Exchange Cumulative Update (September 2020)

This week was a big week for Exchange. Microsoft released its seventh cumulative update for Exchange 2019 as well as a cumulative update for Exchange 2016. At the time of writing, there is no cumulative update for Exchange 2013.

As always, test these updates in a lab first! I recommend checking out this 7-part guide on configuring Exchange in your lab. It doesn’t take much to get one going.

The updates are as follows:

Exchange 2019 Cumulative Update 7 (VLSC)| KB4571787

Exchange 2016 Cumulative Update 18 | KB4571788 | UM Language Pack

So, what’s new in this Cumulative Update?

Microsoft has resolved a number of issues with the Exchange 2019 Sizing Calculator. I actually ran into one of these myself where the transport database size estimate (under the Role Requirements tab) always reported a 0 GB size per server. This issue has now been fixed in version 10.5 of the calculator (included with the Exchange 2019 CU7 ISO in the Support folder). Be sure to ditch v10.4.

These series of cumulative updates also resolves an issue where Surface Hub would connect to meetings with the wrong communications client (Skype or Teams) if both clients were installed on the device.

A couple of other items of note is that this cumulative update will fix an issue where the MAPI App Pool could become locked and drive CPU to 100% for over an hour and resolves the security issue CVE-2020-16875, which addresses a remote code execution vulnerability.

For a full list of all fixes, including security patches, be sure to check out the KBs KB4571787 and KB4571788.

If you are current on your Exchange updates, then these cumulative updates will not extend the schema. If you are running Exchange 2016 CU6 or earlier, or Exchange 2019 CU1 or earlier, you will need to perform a schema update.

While these updates do not contain any changes to the schema, you may need to run SETUP /PrepareAD to apply security changes that were introduced in earlier cumulative updates. If you are running Exchange 2016 CU12 or earlier, or Exchange 2019 CU1 or earlier, you will need to run SETUP /PrepareAD.

If you are running multiple versions of Exchange in coexistence, run SETUP /PrepareAD from the newest version of Exchange. For example, if you have Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2019, run SETUP /PrepareAD from Exchange 2019.

Note: If you are running in a multi-domain environment, you will need to perform SETUP /PrepareDomain in each domain. You do not need to run /PrepareDomain in the domain where you performed /PrepareAD. /PrepareAD also invokes the /PrepareDomain process.

Exchange 2016 enters extended support on October 14th

In 24 days Exchange 2016, will be entering extended support. Cumulative Update 19 (December) is the last planned update for Exchange 2016 and no further product development is expected. Any cumulative update after 19 is at Microsoft’s discretion and will address critical issues only.

Security and timezone updates will continue to be available until October 14th, 2025, delivered primarily through the Security Update Guide.

End of an era – 23 days left for Exchange 2010

Last year, the Exchange Team announced that is was extending support for Exchange 2010 by nine months. Exchange 2010 shares the same end-of-life date as Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, which is October 13th, 2020.

The Exchange Team provided this extension to allow companies more time to migrate to a newer email platform, such as Office 365 or Exchange 2016.

Unfortunately, there is no direct path to Exchange 2019 from 2010. If you do plan to stay on-prem, you will need to migrate to either 2013 or 2016 (I’d recommend 2016 as 2013 is now in extended support). From there, you can migrate to 2019.

For more information on migrating from Exchange 2010 to 2016, check out this recent blog article from the Exchange Team: Exchange On-Premises Best Practices for Migrations from 2010 to 2016

Further Reading

Here are some articles I thought you might like.

• Recover deleted email in a user’s mailbox
• Hybrid Configuration Wizard fails: WinRM client cannot process the request
• Use Log Parser Studio in your Exchange & Office 365 migration planning
• Blocking OneDrive may save attachments to the default SharePoint document library
• RPC/HTTP & Block Legacy Auth may prevent Outlook reconfiguration after migrating to Exchange Online

So what do you think is coming next? What would you like to see? Drop a comment below or join the conversation on Twitter @SuperTekBoy.