it didn’t.

But by default, DFS replication excludes certain file patterns. Some of these patterns (notably *.bak files) are used by the office 2003 installation source. You will need to edit the filter of the replication group, in order to enable replication of similar files. The replication group i’m using for my software packages doesn’t have any filters, and is only replicated at night.

Please remember that changing the filter, and the replication of the “missing” files may take up to an hour, due to lookup and replication delays by all replication group members.

Office 2007 is out for sale since the 31. January. I’ve got my hands on a new MLK/OEM CD set today, and it seems to be a rather interesting situation.

The official OEM Version of 2007 is no longer called “OEM”, instead “MLK” is used. MLK stands for “Media Less Key”. You get a simple box, with a key inside, but no CDs. As a reseller, you can order OPK media kits – where OPK stands for OEM Preinstallation Kit. These are needed in order to install it on the customers machine. But they’re marked “NOT FOR RESALE”. The customer can still order Backup CDs by Mail, but this costs 30CHF, requires sending in several bills (from your computer, and from the MLK version). And it probably takes several weeks till you get the actual media.

This is a bit of a stupid situation, because if the customer doesn’t have his own CDs, recovery in case of problems gets very, very interesting. I wondered how other resellers handled this, and looked at digitec, where i usually buy my consumer-grade stuff. And this is were things get very, very interesting. Office 2007 OEM with CDs is offered by digitec. But how?

I’ve asked our distributor why we can’t get OEM versions with CDs. He told me that digitec was wrong. I looked at the MS Partner Info, regarding Office 2007 licensing. And really, there is no licensing option which allows OEM pricing but comes with media. Our distributor is now investigating with Microsoft what the deal is. Apparently digitec is doing something wrong, but it’s hard to tell from my point of view. Maybe there is another option, or digitec pre-orders the backup CD (which would look rather irritating in this packaging), or they are reselling OPK kits.

Our distributor explicitly states that you can’t get any OEM versions without CD. Thankfully they even communicate this quite well, as you can see on the screenshot to the right – if you work in switzerland you’ll even know which distributor i’m talking about. I’m wondering how this all turns out – will update this information as soon as i know more.

UPDATE:

digitec fixed their website. They now state that it’s a “license only” sale.