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Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1

Yep, available now.

• Download link
• Release Notes

Improvements in Exchange Server 2007 SP1 include:
Anywhere Access
• Integrated Exchange Unified Messaging functionality with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.
• Outlook Web Access additions, including public folder access, S/MIME support, personal distribution lists, and mailbox rules editor.
• Webready document viewer supports Microsoft Office 2007 documents in addition to Microsoft Office 2003 documents.
• Extended language support in Outlook Web Access with Arabic and Korean spell checking.
Operational Efficiency
• Support for Windows Server 2008 deployments, including benefits in flexible clustering, native virtualization, advanced networking, and simplified management.
• Additional tools in the Exchange Management Console, including public folder management and configuration options for clustering and POP/IMAP access.
• Improvements to the Exchange Management Shell syntax and import-export PST in the move-mailbox command.
• Wider variety of web services for application development, including public folder access, delegate management, and folder level permissions.
Built-in Protection
• Addition of Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) for site resilient high availability deployments.
• Extended Exchange ActiveSync policies for mobile policy enforcement.
• Information rights management pre-licensing by the Hub Transport role.
• Secure Real Time Protocol (SRTP) support in the Unified Messaging role.
• Support for IPv6 when using Windows Server 2008.

Fun with PowerShell / .net and redirected home directories

I'm on day three of my new position and have been diligently getting my new computer set up to operate in a way that I need it to run to do my job. Part of that setup included installing PowerShell. PowerShell (both 1.0 and 2.0) rely on the .NET 2.0 Framework, which came pre-installed and configured on my company-built notebook computer.

When I attempted to run PowerShell, the application would crash with no apparent errors, other than a non-descriptive Windows Error Reporting dialog with no details.

I did the natural thing, and jumped into the event log. First stop was the PowerShell event log which showed nothing special about the startup and then the shutdown of the PowerShell providers. The system log did not show anything out of place either. However, the application log had this error entry:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: .NET Runtime
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1023
Description:
.NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.1433 - Absolute path information is required.

Curious, I did the natural thing and searched Google while ran a repair on the .NET 2.0 install. All my searching yielded not a snippet of help. I did notice though that my home directory had been redirected to a shared drive on the personal storage SAN while working in Word. I wondered if that had something to do with my error, and sure enough, it did.

Upon further examination, the redirection for "My Documents" (Windows XP) was set to "Z:". A quick change of this to "Z:\" (note the trailing backslash?) corrected the issue. How to change this quickly? Right click on the "My Documents" folder on your desktop or Start Menu. From that properties dialog, you can change the storage location for that special folder.

Problem solved, back to writing scripts.

Oh, and work here is fun. The company treats its employees like people, which is a kind change from most corporations. We're still in the honeymoon period and working on grand new ideas on how to revitalize the IT juices around here. Exciting times lay ahead.

Want a cool Exchange 2007 Poster?

Well, TechNet has provided one. Download at the link and decorate your cube today.

PowerShell 2.0 CTP Available

Want to see the new featurs and functions of PowerShell as it marches to a 2.0 milestone? So do I!

• Compatibility with PowerShell 1.0
• PowerShell Remoting
• Background Jobs
• ScriptCmdlets
• Data-only Language
• Script Internationalization
• Script Debugging
• New APIs for extracting Metadata from Commands and Parameters
• New Parser Tokenizer API
• New PowerShell Hosting APIs
• Pools of Runspace
• Restricted Runspaces
• Graphical PowerShell
• Out-GridView cmdlet

Download it here...more information from the PowerShell blog here and here.

Too quiet…

Anyone with kids, or cats, will tell you that when things get quiet, too quiet, something is afoot. Well, that is the case on this blog as well.

I shared the information with my co-workers this afternoon that after five years at PacifiCorp, I will be heading off to take on a new server environment at Standard Insurance.

Without too much fanfare (I hope), I'll be on my way to my new position at the end of the month. Until then, expect sporadic activity on the blog as some odds and ends that I have here will get posted.

The folks I have worked with at PacifiCorp have been outstanding and I will cherish the friends and successes that I have here, and will carry that with me always. I am looking forward to joining a new environment, making more friends, tackling new challenges, and having a lot of fun.

After all, if you aren't having fun doing this, then you should be doing something else.