OCS / LCS

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

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 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\DisableLoopbackCheck 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 synchronization 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.

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.

You can file this one under 'Things you find while browsing recently posted downloads'.

Since this has been posted for download on Microsoft's download site, you know that a public beta for the OCS release can only be right around the corner.

It won't be useful yet, because this will be used for the LiveMeeting functionality of the upcoming OCS version. Interesting to see it posted already though.

You can check it out here.

The big news with this release is support for Windows 2008 R2 and workarounds for specific VOIP inter-op scenarios. I will be publishing some more info on both of these items later but wanted to get the word out because this update has been a long time coming!

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 CU5 Update
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 CU5 Database Update
Office Communicator 2007 R2 CU5 Update
Office Communicator Phone Edition 2007 R2 CU5 Update
Office Communicator Attendant Console 2007 R2 CU5 Update

Very interesting thread about a problem I haven't run into both others might if they have USB powered headsets with OCS. It looks like two possible models that it can occur with are the Polycom CX300 and some other handsets/headsets.

Basically, due to some of the 'green options' on some PCs, the USB power to the connected devices can be lowered when idle. If the OS/BIOS detects that the device has become active, it will fire up the juice. Unfortunately, at the start of a call, the voltage might not be high enough yet to experience full volume.

This explains the audio problem described here.

If at all possible, try not to disable ACPI and just try to disable the USB power-disabling green features in the BIOS or OS. If that is not an option, you could always use a powered (complete with wall-wart power adapter) USB hub to keep the phones/headsets powered up while your other devices can sleep normally on the 'green' USB ports.

I'm curious how widespread this problem is, because I think the Polycom CX300 is a fantastic little OCS handset.

It is handy to see what version levels are out there and what devices are in use. You can also use some SQL kung-foo to correlate the device with the user. A more detailed example is available from here.

By default, this is what the MMC shows for connected devices:

Exchange 2010 introduces a Calendar Assistant, which can be handy for automatically marking incoming meeting requests a tentative, and other very handy functions that can execute out side of the client side experience.

In this one particular scenario, embarrassingly, was my own mailbox for a few days.

I had no control over meeting requests. They were getting rejected and accepted without me ever seeing the request come in.
I checked my phone for any strange settings.
I checked over the Calendar Assistant and disabled it completely, from the Outlook Web App control panel and in Powershell just to make sure it was "super disabled".



Calendar items kept auto-answering for me so I had to dig deeper, into a section I rarely go into unless the mailbox is setup as a resource.

Lo and behold, somehow and at some point, all of these items had been clicked on within my Outlook profile.

I don't know if I did this on accident one night or my kids got into my Outlook settings (never underestimate the comedy gold that can come from smart 8 year olds) with that said:



As you can see, these options were what was killing my Calendaring. Very "stupid user" to not check this spot first but it was originally acting like something the Calendar Assistant was doing and I had forgotten about the resource room settings being buried in Outlook 2010.

So, I got to wear the dunce hat for the day. Maybe me posting this will avoid some other dunce hats getting passed out to others. It was definitely a 'palmface-slap' moment when I discovered the root cause.

Some new information about OCS "v.Next" came out today at VoiceCon. Unfortunately they are in press release form but I've distilled down some of the technical items.

#1. 3 new headsets/devices from Polycom, which will definitely help fill the gap for community area/kiosk phones and non-tethered scenarios. Read about it here.

Highlights from that announcement that I am excited about:
Polycom CX500 IP phone - designed for use in public areas such as lobbies, break rooms or hallways (No PC required!)
Polycom CX600 IP desktop phone - delivers rich presence and exceptional voice quality to a mid-range desktop phone ("Tanjay"-lite, sort of)
Polycom CX3000 IP conference phone -- provides outstanding voice quality and rich presence for more productive and efficient conference calls and is the only conference phone currently optimized for Microsoft Communicator "14" ("RoundTable"-lite, sort of)

The CX500 fills a gap I've experienced with OCS rollouts that required a common area phone without a PC attached to it. It could be a break room or conference room or security phone. Having a computer with a headset or full blown "Tanjay" phone didn't make sense in those scenarios.

I'd gladly review any of those phones if Polycom wants to send me a demo unit.

#2. Better branch survivability with the updated gateways, plus more. Read about it here.

Highlights from that announcement that I am excited about:
More partners joining the market making OCS products and solutions. Of particular note are the survivable branch appliances, which will definitely help remote office and branch office deployment scenarios greatly.

E911 service support - this can be a deal breaker under certain scenarios in the USA, so I'm happy to see support for this added. The way it ties into OCS is also very straightforward and clever.

Contact center, call accounting, and recording solutions - These 3 items have always been a weakness to the OCS voice platform. The products either didn't exist or they were in the early stages of production. It is great to see some more options and features for those companies that require these solutions for a full deployment.

As soon as I am able to, I will be posting plenty of OCS v.Next items - this is just the beginning!

I haven't been this excited about a new release of a Microsoft product in a long time and I have a feeling it is going to surprise a lot of people with the new capabilities!