Exchange 2010 SP2 Released!

After months of anticipation, SP2 has released and you can get it HERE!
This will bring the Exchange version to 14.2.247.5.  Here are some additional links:

• For a list of “What’s New” in SP2
• Please see the required Windows Server hotfixes and system prerequisites for installing SP2.
• Release Notes for SP2
• SP2 UM Language Packs

Also note that SP2 can be installed as a new installation. No need to install RTM or SP1 before installing SP2.

Mission: Update Beta OCS R1 Phone Edition to Lync Phone Edition

I recently received two “original” Tanjay (Polycom CX700) phones from a colleague asking me if I could get them upgraded to Lync.  These contained beta Phone Edition software on them: 1.0.199 (1.23)

Since this was pre-OCS R1, I really wasn’t interested in installing OCS R1 and configuring the awful WSS method to update devices.  I know for a fact, that you cannot directly upgrade these to Lync firmware, so all of my hopes were being able to perform the first couple of upgrades using an OCS R2 server.

I started searching the Internet for tips and came across a guide that addressed my exact need!  Rick Varvel wrote this very detailed guide that explained the process of getting the beta firmware to an OCS R2 firmware.  Once on an OCS R1/R2 firmware, I knew I could easily get it to Lync firmware since either version can be upgraded directly to Lync.

I won’t go into too much detail since the guide is very detailed itself.  You must follow this guide exactly!  I actually skipped a step that made my first couple of attempts fail.  My OCS R2 deployment was internal only so I thought I could get away with not setting the External URL settings for the Device Update service.  As the guide says, you must configure the ExternalUpdatesDownloadURL and ExternalUpdatesStoreURL to a non-NULL value.  Once I did this, the updates started flowing.

The high-level update process was as follows:

OCS R2 Update Service

• 1.0.199 (1.23) –> 1.0.522.101 (1.23)

Lync Server Update Service

• 1.0.522.101 (1.23) –> 4.0.7577.296 (1.23)

Now my newly updated CX700 shows the latest Lync firmware:

I know this post won’t help out too many people unless they find a dusty closet with a bunch of phones in it, but thought I would document the experience any way.

Lync November 2011 Server and Client Updates Released (CU4)

The Lync team has released server and client updates for November 2011. There are a lot of important updates in this CU, including preparing your environment for mobile clients.  Here are all the details:

Server Updates (7577.183) – Download – KB 2493736

• Core Components (KB 2514981)
• Conferencing Server (KB 2514978)
• Web Components Server (KB 2514979)
• Standard/Enterprise Edition Server (KB 2514980)
• Mediation Server (KB 2640253)
• UCMA 3.0 Runtime (KB 2500449)
• Policy Decision Point (KB 2502809)

Note: Use the cumulative LyncServerUpdateInstaller.exe to install the updates to make sure all needed updates are applied.

Clients (7577.4051)

• Lync 2010 (32-bit) – Download – KB 2514982
• Lync 2010 (64-bit) – Download – KB 2514982

Phone Edition (7577.4047)

• Polycom CX500, CX600, CX3000 – Download – KB 2636067
• Polycom CX700, LG-Nortel 8540 – Download – KB 2636066
• Aastra 6721ip, 6725ip – Download – KB 2636068
• HP 4110, 4120 – Download – KB 2636069

Group Chat

• Server (7577.4051) – Download – KB 2514984
• Admin Tool (7577.4051) – Download – KB 2636063
• Client (7577.4051) – Download – KB 2636065

Enabling Outlook Delegates the Ability to Create Lync Online Meetings

During a recent Lync implementation the client heavily used Outlook delegates to manage calendars and to set up meetings on behalf of others.  After the users were enabled for Lync, delegates were unable to create Lync Online Meetings on behalf of the “boss”.  This did not break scheduling regular meetings, just Lync Online Meetings.  When trying to schedule, the following error appeared:

“You do not have permissions to schedule online meetings on behalf of the owner of this account.  Please contact the owner of the account to get delegate permissions in Lync.”

In order to enable delegates to schedule Online Meetings, the client policies need to be modified to enable the –EnableExchangeDelegateSync parameter.  In my example, I will be modifying the specific client policy by running:

Set-CsClientPolicy –Identity ExchangeDelegateSync –EnableExchangeDelegateSync $true

Now when looking at my client policy by running: Get-CsClientPolicy –Identity ExchangeDelegateSync, I can see the parameter set:

After logging back into the Lync client, Delegates will automatically get created in Lync.  You can see this from the main buddy list, as new groups are automatically created for both the “boss” and the delegate.

Boss – “Delegates” Group

Admin – “People I Manage Calls For” Group

Now that the Outlook Delegates have been synced from Exchange, in our example the AdminAsst can now schedule Online Meetings on behalf of the BossMan and the meeting will reflect the BossMan’s meeting URL.

If users are enabled for Enterprise Voice, Lync delegates can be managed directly through the Lync client by clicking Options –> Call Forward Settings:

This post showed you how to enable users to create Lync Online Meetings on behalf of others.

Exchange 2010 SP1 Update Rollup 6 Available

An update for Exchange 2010 SP1 has just released and can be downloaded at: Exchange 2010 SP1 Update Rollup 6 Download. This will take you Exchange version up to 14.1.355.2

For a description of all the included fixes, see KB 2608646

For those of you running DAGs, please see the following article: Applying Updates to Exchange 2010 SP1

If you are running Forefront, it is important to disable Forefront protection during the update:

• Before running patch: fscutility /disable
• After running patch: fscutility /enable

Lync 2010 How-To Custom Help/Training Website

Recently, Microsoft release a great reference website to help out with training and adoption: Lync Adoption and Training Kit.  One of the tools within this kit is the Lync How-To custom intranet site.

This will allow your organization to create a completely customizable quick reference portal for users to use to learn how to do perform common Lync tasks.  This includes step-by-step instructions and videos.  Later in the post I will also show how to customize the help URL within the Lync client to point to this portal.

Installing the Portal

The How-To portal can be installed as a Silverlight or HTML solution.  The Silverlight version will offer a rich experience with integrated video player.  If the HTML version is used, then videos will be launched using the local media player on the desktop.  This post will be installing the Silverlight version of the portal.

The first step is to copy all of the contents to a location on a web server.  In my example, I am copying the files to my Lync Front-End server since web services is installed and already being used.  I have also chosen to rename the rolodex.html file (primary launch file) to a better name for the URL that I want to publish: LyncHelp.html

Now within IIS Manager, I will add a new Virtual Directory under the Internal Website and configure to point to my portal contents:

Since I have two Front-End servers in my pool, I will replicate the same steps on my other server.  Now I can enter in the URL in my web browser to access the How-To portal:

Customizing the Portal

The default How-To portal offers instructions and videos on all aspects of the Lync client: IM/P, voice, video, Online Meetings, Group Chat, Attendant console, etc.  In your environment, you may not have all the functionality enabled and want to hide those components to not confuse the users.  This can be done by modifying the rolodex.xml file in the folder location of the source files.

In my example, I am going to hide the “Group Chat” category and also the “Voice and Video –> Manage Voice Mail” sub-category.

Now open up the rolodex.xml file and comment out (or delete) the sections that we want to hide:

After refreshing the site, we will see that those sections have been removed:

The portal is completely customizable based on the functionality that has been enabled for the users.  The “Lync_HowTo_AdminGuide.doc”, that is part of the initial download, describes more ways to modify the content and brand the portal.

Configuring the Lync Client to Point to Portal

The Lync client has built in help by pressing the “F1” key or by selecting help from the Lync menu:

This takes you to Microsoft Online help:

We will now modify the Global Lync client policy so that the Help function within the Lync client will now point to our customized Lync portal.  This can be accomplished by running the following command:

Set-CsClientPolicy Global –CustomizedHelpUrl <WebURL> –EnableEnterpriseCustomizedHelp $true

Hmmm…that didn’t work.  If I use the command referenced in the screenshot, the URL ends up adding a bunch of “junk” to the end resulting in an invalid address:

I found this Technet Forum post that explains the error and workaround.  After implementing the “c_redir.aspx” file (with the the references pointing to my website) and repointing the URL to https://lyncwebint.twhlab.com/lynchelp/c_redir.aspx, the webpage worked as expected.

Summary

The Lync How-To portal is a great resource that allows users to get instructional help on common Lync tasks.  I encourage everyone to implement this and communicate that this is available.  This is a very valuable tool to deploy.

Hope this helps.

BUG: Lync Stress Tool and SQL Named Instances

The Lync Server Stress and Performance Tool has a major flaw when using a named SQL instance for the Lync back-end databases.  This post is based on the 7577.120 version of the tool and will not go into all of the ins and outs of the tool.

Problem:

First off, the GUI and field descriptions in the User Creation tool are very misleading.   Looking at the “Server” tab, it seems pretty straight forward on what to enter in the SQL fields…

Not the case, according to the Documentation, the following descriptions are used for those fields:

• SQL BE Machine – type the name of the SQL Server Back End physical node
• SQL Instance – type the database name

The database name in the Instance field?  Ok, so where do I put my Instance name?  All good questions… the problem is that this is the bug.  The tool does not allow for the SQL instance to be properly entered.  The following examples show different permutations trying to get the right information entered to represent the actual topology.

Symptoms:

Note: my actual SQL config is LABSQL01\Lync (Servername\Instance)

Variation #1:

The tool will refer to the database and instance name as “Lync” (obviously, my database is not named “Lync”):

Variation #2:

The tool will refer to the database and instance name as “RTC”(obviously, my SQL instance is not named “RTC”):

Variation #3:

The tool will add “RTC” as part of the Instance name and also the DB name:

Variation #4:

The tool will add “Lync\RTC” as part of the Instance name and also the DB name:

Conclusion:

Basically whatever is entered into the “SQL Instance” field will be used as the Instance and database name.

This could potentially be a great tool to use in the field, but currently it is only useful in a handful of deployments (Standard Edition or default instance installations of SQL back-end).  This has been reported to Microsoft and has been acknowledged as a known issue.  Hopefully a new release will soon be out.