Quick Gotcha - Upgrading to Exchange Server 2007 with connected WinMo Activesync phones

OK - here's one that was very weird. I ran it past the DonK at TechEd, and he couldn't come up with an idea off the top of his head - had never seen it before.

We have an Exchange 2003 server. We've upgrading to an Exchange 2007 server - new server build and migrate the mailboxes across.

We have a number of WinMo smartphones - HTC Touch Diamonds and Palm Treo Pros. These are all connected to user mailboxes on the 2003 server.

I migrated my mailbox to the 2007 server, and edited the connection details on the smartphone to point it at the new external FQDN. Everything worked fine - mail would sync - happy campers. Because Exchange 2007 supports HTML mail, I flicked the switch across to HTML on the mobile client. This is where things started to go wrong.

Certain external emails (not all, but the certain senders/formats would do it every time) would sync to the Smartphone, with a blank body and a "click here to download the rest of this message" notification. Both server and smartphone had the sync size limits turned off, and anyway, the emails were quite often only 2k in size (forum update notifications for instance, with no attachments or embedded images). No amount of mucking around with either client or server settings would fix it. Set it back to plain text, and the entire messages would sync perfectly.

In desperation I broke the partnership between the device and the server, both on the device (removed the sync settings) as well as on the 2007 server (removed the device from my mailbox). Re-initiated the partnership from the device - same settings as before.

Now, it works perfectly.

So not quite the seamless upgrade that I was expecting, but we have a resolution. Unfortunately it means we need to schedule time with all our smartphone users once their mailboxes have been migrated. On the upside, their devices will still work fine in Plain Text mode following the upgrade, so we can schedule this at our leisure, and dangle the carrot of enabling pretty html mail for the users to encourage them to come see us.

TechEd 09 - All over for another year!

We came, we saw, we geeked. TechEd 09, on the Gold Coast, has been run and won.


It's a hard life, but someone's got to do it. After our accommodation people stuffed up and double-booked us, they upgraded us to their sister hotel. It was a little further away, but a lot flasher. That's a shot from our room on the 27th floor.

We still were pretty close to the convention centre - only a 5 mins walk. You could easily see it from our balcony - it's the white-roofed building (centre-left) next to the Casino in this photo:


As far as the conference itself went, well, there's not much to say that hasn't already been said. I found it tremendously useful.The thing I like most about TechEd is the ability most times to hang around after a session finishes, and talk to the (very knowledgable) presenters and get some real one-on-one advice and questions. There were three areas in particular - Hyper-V, DirectAccess and TMG - where I was able to have a quick chat to the respective presenters, lay out an idea of our organisation, and get recommendations and ideas directly from them, which are specific to our environment. In a lot of cases, the presenters are either people who've worked on building the technology, or have a lot of experience in installing and configuring it in customer sites. In other words, they're the people who know it inside out. And the ability to tap directly into that knowledge for answers to our specific issues is a great opportunity.

SO - what were the main take-home points for me?

• Hyper-V Server. We're an ESX shop, and very happily so. However, ESX is very expensive. Hyper-V now offers the features that we care about, and does so for free. Sure, it can't do everything that ESX does. And ESX is better if you've got different VM guests (IE, linux, solaris, etc). But for us, a Microsoft shop with relatively low requirements, it looks like it can save us a considerable amount of money straight away, as well as continuing into the future. I want to seriously investigate what it would take for us to migrate from our current platform to Hyper-V as a priority.
• DirectAccess. I truly believe that this is going to change the way people think about remote access and corporate connectivity. I think it's going to challenge a lot of current mindsets, especially about corporate-vs-private, and the concept of "Work is something you do, not somewhere you go.". Sounds a bit philisophical? Maybe, but currently you might have a laptop. It's provided for you buy your employer. Therefore, it's a work laptop. You don't use it at home - it's for work. If you need to work from home, you connect it to your internet and fire up a VPN. Then you're working. With DirectAccess, whenever the laptop is turned on and can get an internet connection, you're connected to your corporate environment. So there's no longer that hard divide between work and personal. It becomes just a laptop - something you can use to access all your corp data whenever you want, from wherever. But it's also something that you can use for your own ends if you want. The concept of "connecting to the vpn, thus I'm in work mode" no longer implies. And I think those conceptual benefits far outweigh the technological benefits, actually.
• TMG / ISA. We were planning on installing an ISA firewall into our organisation soon, and then upgrading to a TMG server later in the peace. However, after seeing TMG beta3 working at TechEd, we've decided to go straight onto TMG instead of touching ISA at all. This means that we'll be running on beta software for a little while, but the presenter and everyone I spoke to about it certainly had no qualms about that. Indeed, Microsoft themselves have been using the beta code in their production environment now for some time, and have nothign bad to say. So that's an example of one area where we've changed our plans based on being able to talk directly to the people involved in the development of the software. And it's going to result in us being able to deliver a better service to the business, quicker, and more cost-effectively.
• Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2. Having been using Win7 RTM on my main computer for a couple of months now, I was already pretty sold on the benefits it can bring to the organisation. What surprised me was how much extra capability you unlock by having Server 2008 R2 at the back end. Technologies like BrancheCache have the ability to both reduce WAN utilisation, as well as increase performance for users in branch offices at the same time. It's easy to configure, seamless to the users, and it just works. And it's "free", all as part of Server 2008 R2. We'll be looking to upgrade our laptop fleet to Win7 as a priority, to take advantage of abilities such as BitLocker/BitLockerToGo and other security enhancements. Following that, our plan is to roll Win7 to all our desktops office-by-office, and perform rolling upgrades of our remote servers at the same time.
  

The remainder of the time was taken up by Sharepoint sessions (we're currently implementing Sharepoint, and they were valuable for gaining insight into the architecture of the platform, as well as how easily it can be enhanced through software like InfoPath to provide electronic form routing and workflow, and PerformancePoint to give integrated BI reporting), ForeFront Client Security, Windows Mobile, Office 2007/2010, Exchange and a large variety of others! Often Jeremy and I would find ourselves attending different sessions, and meeting up for lunch and afternoon tea to discuss what we'd just been going through.

All in all, another very successful 3 days. We've come away with a better understanding of the Microsoft roadmap and their overall vision on how their seperate systems all work together. We've come away with ideas on how to increase our assistance to the business, and how to allow our staff to be as productive as they can be by giving them the tools that they need to do their jobs. And we've come away with a solid set of ideas that will see us through the next 12 months, and probably beyond.

When you look at what we took away from last year's TechEd, and how we have either implemented already, or are most of the way through implementing the platforms that we identified as important to us, it's easy to see how much of an impact this event has on the firm. I look forward to looking back on this year's event in 12 month's time, and seeing where we are then!

TechEd 09 - Locked and Loaded

This morning we received the green light for our TechEd registrations from our HR Dept. So I jumped straight onto the site, and completed my registration! I can assure you it had absolutely nothing to do with THIS :). Now it's all locked in and paid for. Can't wait. If it's anywhere near as good as last year's conference, it'll be well worth our time.

For instance, our experiences at last year's conference led directly to our current OCS implementation, which has been very well received by the staff, and is starting to transform the way we deliver our internal training sessions. Not only is the LiveMeeting functionality saving us real money in reducing the need for travel between our 20 sites (and growing!) spread across Oz, but it's allowing us to improve the quality and consistency of our training by being able to record the LiveMeeting sessions. This gives the presenters a chance go back through their sessions and evaluate their performance and improve their presenting skills. It saves us further money and time by allowing that recorded session to be made available across our intranet, so that new staff or staff who missed the original training session can replay the session at their leisure. Not only does this improve the consistency of the training that is being delivered, but it saves the presenters time as they only need to present the training once or twice, and it can be recorded and replayed as many times as necessary. Initial cost savings in reduced travel expenditure, ongoing cost and time savings for re-delivering the training, and improved quality of the training material - quite a win for the firm right there!

Later this year we will be looking to build on this success by upgrading our OCS implementation to the latest R2 version, and are even investigating the possibility of using it as our firm-wide VoIP solution. That last step is still a fair way off, but it speaks of the impact that this single platform is having within the firm, and it all started for us at TechEd 08.

This year I'll be putting a lot of focus into the Windows Client/Server track, as I believe that the Windows 7 / Server 2008R2 combination is possible of delivering real benefits to our firm that will equal hard dollar savings. Office System, UC and Mobility tracks will also get a fair workout, as they did last year. Technology like BranchCache and the more efficient file copy mechanisms will help us to make better use of our WAN links. DirectAccess will reduce complexity for our users, and give them access to all their data wherever they are. We have budgeted in the coming 12 months for projects around Exchange and Forefront, Forefront Client Security, and ISA server - all platforms that I'm hoping to delve into at TechEd and get the inside scoop on. Not to mention already-planned upgrades to Office 2007 across the firm, and other little tricks like that that should serve to show how busy our next 12 months is going to be!

In fact, I was very tempted by the pre-conference seminar on Sharepoint Workflow, and tried to stretch our budget to cover that day as well. Unfortunately our training budget has been somewhat pruned over late, and I had to give that a miss. Which is a shame, since we are rapidly approaching our Go! date for our current Sharepoint implementation project, and I believe that one of the real big impacts it will have within the firm is the capability to drive workflow processes. Even for simple things such as absence leave requests and accounts reimbursement forms, the ability to run those processes via a standardised workflow within Sharepoint will massively improve the service that various departments in the firm can provide. And I think that pre-conf seminar would have given us a great grounding in what we could do with the platform when we launch it. So if anyone wants to shout me a free ticket to that day, feel free to get in touch!!! :)

Tech Ed 09 - 2 months to go, and counting down!

Coolest. Bribe. Ever.

Well, Microsoft have today announced that all paying attendees of Tech.Ed 09 will receive a free HP Mini 2140 netbook as part of their registration. More info, as always, at Jeff Alexander's blog , as well as at ZDNet.

Unsurprisingly, I think this is a great idea! Not only does it give attendees another great reason to go, but it will let Microsoft possibly cut down on the amount of physical media that they need to provide, as a lot of content can be pre-loaded onto the netbooks. So not only will attendees gain instant access to content from the conference, but it gives us all a chance to go a bit green.

Microsoft will be including a copy of Windows 7 on the device, which will hopefully be the final, RTM code. Again, this will be another great opportunity to get under the hood of the band new OS, which most, if not all, conference attendees will be eagerly awaiting. I've been running both the Beta and RC versions of Win7 for 6 months now, and have been very impressed.

All I have to do now is chase up the Powers That Be to ensure that, hell or high water, my registeration gets paid and confirmed!!! :) Roll on September!

VMWare Server 2 Sucks, MS Virtual PC Rocks Your Sox

So I had a need to make some virtual machines on my laptop this week. I'm looking to take the MS Server 2008 Network Infrastructure exam by the end of the month (assuming I can get up to speed by then!!!), and the lab exercises involve 3 Server 2008 machines. My default choice was VMWare's Server 2 - a free download. Since we use ESX here and I'm very familiar with it, I though Server2 would be the logical extension. Also, because it uses the has format as ESX, if I ever built a machine on my laptop and wanted to migrate it to our Production system, it would be as simple as shutting it down, copying all the files up into the ESX platform, and firing it up there. So Server2 it was.

Previously I've used the first version of VMWare Server - when they first bought it out as free to "replace" the paid Workstation product (which people are still buying today, apparently?), and to counteract the threat presented by the free MS and linux alternatives. It impressed the daylights out of me then as a super useful, easy to use and very well integrated product. Pretty much all the good points of ESX, but none of the downsides. So I had high hopes for the ver 2, which I had never used.

First problem - it's a 507Mb download. That's large. But that's OK - I was at work with the fast internet, and sometimes you need to be big to be good. Granted, even the ESX core isn't that big, but hey - maybe it's fancy management, or something like that.

Downloaded and installed fine, but then discovered there's not management app. In their quest to be cross-platform, all management is done via the web-based interface. I HATE web based interfaces. VMWare themselves acknowledge this, and I have a proper windows MMC-type app for VirtualCentre (which, again, is great). Why saddle me with this? And why install the tomcat webserver on my pc, just for this? If there's one thing I hate more than web-based interfaces, it's things installing their own webservers without my express permission. To add insult to injury, as soon as you fire up the web-based interface, it asks for an administrator password. Which it didn't prompt for during the installation. The standard guesses don't work, and some googling turns up that it just want's the windows admin account on the box. Since I'm an admin (naughty me, I know), I log on with my details, and it's all fine.

So far it's quirky, but it's free, so you learn to manage. Still hating the web-based interface and the inability to right click things, but I'll get over it. Load up my 3 VM's, which ,incidentally, takes me all day. Find that with 3 VM's running, the system is completely unusable. General windows stuff is so slow as to be worthless. Pressing ctrl-alt-del takes quite literally 6 minutes to go to the security screen, to get task manager up. Task manager shows a CPU utilization of around 4%, and a memory usage of around 3Gb (laptop has 4Gb installed). No disk queue length or paging of note. System still runs like a dog. Install VMTools on all 3 VMs, but no change. System as a whole is unusable. If only running 1 VM it's fine, but as soon as you boot a second one, then you're gone.

Which is a problem for me, since the purpose of having the 3 VM's is to play around with different network settings on each one to see how you initiate and then break network connectivity between them. Only having one available kinda won't work for that.

So that was where I left it yesterday. Server2 was broken, but I figured I could fix it. When I arrived at work this morning, however, I turned on my laptop to be greeted with the Bitlocker warning screen. My boot drive had been changed, and the laptop wouldn't start unless I could provide it with it's BitLocker key. Luckily I had the keys saved to a USB drive, so all I needed to do was plug the drive in and reboot, and the laptop fired up perfectly fine (Look for a future post about how much I love Bitlocker, and why I believe it should be a standard part of every Windows OS, at least at the Premium/Professional level and above). But it angered me that Server2 had made changes to my boot drive and drivers without also telling me.

So, basically, I got cranky with Server2. It was making my machine run slow even with no VMs running, it was taking much, MUCH longer to boot and to shut down, and it couldn't run 3 VMs at the same time.

Now is probably a good time to admit that my first choice was ACTUALLY to use Microsoft's VirtualPC for my virtualization needs. It's what the book recommends (funny that, since it's a MSPress book...), and I had heard good things about VirtualPC. Plus, it's free too these days. However, when I went to the Microsoft VirtualPC site, it has been taken over by Windows7. You may have heard about this little thing called "XP Mode" that's part of Win7. It's quite fancy, and uses the next version of Virtual PC to make the magic happen. However, the entire VirtualPC site has been taken over by it. When you click download, you're asked to choose which version of Win7 you have, because obviously you want the latest and greatest. Except when you don't.

So that was the single impediment which initially sent me down the Server2 path. I figured if MS was going to hide away Virtual PC for Vista, then I'd just use the (presumably excellent) competition. So this whole rant might be useful for someone to pull apart from a purely marketing perspective, since it neatly shows how one simple thing turned a potential user away from what is probably an excellent product and sent them straight to the major competition. But I digress.

Thsi morning, annoyed with Server2, I uninstalled it and deleted the VM's that I'd lovingly created the day before. Got rid of it all. Tracked down the download of Microsoft VirtualPC 2007 - as mentioned before, it's free these days from the MS Download portal.

First surprise - it's 30Mb. All up - that's all it is. Downloaded before I even knew it was here.

Second surprise - it installs easily, and quickly (it is only 30 Mb after all!). I had assumed that it would be an installer like the IE installers, which are only small in size, and the first thing they do is connect to the internet and download an additional 400Mb of junk. Not so with VirtualPC!

Third surprise - it's got a proper windows management client. And that management client is great. It's simple, it's small, it's got nothing that you don't need. But it's got everything that you do.

I've rebooted the computer since uninstalling Server2 and installing VirtualPC, and haven't been bothered by the Bitlocker checks, so I assume that Server2 has either left whatever it had there there, or has nicely cleaned up after itself. And it looks like VirtualPC didn't need to make any modifications there either.

So far I'm half-way through installing the second Server 2008 VM, and the system's running swimmingly. I expect it to continue that way, especially since VirtualPC's options that allow you to retain CPU priority to the host machine, and dedicate the lions share of resources to the VM that you're currently using at the time. Smart options that give the performance to the machine that you need, when you need it.


So far, I can whole heartedly recommend VirtualPC over VMWare's Server2. If you want a lightweight, easy to use and configure Virtual Machine system for your personal use, and you're using Windows, it's very hard to recommend anything else. As stated above, I work with an ESX3 Virtual Infrastructure platform at work every day, and love it to death. If you were looking at an enterprise-level platform to run your Production environment, I still believe it's the only way to go. Expensive, yes, but wonderful. I really believe it's one of the best things we've ever done for IT in the firm. But if you're looking for a workstation-based product, then VirtualPC looks to be the clear winner in my books.

Click here to go to the Virtual PC 2007 download page on the MS Download portal.