Aaron Tiensivu's Blog

To begin, follow the instructions here for the usual Server 2008 R2 workaround/fixes for Server 2008 R2 and OCS 2007 R2.

1. From an elevated PowerShell prompt: Import-Module ServerManager [Enter]
2. Install the prerequisites for Group Chat Server with: Add-WindowsFeature AS-NET-Framework,Desktop-Experience,FS-FileServer,NET-Framework-Core,MSMQ-Server,MSMQ-Directory,RSAT-ADDS,WAS-Process-Model,WAS-Config-APIs,Web-HTTP-Logging,Web-Mgmt-Compat,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Static-Content,Web-Windows-Auth [Enter]
3. Install KB 975858 so certificate based authentication works properly.
4. Install the OCS Group Chat Server as you normally would on any other operating system. Elan's guide is helpful for this (Part 1 / Part 2).
5. Install the OCS Core update from here and the UC API update from here. (If those links are outdated, go to KB 968802 for the latest links or use the ServerUpdateInstaller.exe)
6. Install the OCS 2007 R2 CU6 Group Server update from here. It is also a good idea to grab the Admin tools update from here and updated client from here.
7. At this point, if you try to start the OCS Group Chat Server services, they will stop without anything useful in the Event Logs. I'll save you time debugging this by pointing you to this older KB article here. You need to run %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2\Group Chat Server\ServerConfigTool.exe so that the tool will update the Group Chat database schema to the QFE1 level.
8. After running the ServerConfigTool.exe, you'll be able to start the update OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat services.

Celebrate, at this point you'll have a working Group Chat install on Server 2008 R2.

I've heard of numerous reports of the CU6's SQL back-end update having version mismatch problems with the front-end update.

One cause I can speculate on is that the web caches that Microsoft uses publish the updated bits are lagging behind. Unfortunately, due to the updates always having the same filename from Cumulative Update to Cumulative Update, it is hard to determine what version you have downloaded without looking at the file dates stored in each individual update.

If the front-end is updated without the proper back-end update, the front-end will complain about version mismatches in the SQL stored procedures.

Update: A tip from Tom Pacyk - install the OCS2009-DBUpgrade.msi before the other CU6 updates.

I talked a little about the .NET 4.0 issue here a few days ago but now that .NET 4.0 is on Windows/Microsoft Update as a recommended update, it is hitting more users during OCS installation.

If you install .NET 4.0 Framework before installing any OCS server role, the OCS setup program will complain that .NET 3.5x is not installed, even if you have .NET 3.5x installed (x being equal to 0 or 1, meaning .NET 3.50 or .NET 3.51).

Solution? Uninstall .NET 4.0 Framework, install OCS server roles, and then install .NET 4.0 if necessary. The OCS product team is working with the Windows product team to get a hotfix/update out for this.

Ideally, I wish there was a service pack for OCS 2007 R2 that had updated install bits for the ASN fix and the Server 2008 R2 gotchas.

OCS 2007 R2 Server:
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 - KB 968802 - Download
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Back-end database update - KB 2032834 - Download

OCS 2007 R2 Client:
Office Communicator 2007 R2 - KB 2028888 - Download
Office Communicator Phone Edition 2007 R2 - KB 2267962 - Download

Group Chat:
Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Group Chat Server - KB 2032881 - Download
Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Group Chat Client - KB 2032922 - Download
Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Group Chat Admin Tool - KB 2032949 - Download

As a follow-up to my blog entry about the Outlook 2007 update for Exchange 2010, we have an update released for Outlook 2003 for Exchange 2010! I didn't really expect to see this show up but it will help users when the Exchange 2010 SP1 calendar repair agent kicks in.

There is only one fix mentioned in this update for Outlook 2003:

When you use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 in a Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 environment, the body of the meeting request may be changed to the following text: One or more problems with your meeting were detected and fixed.

I'm expecting to see an update for Outlook 2007 sometime soon to add support for Exchange 2010's personal mailbox archives. Outlook 2010 supports them out of the box, and Exchange 2010 SP1 allows you to store the archive mailbox in a different information store (i.e. slower SAN or drives).

A hotfix rollup is available for Forefront Protection for Exchange with some noteworthy fixes. This rollup will bring the build version to 11.0.689.0.

The following fixes are issues I've personally seen with the RTM version of FPE:

1. A Forefront Protection for Exchange scan engine update fails and generates Application Log errors
2. Forefront Protection for Exchange replacing legitimate attachments with text files and quarantining legitimate mail
3. The Forefront Protection for Exchange client crashes when adding an IP address, or range, to either the IP Allow/Block List
4. Spam Reports may take an excessive amount of time to retrieve in Forefront Protection for Exchange
5. Forefront Protection for Exchange generates more Realtime Scan Timeout notifications than expected

There are more fixes than what I listed, and you can review them here.

You can request the hotfix rollup here.

Open a PowerShell instance with elevated rights.
In the PowerShell window, type: Import-Module ServerManager and hit [Enter].
When that completes, enter the command below for the OCS server role(s) needed:

Archiving Server:
Add-WindowsFeature AS-NET-Framework,Desktop-Experience,NET-Framework-Core,MSMQ-Server,MSMQ-Directory,RSAT-ADDS

Communicator Web Access Server:
Add-WindowsFeature AS-NET-Framework,Desktop-Experience,NET-Framework-Core,MSMQ-Server,MSMQ-Directory,RSAT-ADDS,WAS-Process-Model,WAS-Config-APIs,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Common-HTTP,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-HTTP-Logging,Web-HTTP-Redirect,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-HTTP-Logging,Web-Mgmt-Compat,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Windows-Auth

Edge Server:
Add-WindowsFeature AS-NET-Framework,Desktop-Experience,NET-Framework-Core

Front-End (Standard Edition) Server:
Add-WindowsFeature AS-NET-Framework,Desktop-Experience,FS-FileServer,NET-Framework-Core,MSMQ-Server,MSMQ-Directory,RSAT-ADDS,WAS-Process-Model,WAS-Config-APIs,Web-HTTP-Logging,Web-Mgmt-Compat,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Static-Content,Web-Windows-Auth

Front-End (Enterprise Edition) Server:
Add-WindowsFeature AS-NET-Framework,Desktop-Experience,NET-Framework-Core,MSMQ-Server,MSMQ-Directory,RSAT-ADDS,WAS-Process-Model,WAS-Config-APIs,Web-HTTP-Logging,Web-Mgmt-Compat,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Static-Content,Web-Windows-Auth

Mediation Server:
Add-WindowsFeature AS-NET-Framework,Desktop-Experience,NET-Framework-Core,MSMQ-Server,MSMQ-Directory,RSAT-ADDS

Monitoring Server:
Add-WindowsFeature AS-NET-Framework,Desktop-Experience,NET-Framework-Core,MSMQ-Server,MSMQ-Directory,RSAT-ADDS

These commands are largely based on the Server 2008 R1 blog entries here and here.

If my blog software shows the Add-WindowsFeature items on multiple lines, cut and paste the commands together onto one line inside PowerShell.

Note: If you install .NET Framework 4.0 before installing OCS, the OCS setup program will complain that .NET Framework 3.5 is missing, even if .NET Framework 3.5 has been installed. Thankfully, you can uninstall .NET Framework 4.0 if you bump into this issue and the setup program will behave normally. Thanks go out to Mark Rineck for discovering this.

Note 2: As mentioned on other sites, Web-HTTP-Logging is technically optional, but makes debugging IIS and OCS much easier if available.

I tend to keep an eye on the Office Cumulative Updates site (the link is on the right side of my website) and the June 2010 update for Outlook 2007 caught my eye.

In particular, there seem to be a few Exchange 2010 fixes directly related to Outlook 2007 crashing.

The issues fixed that caught my eye include:

1. This hotfix provides a design change. After you install this hotfix, the Secure Temp folder for Office Outlook 2007 is automatically cleared when you exit Office Outlook 2007.

2. After the Outlook mailboxes are moved a server that is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Office Outlook 2007 crashes intermittently.

3. In Office Outlook 2007, all received email messages are stored incorrectly in the Deleted Items folder. (Unfortunately, I've had clients keep very important e-mail in Deleted Items and then wonder where the messages went when they empty the Deleted Items folder.)

4. You may have data loss on meeting update when you use Office Outlook 2007 against Exchange Server 2010. When this issue occurs, the body of the meeting request is replaced by the following text: One or more problems with your meeting were detected and fixed.

5. After you install the Office Live Meeting Add-in for Microsoft Outlook, Office Outlook 2007 crashes during startup.

You can read more about the update here, and as general rule of thumb, it is good to keep the MSO.DLL updated as well, from here.

I always get nervous on the morning of July 1st ever since 2006. Thankfully I received this in email:
"Dear Aaron Tiensivu, Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2010 Microsoft® MVP Award!"

I haven't posted much lately but that will change as some of these newer products get out the door. W7 SP1 and OCS/CS "Wave 14" in particular. Can't neglect Exchange 2010 SP1 either, but the public beta is already out for that.

Woohoo!

I will be mostly talking about the Springboard site at the booth and how it can help you plan/adopt/migrate to Windows 7.

I'll be there with a few other fellow MVPs and Stephen Rose. Last year, we had Mark Russinovich stop by for a while. So, look for me in the Windows Client area!

Also, I will be on a panel for OCS 2007 R2 voice deployment 'war stories' during the Wednesday morning "UNC06-INT - Microsoft Communications Server "14": Voice Post Deployment" session with Francois Doremieux.

It is bound to be a great learning session, so try to stop by and say hi! I am amazed at the new feature sets and advancements that have been made with CS 2010 "Wave 14" aka OCS v.Next.

See you there!

Issue #1: Using the OCS 2007 R2 Administration tools on Server 2008 R2 has shown to be problematic for moving users from LCS and OCS 2007 R1/R2 to other OCS servers. For now, it is best to use a non-Server 2008 R2 workstation or server to move users to and from OCS servers. You can 'force' the users to move, but it doesn't always result in a good move. So, avoid it if possible.

Issue #2: If you are trying to run "ABServer.exe -SyncNow" on an OCS 2007 R2 server running on Server 2008 R2, you will need to create a new DWORD registry entry at HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\DisableLookbackCheck set to the value of 1.

Due to .NET 3.5 SP1 on Server 2008 R2, if this registry value is not set, you will receive an error message of "Triggering Address Book Server syncronization pass - function not available when RTCSRV service is not running. Start the RTCSRV service." A reboot may be required for the new registry setting to take effect.

Usually, manual regeneration of the address book is not required since the front end will refresh the contents every night by default. It is only the manual run of ABServer.exe that is affected on Server 2008 R2. It is normally best to leave DisableLoopbackCheck disabled (set to 0) if possible for security reasons.

Thankfully, OCS seems to perform very well on Server 2008 R2 once the known issues are worked around.

Microsoft keeps an updated KB article about these issues, which do not have these documented yet, here.

I also have my original guidance for OCS 2007 R2 on Server 2008 R2 here. I will work on getting these incorporated into the original post when I have a free moment. I am extremely lacking in any free moments in 2010 so far. Life needs to calm down a bit.

I tend to run bleeding edge software everywhere and when I can, I run the most native applications I can. This is why I'm running Office 2010 x64 on my x64 laptop. Primary reason is that most of the annoying Office plugins I don't want do not have a x64 counterpart yet. This includes the annoying iPhone plugin that iTunes installs that can make Outlook stall/crash on exit. Bad plugins can cause bad behavior.

Of course, there isn't a lot of 'gee-whiz-wow' aspects of running Office 2010 x64 other than it being a native app and not going thru the WOW64 emulation. You also get some of the security protection features that are not available with x86 applications.

Anyway, if you are daring and want to feel like an Apple Mac users for a while (No working Flash support), grab one of the FireFox nightly builds here.

If the Tinderbox directory seems to be empty (sometimes the build process gets broken and stale files removed), you can always check the trunk builds for x64 here. The x64 installer can be found here at the trunk location and the zip can be found here at the trunk location. Many times, the .zip file is newer than the x64 installer version.

Of course, those filenames will change once Firefox/Minefield advances from version 3.7a5pre. If you get 'file not found' from those links, check the http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/ location for the new filenames.

To be able to use the executables, you will need the Visual Studio Runtimes for x64 which you can download here.

What I did was take the zip file, unzip it into "%ProgramFiles%\Mozilla FireFox" (NOT "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Mozilla FireFox", unblock the executable since it was downloaded from the internet (oh no!), and launched the application. It does seem to run relatively faster overall and use less memory but maybe that it due to the lack of Flash.

You can always check the jemalloc stats by pulling up "about:memory" and seeing just how bad something might be leaking.



Other cool things to try out in the daily builds:

Turn on Direct2D & DirectWrite for Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP2 (With Platform Update):

With "about:config", add "gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled" (boolean) and set this to 'True'. Add "mozilla.widget.render-mode" (integer) and set this to '6'.

A noteworthy Windows 7 hotfix related to Direct2d and DirectWrite can be downloaded from here. It seems to make behavior more consistent for applications outside of just Visual Studio 2010. I have personally been running this hotfix with Firefox with DirectWrite enabled for a long time now with no major issues.

After restarting Firefox, the fonts on the page and browser should be anti-aliased. Websites with large images should load faster, and any SVG examples should be much faster.

If you run into problems with Direct2d and DirectWrite, check out this thread here.

If you run into Add-On Manager problems, unrelated to 64-bit but with the new AOM framework, check out this thread here.

The redesign of the Office website at Microsoft has made a few of the older links related to download of the Live Meeting client and Conferencing Add-In invalid, as pointed out by Matt Wade and followers of his website.

The issue has been reported to Microsoft and will hopefully soon be resolved, and this blog entry will be removed from this site.

In the meantime, here are the direct download links until this issue has been resolved:
Live Meeting Client
Conferencing Add-In for Outlook

2 fixes since last year it looks like:

KB 978164 - A conversation window opens unexpectedly when you press ENTER in the Search box in Office Communicator 2007
KB 979145 - The Office Communicator 2007 user interface pops up for all users who log on to a terminal server that is running Windows Server 2008

I suspect the release is mainly for the terminal server update and maybe OCS v.Next support.

You can grab the update at here.

One of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of publishing OCS - the use of hardware load balancers. Thankfully there is a brand new document from Microsoft to help you out.

To quote the download page:
"This document explains infrastructure and system requirements for hardware load balancing of Office Communications Server Enterprise pools, Edge Server arrays, and Communicator Web Access. It also explains various networking concepts, such as one arm vs. two arm configurations, network address translation (NAT), VLAN tagging, and Mutual Transport Layer Security (MTLS) connection multiplexing, in the context of an Office Communications Server deployment."

Grab the document here.

It turns out that a little while ago I had discovered part of the puzzle to getting OCS 2007 R2 working on Windows 2008 R2. Strangely, a somewhat related blog entry I made around the same time was the other piece of the puzzle.

Namely, for 2008 R2 support, you need a Server 2008 R2 specific hotfix (KB 975858) and modify a few NTLM security settings that differ as defaults on Server 2008 R2 compared to Server 2008 R1.

Ideally, if you can support it in your environment, I would configure your servers and clients to be the most secure by default with use of a GPO or registry setting. That way, you are using the latest NTLM protocol with 128-bit encryption.

In the screenshot below, it shows the security setup on my laptop for client security:


Keep in mind, it is best to match these settings on the client side and server side.
If you configure the client side and do not configure the server side, you will still be able to connect.
If you configure the server side, and leave the client side at defaults, depending on the OS release, connection problems may happen due to the mismatch.

You can also read the official Microsoft guidance on Server 2008 R2 and OCS 2007 R2 here and here.

Update: I've discovered some additional issues that can be worked around. I have documented them in a new entry here.