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[Exchange] OAB Issue

2010-06-07T17:12:00.000+01:00

Hi,
We had recently a strange issue on Outlook clients, regarding the OAB (Offline Address Book).
In fact, we had removed old Exchange 2003 server, which was responsible for the Recipient Update Service (on both Domain/Forest) and the Offline Address Lists (see captures).

On the client side (Outlook 2003 or 2007 clients), some users/groups do not show on the address list (Global Address List) !

After some research, I found this article which explains well the "Mystery of The Missing Recipients" !

Now, to resolve the issue, I had to search over Active Directory for groups/users that had default SMTP address (on the Email Addresses tab) different from the email address (on the General tab).

To do so, here is a simple VBS that exports all the groups on the domain, with the email address and default SMTP address (made some modifications on this original script):

'Export all groups in AD with custom attributes, here:

'sAMAccountName;Group type;Mail address;Main SMTP address

' This script is designed to be run at a command prompt, using the

' Cscript host. The output can be redirected to a text file.

' For example:

' cscript //nologo DocumentGroups.vbs > groups.txt

Option Explicit

Dim adoConnection, adoCommand, objRootDSE, strDNSDomain, strQuery

Dim adoRecordset, strDN, objGroup, Address, MainSMTP

' Use ADO to search Active Directory.

Set adoConnection = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")

Set adoCommand = CreateObject("ADODB.Command")

adoConnection.Provider = "ADsDSOObject"

adoConnection.Open "Active Directory Provider"

Set adoCommand.ActiveConnection = adoConnection

' Determine the DNS domain from the RootDSE object.

Set objRootDSE = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE")

strDNSDomain = objRootDSE.Get("defaultNamingContext")

' Search for all groups, return the Distinguished Name of each.

strQuery = "

& ">;(objectClass=group);distinguishedName;subtree"

adoCommand.CommandText = strQuery

adoCommand.Properties("Page Size") = 100

adoCommand.Properties("Timeout") = 30

adoCommand.Properties("Cache Results") = False

Set adoRecordset = adoCommand.Execute

If (adoRecordset.EOF = True) Then

Wscript.Echo "No groups found"

adoRecordset.Close

adoConnection.Close

Set objRootDSE = Nothing

Set adoConnection = Nothing

Set adoCommand = Nothing

Set adoRecordset = Nothing

Wscript.Quit

End If

'Headers for the output

WScript.Echo "sAMAccountName;Group type;Mail address;Main SMTP address"

' Enumerate all groups, bind to each, and document group members.

Do Until adoRecordset.EOF

strDN = adoRecordset.Fields("distinguishedName").Value

' Escape any forward slash characters with backslash.

strDN = Replace(strDN, "/", "\/")

Set objGroup = GetObject("LDAP://" & strDN) '& adspath,proxyAddresses)

'Get the proxyaddresses

on error resume next

For Each Address In objGroup.proxyAddresses

If left(Address,5)= "SMTP:" Then

MainSMTP = Address

End if

WScript.Echo objGroup.sAMAccountName _

& ";" & GetType(objGroup.groupType) _

& " ; " & objGroup.mail & " ; " & MainSMTP

adoRecordset.MoveNext

Loop

adoRecordset.Close

' Clean up.

adoConnection.Close

Set objRootDSE = Nothing

Set objGroup = Nothing

Set adoConnection = Nothing

Set adoCommand = Nothing

Set adoRecordset = Nothing

Function GetType(ByVal intType)

' Function to determine group type from the GroupType attribute.

If ((intType And &h01) <> 0) Then

GetType = "Built-in"

ElseIf ((intType And &h02) <> 0) Then

GetType = "Global"

ElseIf ((intType And &h04) <> 0) Then

GetType = "Local"

ElseIf ((intType And &h08) <> 0) Then

GetType = "Universal"

End If

If ((intType And &h80000000) <> 0) Then

GetType = GetType & "/Security"

Else

GetType = GetType & "/Distribution"

End If

End Function

After the data was exported into a csv file, I used Excel to compare the columns "Mail address" and "Main SMTP address" (the EXACT function), and thus, found only 4 elements and did updated the fields manually.

PS. You can do it via VBS (searching through AD, comparing and updating the data).

Hope it helps.

Imed.

[Exchange] Unable to remove an Exchange 2003 Server

2010-05-20T17:22:00.000+01:00

Hi,
In some situations, you'll have to remove an Exchange 2003 Server from your organization.
Of course, to do so, you have to follow these MS Kb Articles (link1 and link2)

After you've moved all users mailboxes, and while you attempt to remove your Exchange server, this error message may appear:

"One or more users currently use a mailbox store on this server"

This can be solved by following this MS Kb Article.

In some cases, when you've already moved ALL the mailboxes, and none appears on your ESM (Exchange System Manager) expect System Mailboxes, you have to unselect the Show only Exchange recipients check box (Step 1. c in the Kb Article) to find the users who still have attributes (in this case msExchHomeServerName) pointing to your Exchange Server (which you want to remove).

Or, you can use this script instead to find those users.

Then, simply do a right click, Exchange Tasks, and select (the only choice): Remove Exchange attributes.

Imed.

[VBS] Search Active Directory

2010-05-20T15:27:00.000+01:00

Hi,
Here you'll find a simple script which searches in Active Directory all objects that has a particular attribute (in this example : msExchHomeServerName)

'This VB Script searches an object in AD according to "SearchAttribute" (the attribute can be found using ADSIEDIT)

'The result is written on an Excel file (the file must be created befor excecuting the script)

On Error Resume Next

dim oRoot,oContainer,rs,strSearchUser,searchpath

dim strDomainCtrl,strConnect,oConnect,oCommand

Dim intRow,N

N = 0 'number of the result

intRow = 2 'used for the Excel file

Set objExcel = CreateObject("Excel.Application")

Set objWorkbook = objExcel.Workbooks.Open _

("C:\objectAD.xls")

Set objWorksheet = objWorkbook.Worksheets(1)

'to get LDAP namespace

set oRoot = GetObject("LDAP: //RootDSE")

strDomainCtrl = oRoot.Get("defaultNamingContext")

'WScript.Echo (strDomainCtrl)

strConnect = "LDAP://" & strDomainCtrl

set oContainer = GetObject(strConnect)

searchpath = oContainer.ADsPath

'use of ADO for Active Directory

set oConnect = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")

set oCommand = CreateObject("ADODB.Command")

'opening the connection

oConnect.Provider = "ADsDSOObject"

oConnect.Open "Active Directory Provider"

'creating a command object for this connection

Set oCommand.ActiveConnection = oConnect

SearchAttribute = "/o=contosot/ou=First Administrative Group/cn=Configuration/cn=Servers/cn=SRVExchange"

'Search for all the objects that have msExchHomeServerName = "SearchAttribute"

'(you can choose any attribute you want)

'and displays the corresponding "cn" in result

oCommand.CommandText = "SELECT cn FROM '" & searchpath & "' WHERE msExchHomeServerName = '" & SearchAttribute & "'"

'creating a recordset based on the ADO command

set rs = oCommand.Execute

'Navigating the record set

If rs.EOF Then

msgbox "No Result with this criteria"

Else

rs.MoveFirst

While N <= rs.RecordCount

WScript.Echo rs.Fields("Cn").Value

objWorksheet.Cells(intRow,1).Value= rs.Fields("Cn").Value

intRow = intRow + 1

N=N+1

rs.MoveNext

wend

End If

objWorkbook.Save()

oConnect.Close

rs.Close

Hope it helps.
Note: this script was not developed by me.

Imed.

File share and Alias DNS Record

2010-05-20T11:06:00.000+01:00

Hi,
In your infrastructure, you may use one or more file servers.
In some situations, you may have on your DNS configuration:

> Record A: SRVFILE-005
> Alias record (CNAME): SHARE-CENTER pointing to SRVFILE-005

So that the users should access through \\share-center

On Windows Server 2003, this can cause a small issue. In fact, when users try to access through \\srvfile-005, it works fine, but could not access through \\share-center and got the following error message:

"You were not connected because a duplicate name exists on the network"

To resolve this,

> Go to your file server and modify / add the following registry key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\lanmanserver\parameters] " DisableStrictNameChecking "=dword:00000001

> Restart Server service

Note: didn’t work on Windows Unified Data Storage Server 2003.

Imed.

[Bismillah] Let's begin !

2010-05-20T10:08:00.000+01:00

Greetings everyone,

Here you'll find my first blog dedicated to Computing Technology.

I'll try to put here what I've learned from my little experience in the IT Services field, it concerns essentially Windows Server environments: Active Directory, Exchange, System Center and so on.

Hope you'll find it helpful and useful.

Of course, any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Kindly yours.

Imed.

Virtual Business Card.