Archive for April 2014

Exchange Server 2013 SP1 Architecture Poster. There are lots of changes in the diagram as compare to Exchange 2013 RTM. Download from here...

Cheers,

Today I planned to work on Exchange 2013 in my LAB, thought of playing around with it. So I opened Exchange Management Shell and guess what I have been greeted with!!!














I started regedit on the server and went to the location "'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1" but I couldn't find "PowerShellEngine" Key at the location, it was missing.
 






















Now, what are the options I have to fix it?
1: Reinstall PowerShell 1.0, well which would be hilariously crazy, as this is Windows Server 2012 R2.
2: I can take a look on other server (2008 or 2012) to see if the value is present.

So I looked at another server, which is Exchange 2010 running on Windows 2008 R2. And this is how it looks.




















I can export PowerShellEngine Key, save it and move it on Windows 2012 and Import it under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1". Or create all the 6 strings manually.

Well I chose to do manually ;). Created the Key "PowerShellEngine" under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1.
Created all 6 Strings under "PowerShellEngine". and copied the values from Windows Server 2008.
1: ApplicationBase
2: ConsoleHostAssemblyName
3: ConsoleHostModuleName
4: PowerShellVersion
5: PSCompatibleVersion
6: RuntimeVersion.

Restarted the server after creating the Key and Strings. And Exchange Management Shell started without any errors.


















Cheers,

I was reading and doing LAB on Windows PowerShell few days ago and it came to mind that, what if there's a way to access Windows PowerShell from Internet. No VPN, Domain login etc. Just pure internet and you can access your environment over the internet and work on applications like Exchange, Lync etc.

And I found that there's something called Windows PowerShell Web Access. Unbelievably awesome feature. Now here is the requirement you must full fill to deploy Windows PowerShell Web Access in your environment.

You Must Have:
1: Windows PowerShell 3.0
2: At least One Windows Server 2012.

On Windows Server 2012 you have Windows PowerShell 3.0 installed by default. Lets check if Windows PowerShell Web Access is installed or not.
Run this command Get-WindowsFeature "PowerShell"












Now as you see Windows PowerShell Web Access is available. Next we are going to install this feature on the server, remember you need to run this on Windows Server 2012.

Install-WindowsFeature WindowsPowerShellWebAccess








Installation has completed successfully and no restart required. :) After it gets installed it will add 6 new modules to PowerShell and we can see it by running Get-Help Cmdlets.
Get-Help *pswa*










Installing PowerShellWebAccess isn't completes the process. It needs function called PswaWebApplication which we got after installing WindowsPowerShellWebAccess. Also you are going to need Certificate also, remember you are going to access PowerShell over the internet and hence it has to be https (secure). If you are running in the Test environment you might not have certificate and for that you will have to run this command "Install-PswaWebApplication -UseTestCertificate".  But I already have certificate installed on the server hence I wouldn't need to run the above command.

Install-PswaWebApplication
















Now we have PswaWebApplication installed on the server, lets check IIS if it's listed there or not. Open IIS, expand the server and under ApplicationPool at the bottom you will see pswa_pool.
























At this point we have installed PSWA on the server and it's ready to use, but wait next most important thing is to authorize user who can run what and what to not. Like which server they can access and which server they shouldn't. To authorize we will run this command "Add-PswaAuthorizationRule".








Note: As this is LAB environment I am running this command as it will give access to everyone. You do not want to run this in your production ever.

Run this command to start the browser with PowerShell.





After you ran this command you should have Internet Explorer open asking you for the credentials.





















Enter the credentials.





















































There you go, you are connected to Windows PowerShell in your web browser.

Cheers,

Yesterday Exchange Team updated the Exchange Server Deployment Assistant.

Updated the Deployment Assistant to include the following:

• Support for the Exchange 2013 Edge Transport server role in all on-premises and hybrid deployment scenarios
• Support for the new, automated process for requesting an Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2010 Hybrid Edition product key

Exchange Server Deployment Assistant

Also newly released, you can now use the new product key wizard to submit your request to Microsoft Support to obtain an Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2010 product key for use in hybrid deployments. The request process is quick and easy and you’ll have your product key in minutes!

You can request a Hybrid Edition product key if all the following conditions apply to you:

• You have an existing, non-trial, Office 365 Enterprise subscription
• You currently do not have a licensed Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2010 SP3 servers in your on-premises organization
• You will not host any on-premises mailboxes on the Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2010 SP3 server on which you apply the Hybrid Edition product key.

Cheers,

One of my friend asked me few days ago if Lync Server 2010 is available for download from Microsoft website. And without hesitating, my answer was off course, but when I tried to find the link for downloading Lync Server 2010 I couldn't find myself.

I came across several link to download Lync Server 2010, but all the link took me to this location:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/evalcenter/hh973393.aspx
























I thought of uploading and creating a download for Lync Server 2010. If you want to download Lync Server 2010 you can download from my below link.
Download Lync Server 2010

Note: It's .ISO file, you will have to extract it to installer file after download using WinISO, Ultra ISO or other tools.

June, 8, 2014 Update: I found the Microsoft site from where you can download lots of Previous Version software's including Lync, Exchange, Windows and SQL Servers.

Previous Version

Cheers,