The Exchange Team announced yesterday it has released updates for all editions of Exchange currently under support.
As always, test these updates in a lab first!
It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. In fact, I do a lot of testing from my own Windows 8.1 laptop where I have Hyper-V installed. Hyper-V comes included with Windows 8. It’s comparable to VMware Workstation in functionality (and I run 3 Exchange Servers from it)
Enough about labs! What are these updates and where can I get them?
The updates are as follows:
Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 7
UM Language Packs for Cumulative Update 7
Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 8 (withdrawn due to a bug)
Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 15
So what’s new?
All these updates are a culmination of bug fixes, security patches, and minor feature tweaks. But the security patches it does include are big.
It includes fixes for MS14-075. This security bulletin identifies that an attacker could conceivably gain elevation of privileges in the Outlook Web App. Not good!
Standalone fixes for MS14-075 have also been released for Exchange 2013 SP1 and 2013 CU6.
Good for migrations
The Exchange Team also announced the following improvements for anyone migrating to Exchange 2013.
” Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 7 includes updates which make migrating to Exchange Server 2013 easier. These include:
- Support for Public Folder Hierarchies in Exchange Server 2013 which contain 250,000 public folders
- Improved support for OAB distribution in large Exchange Server 2013 environments
Customers with Public Folders deployed in an environment where multiple Exchange versions co-exist will want to read Brian Day’s post for additional information. “
Good for backups
The Exchange Team also reports that CU7 includes minor improvements for Exchange backups.
” Cumulative Update 7 includes minor improvements in the area of backup. We encourage all customers who backup their Exchange databases to upgrade to Cumulative Update 7 as soon as possible and complete a full backup once the upgrade has been completed. These improvements remove potential challenges restoring a previously backed up database. “
The last sentence instills a little trepidation. I am with Paul Cunningham on this one. Paul mentions that these problems have only been noted during internal testing by Microsoft and not in any customer system. Phew!
Required for hybrid
Microsoft requires that anyone in a hybrid environment be up to date.
” Customers in hybrid deployments where Exchange is deployed on-premises and in the cloud, or who are using Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) with their on-premises Exchange deployment are required to deploy the most current Cumulative Update release. “
Broken for 2010
Unfortunately, a bug in RPC was breaking client connectivity in 2010 environments. Microsoft recalled the 2010 update today. This bug does not affect the 2007 or 2013 updates. Tony Redmond has a great write up on this here.
Schema Updates Needed
Cumulative Update 7 ships with schema updates. More on that process here.
Ready?
Would love to hear about your update experience. Did it go smoothly? Any hiccups?
Drop a comment below.
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