Some Notes on the Machines

One really good place to start with Exchange diagnostics, is in the shell. Run this:

Get-NetworkConnectionInfo

and verify everything. If you see extra IPs (v4 or v6), if you see wrong IPs, if you get error messages, check your server’s IP settings and then restart Exchange, lots of things stop failing this way.

One of the oddball things you can discover using this, is that Exchange may be using the virtual switch NIC of a Hyper-V install. That can be a bear to deal with; in at least one case, the simplest solution was to fix Hyper-V rather than change the configuration.

This page:

http://www.techieshelp.com/cannot-email-mail-enabled-folders-after-exchange-2010-upgrade/#axzz1n8FTsyWw

is most interesting. But when you have just started adsiedit (which has to be started from an administrator console!), you won’t see anything, until you right-click on the object, click on Connect To, and choose “Select a well known Naming Context”, open the dropdown, and choose “Configuration”. Then you go here:

CN=Configuration,

  CN=Services,

    CN=Microsoft Exchange,

      CN=[YourExchangeOrganisationName],

        CN=Administrative Groups,

          CN=[LegacyAdministrativeGroupName],

            CN=Servers

and delete the “Servers” container. Then restart the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology service, and you are done.

In Exchange 2007 and above, it is possible to customize the bounceback messages Exchange sends for undeliverables, including adding telephone numbers, URLs, et cetera.

To get current customized messages:

Get-SystemMessage

To get the full set of originals:

Get-SystemMessage –Original > c:\original_ndrs.txt

To set a new one:

New-SystemMessage -DsnCode 5.7.1 -Internal:$True -Language en -Text "Sorry, the email could not be delivered..."

Note the DSN code; there are many, and you will need to set the one(s) whose NDR you want to change. Some HTML is permitted.

Much more detail is here:

http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/management-administration/customising-delivery-status-notification-messages.html

Here is a very good page with two possible causes and fixes:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/905813

Some very interesting registry tweaks here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815372

To delete all of the email waiting in Exchange 2003 queues:

1. Get this utility: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/pss/Tools/Exchange%20Support%20Tools/Aqadmcli/aqadmcli.exe
2. Run it. It brings up a simple prompt, “>”.
3. Enter:

delmsg flags="ALL"

An excellent article is here:

http://www.petri.co.il/backup_exchange_2000_2003_with_ntbackup.htm

Lots of times, sad to say it, have I seen horrible things happen to the Outlook Anywhere, Exchange webmail, and smartphone connection capability of SBS 2003. Microsoft telephone techs have huge lists of settings to check. Unfortunately, so far as I have been able to ascertain, we don’t. Today something interesting happened which seemed worth keeping. Here’s the scenario:

1. Outlook Anywhere didn’t work to the newest clients running Outlook 2003, but did work to three or four of the older ones. Many things were tried. It became a working theory, that the server was behind some of the clients in critical updates, perhaps some involved in authentication between clients and Exchange.
2. Found that the SBS 2003 server needed lots of updates, including several to Exchange. Installed all of them except the .NET and IE 8.
3. After the updates, Exchange and the related services didn’t work at all. Rebooted. No change.
4. Restarted Exchange services. Exchange began working to Outlook clients. No webmail, Outlook Anywhere, or smartphones.
5. All three of the above, depend on IIS for data transfer. Studied IIS.
6. “Default Web Site” was not running, all the others were. “Default Web Site” contains all of the things we need, including “Exchange”, “Exweb”, “OMA”, and others. ## Checked all of them, made sure that all IPs were permitted access.
7. Tried to turn on “Default Web Site”. It said there was an IP conflict with one or more of the others.
8. Turned off all of the others.
9. Turned on “Default Web Site”. Worked that time.
10. Tested. Webmail and the others still not working.
11. Restarted IIS. Bits of Exchange and other things restarted along with it.
12. Tested. Still didn’t work.
13. Decided to lay things down, get some help elsewhere, possibly a call to Microsoft.
14. Five minutes later, received a call. Everything working!!!

An interesting set of steps here:

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Resetting-OWA-Folder-IIS-security-permissions-Exchange-2003.html

And this is referred to:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883380

Here is a very good summary:

http://www.allspammedup.com/2008/12/using-ip-block-list-providers-and-the-connection-filter-agent-in-exchange-2007/

And if you fit certain qualifications:

http://www.spamhaus.org/organization/dnsblusage.html

it is free of charge.