The Category List Manager is a C# Visual Studio Solution that allows you to connect to a source mailbox which is either hosted on an on-premises Exchange Server or in Exchange Online using Exchange Web Services (EWS).
You can use AutoDiscover or a static Url to connect to the Exchange Server or Office 365. By default the solution uses the credentials of the user executing the program. These credentials are referred to as default credentials. You can use the Settings form to set dedicated credentials of an user with appropriate access rights to the mailbox(es).
The program helps you to
The supported target mailbox types are:
The GUI comes with an easy-to-use UI. The execuable works a command line tool as well and can be used for automation purposes.
Use CategoryManager.exe -help to get the most recent command line help information.
Watch the presentation held at the Exchange User Group Berlin Meetup on May 31st 2018.
Additional credits go to Henning Krause
Microsoft 365 Groups are the backbone of various Microsoft 365 workloads. As you might know, each group utilizes a SharePoint site collection, and an Exchange shared mailbox.
When you create a new Microsoft 365 group, SharePoint Online must store the associated site collection somewhere. SharePoint Online uses predefined paths to determine the storage location. These paths are called: Managed Paths.
SharePoint Online uses two different pre-configured managed paths:
With /sites as the default setting for the Microsoft 365 tenant.
Whenever you create, e.g., a new team in Microsoft Teams, the associated site collection is stored in https://TENANTNAME.sharepoint.com/sites/TEAMNAME. As a SharePoint administrator, you see the site collection paths in the list of active sites in the SharePoint Admin Center.
But what can you do, if you want to store the associated site collections in the /teams managed path?
The SharePoint Admin Center provides you with an option to change the managed path for sites, created by users.
Open the SharePoint Admin Center, navigate to Settings -> Site Creation.
Change the setting for Create team sites under to /teams/.
The description of this setting is misleading. This setting affects not only SharePoint team site creation initiated by users on the SharePoint start page or OneDrive, but site collections created by Microsoft 365 Groups as well.
You do not need to enable the checkbox to let users create sites from the SharePoint start page and OneDrive. This setting is only required, when you want to enable self-service site creation of modern SharePoint sites for users. The modern SharePoint sites are based on Microsoft 365 Groups.
After changing the path, SharePoint Online creates new associated site collections for Microsoft 365 Groups in /teams/.
Enjoy SharePoint Online.
You might have the requirement to authenticate mobile devices and authorize user access to on-premises Exchange Server mailboxes using a multi-vendor strategy. This blog post focuses on the configuration of a Kemp LoadMaster located in an internal network segment. The Kemp LoadMaster ESP functionality is used to allow ActiveSync connections for members of a dedicated security group only.
This results in the following authentication and authorization endpoints:
The following diagram shows a simplified overview for mobile devices connecting to an on-premises Exchange Server. The perimeter and internal network segments are omitted for simplification reasons.
The following screenshots illustrate a working setup for a virtual service load balancing mobile device connections from MobileIron Sentry to Exchange Server. It's assumed that you've already configured the following:
The SSL Traffic is offloaded and re-encrypted as we need to authenticate the user with ESP. Ensure to select a Cipher Set that does not provide any weak or unsecure cipher suites. In this example I've selected the predefined set BestPractices.
Enable ESP to activate the ESP configuration section. The settings are as follows:
In the Real Servers section you add all member servers of your Exchange Server DAG. Ensure to use the HTTPS protocol the health checks and ensure to query the /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync/healthcheck.htm document.
Using this configuration you've added your Kemp LoadMaster as an additional authentication endpoint to secure mobile device access to Exchange Server mailboxes.
Enjoy!
Starting September 11th 2017 Microsoft Teams supports guest access for external users.
Guest access for Microsoft Teams uses a separate guest license type that must be activated in the services & add-ons section of the Office 365 Admin portal.
Office 365 Admin portal notification:
When we make this change, the ‘Pick the license you want to configure’ setting in ‘Settings > Services and Add-ins > Microsoft Teams’, will now have an option for ‘Guest’ with a default value of “off” for the ‘Turn Microsoft Teams on or off for your entire organization’ setting.
When you've not activated guest licenses, external user receive an odd error when trying to access your shared team.
Enjoy Office 365!
Once upon a time at an Exchange Conference near you, a member of the Exchange Product Group (PG) announced that the very last Exchange Server will go away when having an active Exchange hybrid setup.
This was a hot topic for discussions at the Microsoft Exchange Conferences (MEC, @IamMEC) in 2012 and 2014, already. Since then the Exchange PG came up with a number of reasons why this is not possible. The question on when we will finally be able to remove the very last Exchange Server from the on-premises Exchange organization was asked every year at the Ignite Conference.
Currently, the supported scenario for hybrid configurations between your on-premises Exchange organization and Exchange Online requires that you keep the last Exchange Server for creating, and managing Exchange related objects, even if those objects are located in Exchange Online.
The following diagram illustrates the current requirements:
In the past, there was communication on certain interim solutions that were supposed to support you in removing the last Exchange Server from your Exchange organization. Such interim solutions were:
At Ignite those solutions even made it into the official session catalog:
All those interim solutions leave your on-premises Exchange organization and the Active Directory configuration in an uncomfortable twilight-zone. It was still something that worked somehow, but you knew it was officially not supported, and the secure and stable operation of the hybrid configuration was at risk.
But wait...
Removing the last Exchange Server is supported! (at least when all components are released)
The new approach for managing your Exchange Online tenancy after migrating your on-premises Exchange organization to Exchange Online does not require an on-premises Exchange Server.
The new mode of operation reduces your on-premises requirements to:
The following diagram illustrates the new modern Exchange Online Management experience:
Simply you remove the requirement to use on-premises Exchange Server to write to your on-premises Active Directory. Instead, Azure AD Connect uses a new synchronization capability to handle the new Exchange Management experience in the AAD Connect MetaVerse. The on-premises AD-connector writes the changes to Active Directory which keeps the Active Directory up-to-date for all other on-premises solutions that require identities to have a proper state.
You execute all Exchange-related actions using the new Exchange Online Management PowerShell module, or, if needed, the new Modern Exchange Admin Center (EAC, which was announced at Ignite 2019.
Before you uninstall the last Exchange Server from your on-premises Exchange organization, ensure that you
PS C:\> Get-WindowsFeature Display Name Name Install State ------------ ---- ------------- [ ] Active Directory Certificate Services AD-Certificate Available [ ] Certification Authority ADCS-Cert-Authority Available [ ] Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service ADCS-Enroll-Web-Pol Available [ ] Certificate Enrollment Web Service ADCS-Enroll-Web-Svc Available [ ] Certification Authority Web Enrollment ADCS-Web-Enrollment Available [ ] Network Device Enrollment Service ADCS-Device-Enrollment Available [ ] Online Responder ADCS-Online-Cert Available [ ] Active Directory Domain Services AD-Domain-Services Available [ ] Active Directory Federation Services ADFS-Federation Available [ ] Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services ADLDS Available [ ] Active Directory Rights Management Services ADRMS Available [ ] Active Directory Rights Management Server ADRMS-Server Available [ ] Identity Federation Support ADRMS-Identity Available [ ] Device Health Attestation DeviceHealthAttestat... Available [ ] DHCP Server DHCP Available [ ] DNS Server DNS Available [ ] Exchange Online Remote Features EXORemote Available [ ] Fax Server Fax Available [X] File and Storage Services FileAndStorage-Services Installed [X] File and iSCSI Services File-Services Installed [X] File Server FS-FileServer Installed [ ] BranchCache for Network Files FS-BranchCache Available [...]
PS C:\> Install-WindowsFeature -Name EXORemote Display Name Name Install State ------------ ---- ------------- [ ] Active Directory Certificate Services AD-Certificate Available [ ] Certification Authority ADCS-Cert-Authority Available [ ] Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service ADCS-Enroll-Web-Pol Available [ ] Certificate Enrollment Web Service ADCS-Enroll-Web-Svc Available [ ] Certification Authority Web Enrollment ADCS-Web-Enrollment Available [ ] Network Device Enrollment Service ADCS-Device-Enrollment Available [ ] Online Responder ADCS-Online-Cert Available [ ] Active Directory Domain Services AD-Domain-Services Available [ ] Active Directory Federation Services ADFS-Federation Available [ ] Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services ADLDS Available [ ] Active Directory Rights Management Services ADRMS Available [ ] Active Directory Rights Management Server ADRMS-Server Available [ ] Identity Federation Support ADRMS-Identity Available [ ] Device Health Attestation DeviceHealthAttestat... Available [ ] DHCP Server DHCP Available [ ] DNS Server DNS Available [X] Exchange Online Remote Features EXORemote Installed [ ] Fax Server Fax Available [X] File and Storage Services FileAndStorage-Services Installed [X] File and iSCSI Services File-Services Installed [X] File Server FS-FileServer Installed [ ] BranchCache for Network Files FS-BranchCache Available [...]
Even though not explicitly stated, you should restart the server after installing the Windows feature.
As part of the next AAD Connect synchronization cycle, the magic happens.
Verify that you can edit the Exchange related attributes of synchronized Active Directory objects in Exchange Online or Azure AD before you remove your last Exchange Server.
Whey ready to uninstall the last Exchange Server you must use the following command line parameters to remove the server as intended. Otherwise, you'll leave the Exchange organization in an inchoate state. Ensure that you use an administrative PowerShell session.
./Setup.exe /mode:uninstall /SwitchToMEMA /IAcceptExchangeOnlineLicenseTerms
Normally, you do not have to accept license terms when uninstalling Exchange Server, but in this case, you have to accept the Exchange Online license terms.
Enjoy the modern experience and management options of Exchange Online!
Exchange Conferences
This script removes Active Directory objects for HealthMailboxes or SystemMailboxes in the Microsoft Exchange System Objects (MESO) container that do not have a homeMDB attribute set.
It is highly recommended to run the script with -WhatIf parameter to check objects first.
Information about accounts deleted or supposed to be deleted are written to a log file.
# EXAMPLE # Perform a WhatIf run in preparation to removing SystemMailboxes having an empty database attribute .\Remove-OrphanedMailboxAccounts.ps1 -SystemMailbox -WhatIf # EXAMPLE # Remove HealthMailbox(es) having an empty database attribute .\Remove-OrphanedMailboxAccounts.ps1 -HealthMailbox
2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Script started 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - WhatIf Preference: True 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | 10 objects found 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailboxd32b165a6adf45518c8498fba3c7c93a,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailbox6b66930902d8430e831df7b086bfd49b,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailbox6bf99bdc31474217a6fdc4cd83260e88,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailboxd4410bf131b34907b6a96a7e65263db1,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailbox98f334580dbf457ca2a6d1a19fdf49d1,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailboxc16704bf98c94f5e8453c7955d7897b5,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailboxa64fe085bdff46a786d68782c5070bf1,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailbox6c56f94506974a1183c6b71eebb63406,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailbox9b6666d46aa746e3848f3240e418d731,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Cleaning HealthMailboxes | Delete CN=HealthMailboxb2bd3d4725b249bab81eeed35666de0f,CN=Monitoring Mailboxes,CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=granikoslabs,DC=de 2017-02-10 10:18: 11488 - Info - Script finished
The following PowerShell snippet helps to create room lists for the Room Finder functionality in Outlook or Outllok on the Web.
This snippet creates a new room list named All Video Conference Rooms. The display name is shown in the Room Finder combo box. The room list members are a mixture of physical rooms (where you actually go to) and virtual rooms which you just dial into.
# General Properties $DisplayName = 'All Video Conference Rooms' $Name = 'DEP_IT_AllVideoConfRooms' $Alias = 'IT_AllVideoConfRooms' $Notes = 'Room List for Outlook Roomfinder | All Video Conference Rooms' $OU = 'MCSMLABS.de/Exchange/Groups/RoomLists' $EmailAddress = 'ITAllVideoConfRooms@mcsmemail.de' # Romm List Members $Members = @('Conference Room 1','Conference Rooms 2','Virtual Dial-In Room 4711') # Create Distribution Group as Room List New-DistributionGroup -DisplayName $DisplayName -Name $Name -Alias $Alias -Notes $Notes -Type Distribution -OrganizationalUnit $OU -PrimarySmtpAddress $EmailAddress -Members $Members -RoomList
Use this snippet to start developing your own Exchange PowerShall code for creating and managing rooms and room lists.
If you want to create new rooms and security groups for managing full-access and send-as permissions, use my PowerShell script Create a new Room Mailbox with Security Groups.
Enjoy Exchange!