Download : Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2007

You can download the Update Rollup 3 (thanks, Greg for helping here) for Exchange Server 2007 SP2 (x86/x64). It resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2007 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2007 customers.

Per MSExchangeteam.com, some highlights of the product improvements and critical bug fixes were “…

• We responded to some of the great feedback we get from the community including two issues posted to the Exchange TechNet Forums about our last rollup:  Outlook web access signatures lose their blank line above the signature & Item Retention Period “TimeSpan overflowed because the duration is too long.”  


• A couple of painful deadlock issues are now prevented as noted in KBs  978517 and 979219.  


• Two Store crash scenarios were repaired; see KBs  978528  & 979520. 


• Several improvements for meeting request issues are also included in this rollup…”

Also per TechNet, the Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2007 fixes the following issues:

 

931328	An integer is added to the end of the legacyExchangeDN attribute of a newly created mailbox in Exchange 2007
930468	The attachment is not displayed when you use Outlook 2003 to open an e-mail message that contains an attachment
931842	Error message when the sender or the receiver of a meeting request has a double-byte character set (DBCS) display name in Exchange Server 2007: “The requested property was not found”
932207	Error message when a user tries to open a forwarded message to accept or to deny a resource request in Exchange Server 2007: “Cannot open the free/busy information”
932515	You receive a 5.2.0 non-delivery report (NDR) message when you send an e-mail message to an Exchange 2007 server that is running the Isinteg.exe tool in a dismounted mailbox store
934887	DBCS characters are converted into two question marks in a forwarded e-mail message in Exchange 2007
936337	Error message when you run the Test-ExchangeSearch cmdlet across domains in an Exchange 2007 environment: “The operation could not be performed because of a service”
932905	A POP3 mail client may receive an error code, and event ID 1009 is logged on an Exchange 2007 mail server
934402	The synchronization session of the mobile device fails, and you receive error code “0X85010015” when you try to synchronize a mobile device by using Exchange ActiveSync in Exchange Server 2007
935412	The outgoing message always displays the name of the sender even though the administrator configured the message to hide the name in Exchange Server 2007
934259	Certain IMAP clients cannot open the bodies of e-mail messages when users access their mailboxes on an Exchange Server 2007 server
932605	A user cannot log on when the user accesses the mailbox of an Exchange 2003 IMAP4 back-end server through an Exchange 2007 server that is serving in a CAS role
933261	The nickname of a mail user must be unique in a forest if you use the original release version of Exchange 2007
935202	You cannot move a mailbox across forests in an Exchange 2007 organization
936747	The Availability service may use a large amount of memory and the corresponding w3wp.exe process has a high memory usage in Exchange Server 2007

Download fix : Issue with Message size in Outlook 2010 beta

With respect to my previous blog post regarding the message size increase of some e-mails sent from the Microsoft Outlook 2010 Beta, now you got fix from Outlook Product Group blog. The Office team has been hard at work building a fix for this issue, which is available immediately. If you are using the Office 2010 Beta, please take a moment to download this important fix.

Download Outlook 2010 Beta fix for 32-bit Office 2010

Download Outlook 2010 Beta fix for 64-bit Office 2010

What this fix will do? This fix prevents future messages from consuming unnecessary space, but doesn’t resize existing messages. If you reply or forward an existing message that is affected by this bug, it remains enlarged.

In the blog post, it’s nice to hear about the figures regarding the Outlook 2010 beta download/usage – “…although Office 2010 is in Beta and is not final, we are both excited and humbled by the fact that more than 2.5 million people have downloaded and used the Beta. We want to make sure you have a great experience with Office 2010…”

Bravo, way to go!!

Outlook 2010 : Outlook Object Model enhancements & Changes

Outlook Object Model Changes

Per Randy’s reference, the Outlook object model has new objects, properties, methods, and events that support new Outlook 2010 features programmatically. Other improvements to the object model address frequent developer requests for specific changes to the Outlook platform.

Outlook Object Model : How to programmatically get logged-in user’s CompanyName in Outlook 2003/2007?

Recently one of my customer updated that they have a requirement to implement the following logic:

1) Get Contact info from GAL or Address book for the specified contact
2) Get Contact information regarding his CompanyName etc.

In the scenario, i provided the following suggestions:

If you try Outlook 2003 & its prior versions: Using the Microsoft Outlook object model, you can access information that is stored in various address books. For example, you can retrieve information about entries in the Global Address Book, or an Outlook Address Book. But if you want to access additional entries that are typically available for a recipient (such as Office, Title or Phone) you can use the Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) object model.

You can try like this CDO code snippet… This code fragment compares the Address property of the Recipient object with the Address and Type properties of its child AddressEntry object, accessible through the recipients AddressEntry property, to demonstrate the relationships between these properties.

    If objOneRecip Is Nothing Then

        MsgBox "must select a recipient"

        Exit Function

    End If

    Set objAddrEntry = objOneRecip.AddressEntry

    If objAddrEntry Is Nothing Then

        MsgBox "no valid AddressEntry for this recipient"

        Exit Function

    End If

    strMsg = "Recipient full address = " & objOneRecip.Address

    strMsg = strMsg & "; AddressEntry type = " & objAddrEntry.Type

    strMsg = strMsg & "; AddressEntry address = " & objAddrEntry.Address

    MsgBox strMsg ' compare display names

    strMsg = "Recipient name = " & objOneRecip.Name

    strMsg = strMsg & "; AddressEntry name = " & objAddrEntry.Name

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For more information about accessing these properties using CDO and detailed information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

HOWTO: Read Address Book Properties in Visual Basic
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/179083/EN-US/

HOWTO: Work with Distribution Lists Using CDO from VB
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/178787/EN-US/

Note: CDO 1.2x/MAPI are not supported in a .NET Framework environment. Refer: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813349

If you work with Outlook 2007 and later, then you can try using ExchangeUser Object. This object provides first-class access to properties applicable to Exchange users. You can also access other properties specific to the Exchange user that are not exposed in the object model through the PropertyAccessor object.

I tried the VBA code sample and obtain the CompanyName.

Sub GetUserCompany()

    Dim oExUser As Outlook.ExchangeUser

    'Obtain the AddressEntry for CurrentUser

    Set oExUser = Application.Session.CurrentUser.AddressEntry.GetExchangeUser

    MsgBox oExUser.CompanyName

 End Sub

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You need to note that, “some of the explicit built-in properties are read-write properties. Setting these properties requires the code to be running under an appropriate Exchange administrator account; without sufficient permissions, calling the ExchangeUser.Update method will result in a “permission denied” error.”

Hope this helps!! Happy programming & happy holidays!!

Download : Exchange Server 2007 SP2 Update Rollup 1

Exchange Server 2007 SP2 Update Rollup 1 is available to download. Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2007 SP2 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2007 SP2 customers. For the details related to the issue fixed please refer Description of Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2.

Please note that if you are developing application based on Exchange Web Services then following are the issues fixed by Update Rollup 1 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2):

• 973868 A delegate cannot cancel meetings in the organizer’s calendar by using Exchange Web Service (EWS)
• 973307 An application that uses Exchange Web Services returns an exception on an Exchange Server 2007 server
• 972009 E-mail messages cannot be retrieved by an Exchange Web Service (EWS)-based application if there are invalid control characters in the text body of the e-mail message

So, if you are on Exchange Server 2007 SP2; I would highly recommend you to download and install Update Rollup 1 to fix the know issued with Exchange Server 2007 SP2. Generally i always recommend to do the proper backups – especially of existing data(OWA customization files) before any update to avoid loosing the data – i heard it from many customers

Preview : Click-to-run technology

Microsoft introduces “Click-To-Run” technology for downloading trial and purchasing. For people who want to try or buy Office 2010 on existing PCs, Microsoft is unveiling Click-to-Run, a new and enhanced download experience for consumers.

Benefits:

• Click-to-Run makes it easier than ever for customers to try or buy Office digitally by significantly reducing the time and effort required to download Office 2010 over the Internet.
• Click-to-Run automatically downloads and installs any software patches when connected to the Internet, helping people maintain and keep their Office software up-to-date.
• Click-to-Run uses virtualization technology so it allows customers to maintain multiple versions of Office. This enables them to try Office 2010 side-by-side with the existing version of Office.

Video: You can know more this from the following Silverlight video.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/silverlightApps/videoplayer2/standalone.aspx?contentId=office14_click&src=/presspass/presskits/2010Office/channel.xml&WT.cg_n=Office14&WT.z_convert=embed

In this video. John Jendrezak and Trevor McDiarmid give us a first look at Click-to-Run, an innovative new Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) technology for Office 2010 that  utilizes Microsoft’s streaming and virtualization technology (AppVirt – you learned a great deal about this technology right here on Channel 9…).   It’s great to see application virtualization in the mainstream. Note that this is essentially a commercial for the new technology in Office 2010.

Support Guidelines : Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy for product support?

What do you mean by Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy?
Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy provides consistent and predictable guidelines for product support availability when a product releases and throughout that product’s life.

The Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy took effect in October 2002, and applies to most products currently available through retail purchase or volume licensing and most future release products. Through the policy, Microsoft will offer a minimum of:

• 10 years of support (5 years Mainstream Support and 5 years Extended Support) at the supported service pack level for Business and Developer products
• 5 years Mainstream Support at the supported service pack level for Consumer/Hardware/Multimedia products
• 3 years of Mainstream Support for products that are annually released (for example, Money, Encarta, Picture It!, and Streets & Trips)

What were the phases of Support Lifecycle?

For more information, please refer the following articles:

• Lifecycle Supported Service Packs – The Microsoft Support Lifecycle policy requires that the product’s supported service pack be installed to continue to receive support (including security updates). http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifesupsps
• Microsoft Support Lifecycle http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifecycle 
• Office Family Product Support Lifecycle FAQ: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeoffice