If you prefer to run Exchange Server setup for new installations or cumulative updates using the GUI rather than the command line, then you aren’t alone, and if you are finally getting round to removing an Exchange Server 2010 or 2013 Hybrid and replacing it with Exchange Server 2016, then it’s better late than never. […]
An earlier article explained how to create organizational contacts in user mailboxes with Graph API calls. This article builds on that idea with three improvements. First, we select target mailboxes for update by looking for those added in the last month. Second, we allow any mail-enabled recipient to be added as an organizational contact. Third, we incorporate some code to check if a contact already exists in a mailbox. Like anything with PowerShell, this code can be improved..
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In a frantic rush to enable remote workers at the onset of the pandemic, many organizations were forced to ship devices directly to the user from the supplier without any prior configuration by IT. Administrators must take back control to properly secure and manage these devices. This article will show you how to regain control and prepare for scalable deployments consistent with corporate policy; reviews best practices for long-term management; and gets you thinking about how to protect your organization from this type of unmanaged situation in the future.
Microsoft has delayed the release of the June 2021 cumulative updates for Exchange Server for two weeks to integrate the Windows Antimalware Scan interface (AMSI). The change will allow Exchange 2016 and Exchange 2019 servers running on Windows Server 2016 or later to integrate antimalware engines to check HTTP requests for potential problems. If ever there was good reason to delay an update, this is it.
On the show we talk about how Microsoft's new scheduler, Visio, becomes free - but there's a catch, Windows Virtual Desktop loses Windows. We're also joined by Peter Rising to talk about Microsoft Exams and how to pass them. And as always, the key message center news you need to know.
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If you need to level-up your online events and go beyond webinars or even Teams Live Events, then using Teams with its NDI capability allows you to live stream to YouTube, LinkedIn Live, Twitter, Facebook and more. Find out how to do this, in combination with OBS in this full step-by-step guide and video.
The email quarantine process is as old as email itself, and still an essential part of any email service. As far as Office 365 is concerned, Exchange Online is a world-class product and the quarantine mechanism works well, however, the current iteration of the Quarantine portal falls short in user experience and performance.
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The Outlook Places service uses metadata stored for conference rooms and room lists to help users find suitable meeting places. The metadata surfaces in Outlook's Room Finder component (shared between OWA and Outlook desktop). Obviously, the better populated the room metadata is, the more useful it will be, once we all start meeting in conference rooms again!
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Many PowerShell scripts use the Send-MailMessage cmdlet to send mail. That's fine, but if you want to remove basic authentication to improve tenant security, you need to stop using Send-MailMessage. One solution is to move to use the Graph API SendMail call. This works fine, but it creates some new security issues that need to be thought through. In this article, we explain how to use the Graph to send email and some of those security considerations to ponder.
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It's important to know if a tenant has any very large distribution lists as these might be the source of reply-all mail storms. An old article explains how to report the membership counts for distribution lists on an on-premises Exchange server. Life is different in the cloud, and we need to take a different approach. This article explains how to use different calls in a PowerShell script to create a nice report about distribution list memberships.
There are several areas where Microsoft could improve the way Teams handles out-of-office and away-from-work scenarios. Are the default "quiet hours" reasonable? Should there be a global setting for quiet hours or do-not-disturb? While there may be good reasons to leave some of these as a tenant-level settings, you don't want to forget about the extra steps you must take to truly escape from Teams for a bit.
Microsoft Teams uses an array of policies to control the features available to end users. Group policy assignments make it easier to assign packages of policies to groups of users. Microsoft provides a set of policy packages out of the box, and organizations can create custom packages. That is, if they have the Teams Advanced Communications license. Demanding a special license for functionality which helps tenants manage Teams better seems excessive, especially as you could relatively easily recreate policy assignments with PowerShell.
