Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Update Rollup 7!
Wow, that was quick! (I just got SP1 UR6 installed on all my servers a week ago).
Update Rollup 7 for Exchange Server 2007 SP1 has been released. The full list of fixes and updates is documented in MS KB 960384, but I think a lot of people will be happy to see this one specific item corrected:
- 961281- An error is returned when you enable SCR from any source in a child domain after you install Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Rollup 5
You can get the update here and get to updating! 
Exchange Server 2007 SP1 UR6 = No problems
I finally had the chance to update the rest of our Exchange Server 2007 SP1 servers to UR6 tonight and there were no problems at all. Even the .NET native image portion went fairly quickly. WIN!
Problems with Exchange 2007 SP1 UR6? Not here…
It seems like a good number of folks are saying they’re having issues with UR6 within their Exchange environments (pay no attention to the one who said it wouldn’t install on Exchange Server 2003…).
There are quite a few discussions going on currently about the effects of UR6, both at the MS Exchange team’s blog and on the TechNet forums.
All I can say, is that so far I’ve seen no issues. I do make it habit to run the updates using an account with Exchange Organization Administrator privileges though, so that explains away several of the complaints people have made (you’ve got to have that level of access for the scripts to run properly…).
I’ve put the update on 1 HT, 1 CAS and 2 SCR target nodes as well as a DPM 2007 SP1 server. I’ll be updating an additional 2 HT, 2 CAS and 4 CCR nodes shortly. So far, I wasn’t asked to perform any reboots and I had no issues. Yes, the update does take a long time to apply, but that’s been normal for the recent UR packages. As a general rule, even though a reboot was not requested, I ALWAYS make it a rule to reboot Exchange after applying any Update Rollup or Service Pack…consider that good advice that will go along way towards services that don’t start properly after an update.
Have you had any issues? I’ll post the results of my next round of updates after I complete them.
Exchange 2007 SP1 Update Rollup 6 arrives
Patch Tuesday this month brought an usual update: Update Rollup 6. That’s unusual for an UR to appear on Patch Tuesday…but in this case there are two security fixes that are rated as Critical, so the timing makes sense.
Get the UR here and install it as soon as possible. No mention of whether or not this UR fixes the bug identified with SCR in UR5 or not.
Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-003 explains the two vulnerabilities in general terms. Sounds bad, generally speaking.
This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
The first vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a specially crafted TNEF message is sent to a Microsoft Exchange Server. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of the affected system with Exchange Server service account privileges.
The second vulnerability could allow denial of service if a specially crafted MAPI command is sent to a Microsoft Exchange Server. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could cause the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service and other services that use the EMSMDB32 provider to stop responding.
MS KB 959241 contains the full list of updates and fixes.
Update Rollup 6 for Exchange Server 2007 SP1 fixes the issues that are described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:
950675: Downloaded .xls file attachments are empty when you open the files by using Outlook Web Access on Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1
955443: Some free/busy messages are not replicated from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2003 servers after some mailboxes are migrated from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2007
956536: The Microsoft Exchange File Distribution service uses lots of memory and processor time when Exchange Server 2007 processes many OABs
956624: The Microsoft Exchange Transport service crashes continuously after you enable journal rule or deploy an antivirus application on an Exchange Server 2007 server
957748: The custom message class of contact object is overwritten by the normal IPM.Contact class when an Exchange 2007 server replicates the contact object to any other public store
959239: MS09-003: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange could allow remote code execution
Data Protection Manager 2007 Management Pack updated
Version 2.0 of the Data Protection Manager 2007 management pack for Operations Manager 2007 was recently released.
This is is not a converted version, so installation is easy. Be sure to remove the previous version if you had it installed.
On the DPM side of things, make sure that you have SP1 or the Feature Pack in KB949779 installed before importing the management pack. As usual, get your management packs in the Catalog.
This management pack offers end-to-end monitoring of both the DPM servers and clients.
Data Protection Manager 2007 SP1 turns off Reporting?
Although it’s been reported in the past that you might sometimes see Data Protection Manager 2007’s error 3013 on a Windows Server 2008 system, whereby SQL Reporting Services is not available, it seemed to be rare.
Now it appears that perhaps error 3013 is making a comeback with the installation of DPM 2007 SP1. On a fresh install of Windows Server 2008 x64, DPM 2007 x64 was installed and then SP1 for DPM 2007 x64 was applied. The Reporting feature was verified working before SP1 was installed, but stopped working after SP1 was applied.
The error text:
DPM could not connect to SQL Server Reporting Services server because of IIS connectivity issues.
On the computer on which the DPM database was created, restart the World Wide Web Publishing Service. On the Administrative Tools menu, select Services. Right-click World Wide Web Publishing Service, and then click Start.
ID: 3013
Unfortunately, the guidance given in the error dialog as well in Troubleshooting Reporting Issues page in Technet don’t really accomplish anything. Trust me, I’ve tried. The solution, as others have verified and reported, is almost provided in MSKB 938245…almost, except for one small typo in the instructions and the fact that you really wouldn’t know to get from point A (error 3013 as shown previously) to point B (following the steps in the KB article). Perhaps the DPM team will see to it to have the documentation updated again for Windows Server 2008.
Anyhow, you should be able to get your Reporting functionality working again by completing these steps.
- Close the DPM 2007 Administrator Console.
- Open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, be sure you didn’t accidentally open the Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Manager.
- Expand Web Sites, expand the Default Web Site, and then click the virtual directory for the report server. By default, this would be ReportServer$MS$DPM2007$.
- In the middle pane, while in Features View, double-click Handler Mappings in the IIS section.
- In the right pane, under the Actions section, click Edit Feature Permissions.
- Click to select the Scripts check box, and then click OK.
- Open the DPM 2007 Administrator Console and get some reporting done!
Ops Mgr 2007 “Failed Accessing Windows Event Log”
If you’ve been getting these errors from your Operations Manager 2007 DHCP Management Pack, the solution is at hand! Here’s the typical error you’d get:
Failed Accessing Windows Event Log
The Windows Event Log Provider was unable to open the System event log on computer ‘{69E3F0CF-36C3-9FDC-1892-42FB003E34DB}’ for reading. The provider will retry opening the log every 30 seconds. Most recent error details: The RPC server is unavailable. One or more workflows were affected by this. Workflow name: Microsoft.Windows.DHCPServer.Library.Server.UnitMonitor.DependentServiceHealth Instance name: myserver.mycompany.local Instance ID: {69E3F0CF-36C3-9FDC-1892-42FB003E34DB} Management group: MyCompany-SysCtrOpsMgr
It seems that the DHCP MP v6.0.6383.0 introduced this annoying bug that seemingly had no solution. Well, I guess it really didn’t have a solution…until the next version was released. That version, v6.0.6452.0, was released in November and seems to fix the problem. Before you import this updated version though, be sure to remove any exisitng DHCP management packs. Per the included documentation:
Before you import the Windows Server DHCP Management Pack, take the following actions:
- Perform a full backup of the Operations Manager 2007 database.
- Uninstall any existing DHCP management packs. You may wish to record custom overrides and rules for possible inclusion in the new DHCP management pack.
Of course, the fix for this bug isn’t documented in the release notes, but none the less it does appear to be fixed.
Exchange and SQL OpsMgr Management Packs Updated
Updated Management Packs for Exchange Server 2007 and SQL Server were recently released for Operations Manager 2007. Check out the updates below as listed in the Management Pack documentation. As usual, download your Management Packs from the MP Catalog.
The following list contains the issues that are fixed in version 6.0.6461.0 of the Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007:
- Updated the display name of the top level folder in the Operations console to “Exchange Server 2007 (Converted)”.
- Changed how the management pack monitors disks. Previously, disk monitoring rules lacked alert suppression. The following rules and monitors were disabled:
- Disk % Free Space low - Red(<10%)
- Disk % Free Space low - Yellow(<15%)
- Disk Free Megabytes low - Red(<20MB)
- Disk Free Megabytes low - Yellow(<40MB)
The following rules were added:
- Disk Free Space Low Red Rule (by default alerts if any disk has less than 20MB free space)
- Disk Free Space Low Yellow Rule (by default alerts if any disk has less than 40MB free space)
- Disk Percentage Free Space Low Red Rule (by default alerts if any disk has less than 10% free space)
- Disk Percentage Free Space Low Yellow Rule (by default alerts if any disk has less than 15% free disk space)
The new disk monitoring rules support alert suppression. It is also possible to use the Server Operating System Management Pack to monitor Exchange disk space, if desired. In that case, the above rules can be disabled.
SQL Server Management Pack version 6.0.6460.0 includes the following changes:
- The DB discovery script no longer casts the values that correspond to “Database Size (MB) (Numeric)” and “Log Size (MB) (Numeric)” as INT, to avoid overflows exceptions within the script itself.
- The DB discovery script now checks for possible overflow on the “Database Size (MB) (Numeric)” and “Log Size (MB) (Numeric)” values and prevents those overflows from occurring.
- For the numeric properties on the database class we are limited to 2147483647 MB (~2047 TB). In the event that a DB or log file exceeds that size then the value will be set to the maximum possible value of 2147483647 to prevent overflows. In these instances the ”Database Size (MB) (String)” and “Log Size (MB) (String)” will support larger values.
Update Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2007 SP1
A little late, but maybe you didn’t see this yet?
Update Rollup 5 for Exchange Server 2007 SP1 is now available. Read all about the changes and updates by visiting MSKB 953467.
Updated Ops Mgr 2007 SQL and Windows Management Packs
A couple of recently updated Management Packs for Operations Manager 2007…SQL and Windows Server Operating System. Here’s the updates from the included documentation in the Management Packs. As always, get your Ops Mgr Management Packs here.
The October 2008 release (version 6.0.6321.5) of the Windows Server Operating System
Management Pack includes the following changes:
- Various scripts were updated to prevent issues with locale specific number formatting.
SQL Server Management Pack version 6.0.6441.0 includes the following changes:
- General Changes
- The management pack now includes the SQL Server 2008 discovery and monitoring management packs. SQL Server 2008 monitoring is identical to the SQL Server 2005 management pack, including the new functionality added in this release for SQL Server 2005 monitoring.
- Addressed issues with a few performance rules attempting to collect performance counters or instances by the wrong name.
- Updated a number of discoveries, rules, and tasks to ensure they use the correct RunAs profiles for discovery and monitoring.
- Updated the criteria on a number of event-based rules to make their criteria more specific to reduce alert volumes.
- SQL DB Engine discovery will now work on systems that do not have the SQL tools installed.
- The SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 management packs support discovery and partial monitoring of 32-bit instances of SQL components installed on 64-bit operating systems. This is discussed in more detail in the “Supported Configurations” section of this guide.
- All monitors are now set to public accessibility, allowing increased customization. Most notably, custom diagnostics and recoveries can now be added.
- The “Database Size” and “Log Size” properties of databases are now available as a numeric property, in addition to the string form of the property that already existed.
- Updated knowledge for various reports.
- Database snapshots are no longer discovered and monitored as if they were a full-fledged database.
- The possible states of the “Blocking SPIDs” monitor in all management packs have been changed to better align with the default override behaviors. Previously, the monitor could either be in a “Success” or “Warning” state. The “Warning” state has been replaced with “Error”.
- Changes to the SQL Server 2000 Management Pack
- The default thresholds for the “Job Duration” have been revised. The numbers were previously an integer corresponding to minutes when it should have been in the format of HHMMSS. The knowledge for this monitor has been updated to more clearly explain the format of the threshold.
- Changed the frequency at which the SAPasswordMonitor.vbs script is run from 24 seconds to 24 hours.
- Changes to SQL Server 2005 Management Pack
- Added monitoring for log shipping with the “Destination Log Shipping Monitor” and “Source Log Shipping Monitor” monitors.
- Fixed a few typos and formatting issues with product knowledge in various places.
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