MOSS 2007 and Exchange 2007: enabling e-mail on document libraries

Already upgraded your Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007? If you did, and your Sharepoint was configured with incoming e-mail settings, changes are e-mailing to the document libraries doesn't work anymore ...

By following these steps, you'll be able to set it back up. This starts from the beginning, so previous configuration is not required.

Step one: create an OU in active directory that will hold all the document library contacts.
Same as Exchange 2003!

Step two: delegate write permissions to the Sharepoint Central Administration Application Pool service account so that he can create new contacts in the OU.
Same as Exchange 2003!

Step three: Create an MX record in the DNS that points to the SMTP service of the sharepoint server
New for Exchange 2007!

Step four: Install the SMTP service on the MOSS 2007 server and configure the SMTP server to accept relaying from the exchange server
Same as Exchange 2003!

Step five: Configure on the MOSS server the incoming e-mail settings
Same as Exchange 2003!

Step six: create a SMTP send connector in exchange to relay e-mails to the sharepoint server. Otherwise the exchange server will drop the e-mails.
New for Exchange 2007!

Step seven (if required): create a new E-mail Address Policy (EAP) that adds e-mail addresses to the contacts
Same as Exchange 2003!

You'll see that by following these few simple steps your document libraries will accept your e-mails again.
These steps are a short summary of the whitepaper that was created by the fabulous Steve Smith.
Thank you for all your help Steve, and not just on this ... :)

Have fun!

OWA 2007: Error 440 - Login Timeout

The other day I was facing a Outlook Web Access problem on Exchange 2007. Users could succesfully resolve the URL, but would immediately receive a message "440: Login Timeout", without further explanation not in the browser nor in the event viewer of the exchange server.

This particular exchange server was a new installation, but I've read that this also happens to exchange servers that were upgraded from 2003.

On the msmvps.com blog site, Chad has written a post that can help you with this message.
Basically, the procedure he describes lets you manually synchronize the passwords of the IUSR_ & IWAM_ between AD and IIS.
From the comments below the post it shows that many were helped with this, unfortunately for me, it didn't ...

I did however find another article on the Microsoft sites that did help me.
Below are the steps needed restore the OWA functionality on a Exchange server 2007. Please be aware that although the risk of deleting valuable information is low (since we won't touch the "Management tools", only the "Client Access Server"), the server will be fully unavailable for users during these steps.

1. Uninstall the Common Files subcomponent of the IIS (Internet Information Services), located in the Windows components of Add or remove programs.
2. Reinstall the Common Files and reapply the appropriate service packs.
3. Remove only the Client Access Role! To do this select "Remove Microsoft Exchange server 2007" under Add or remove programs.
4. Reinstall the Client Access Role. To do this select "Change Microsoft Exchange server 2007" under Add or remove programs.
5. Open the Exchange management shell and run these commands:
a) get-owavirtualdirectory -server server_name -DomainController dc_name | ? {$_.OwaVersion -eq "Exchange2003or2000"} | remove-owavirtualdirectory -DomainController dc_name
b) new-OwaVirtualDirectory -OwaVersion "Exchange2003or2000" -VirtualDirectoryType "Mailboxes" -DomainController dc_name
c) new-OwaVirtualDirectory -OwaVersion "Exchange2003or2000" -VirtualDirectoryType "Exadmin" -DomainController dc_name
d) new-OwaVirtualDirectory -OwaVersion "Exchange2003or2000" -VirtualDirectoryType "PublicFolders" -DomainController dc_name
e) new-OwaVirtualDirectory -OwaVersion "Exchange2003or2000" -VirtualDirectoryType "exchweb" -DomainController dc_name

Now run the iisreset command and OWA should work.

The full article from Microsoft you can find here.

Enjoy!

VMware: ESX 3.5 & VC 2.5

As we are all well aware already, new versions of ESX and VirtualCenter have been published by VMware, which will demonstrated on the VMworld event this year held in Cannes (France) at the end of Februari.

Here is a short overview of all the new features introduced in these versions, some more interesting than others:
1. Integration of tools like Guided Consolidation and VMware Converter in the VI Client.
2. Image customization of 64-bit guests (sysprep based instead of xml based).
3. Provisioning across datacenters (in previous versions, you had to have templates in each datacenter).
4. Datastore browser that supports file sharing between hosts (you will be able to just cut and paste files between ESX hosts. Seems like a basic feature to have but in the past you had to do this from the console).
5. Support for 256GB RAM in the ESX host and 64GB RAM for a guest.
6. Lockdown mode: the ability to prohibit management of a host when it is already managed by VirtualCenter. (very practical new feature).
7. Limit the amount of remote console connections.
8. Update Manager: provides a patching solution for ESX hosts and (some) guests. This includes offline patching. (Microsoft is also working on an offline patching solution with codename "Himalaya").
9. Storage VMotion: the ability to migrate virtual machines from one LUN to another without downtime. The migration needs to be done on the same host. You just present the source and target LUN and off you go.
10. VMware Converter integration into VI Client: makes it easier to do V2V and P2V right from VI Client and also allows customers that use VCB to restore backed up virtual machines right from VI Client.

Especially the last 5 features are really interesting to sell and implement at our clients.

Where did I get this from? Who else but Mike Laverick! Check out the guide he made about the new features here.

Except the points mentioned above and lots of other stuff I can't all write down here, there are a few more things I read in the document:
1. Virtual disks can now be enlarged from VI Client. No need for vmkfstools. (GREAT!!)
2. Power-on boot delay for guests and an option to boot directly in the BIOS after a guest reboot.
3. Static MAC addresses for a guests, set from the VI Client.
4. The new datastore browser allows you to upload files to and from the datastore.
5. You can configure time synch with NTP from VI Client.