Exchange News

The Exchange Team posted a quick note Tuesday addressing the release of .NET Framework 4.7 and Exchange. As of right now (June 2017) .NET 4.7 is not supported. While the Exchange team has not documented any known compatibility issues (like we saw when previous releases first shipped) they report the update has not been fully tested with Exchange and recommend all customers block the update until further notice.

As with any series of patching it is always critical to review all updates against the Exchange Supportability Matrix. If you want support from Microsoft you must be within the boundaries of that matrix. At the time of writing .NET 4.6.2 is the latest version supported by Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2016, provided you are on the latest cumulative updates. Older cumulative updates only support older versions of .NET. The Exchange Supportability matrix states that any version of .NET not listed on that site should be considered unsupported.

If you have already applied .NET 4.7 to your Exchange servers the product group recommends rolling back. They have identified this process in their latest blog post.

For an environment that uses patch management software such as WSUS or System Center, it is always a good idea to put Exchange servers in their own update group. This allows you to isolate Exchange into its own update cycle. If you don’t have a patch management system you can temporarily block .NET through the registry. Although this registry change will need to be performed against each Exchange server.

With future cumulative updates .NET Framework 4.7 will eventually be supported. We will update this space when this occurs.

Do you think Exchange should have day one support for the .NET Framework? Join the conversation on Twitter @SuperTekBoy.

It was a big month for Exchange updates. Not only did we get Cumulative Update 16 for Exchange 2013, but we also got Cumulative Update 5 for Exchange 2016.

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 Server 2016 Cumulative Update 5 | KB4012106 | UM Language Pack

Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 16 | KB4012112 | UM Language Pack

Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 17 | KB4011326

Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 23 | KB4011325 (final update for 2007)

A quick word on Exchange 2007

It’s time to update. Exchange 2007 will go end of life on April 11th, 2017. At the time of writing that is 20 days. On April 12th you will receive no more patches and no more telephone support. In fact, Update Rollup 23 will be the final patch for Exchange 2007. No more daylight savings updates will be provided from here on out.

If the lack of security updates from Microsoft isn’t convincing enough, check this article for a list of cool things Exchange 2013 can do. (P.S. Like the fact Exchange 2013 uses fewer IOPS per mailbox than 2007…say what?)
[Read more…] about Exchange March 2017 Updates

It was a big month for Exchange updates. Not only did we get Cumulative Update 15 for Exchange 2013, but we also got Cumulative Update 4 for Exchange 2016.

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 Server 2016 Cumulative Update 4 | KB3177106 | UM Language Pack

Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 15 | KB3197044 | UM Language Pack

Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 16 | KB3184730

Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 22 | KB3184712

A quick word on Exchange 2007

It’s time to update. Exchange 2007 will go end of life on April 11th, 2017. That’s a little over 4 months. If you are counting the days from this blog post that is exactly 100 days before Microsoft drops all support for Exchange 2007. On April 12th you will receive no more patches and no more telephone support.

If the lack of security updates from Microsoft isn’t convincing enough, check this article for a list of cool things Exchange 2013 can do. (P.S. Like the fact Exchange 2013 uses fewer IOPS per mailbox than 2007…say what?)

Windows Server 2016 was breaking Exchange 2016

Cumulative Update 3 for Exchange 2016 officially added support for deployment on Windows Server 2016. Unfortunately, it was quickly realized that a bug existed that would crash the IIS Application Pools after a reboot of a freshly installed DAG member. The Server Team’s official response can be found here.

This issue has since been resolved in an update provided by the Windows Server team. The update can be downloaded here (KB3206632).

It is worth noting that Exchange 2016 CU4 will not install on Windows Server 2016 unless this update is present. [Read more…] about Exchange December 2016 Updates

Today was a big day for Exchange updates. Not only did we get Cumulative Update 14 for Exchange 2013, but we also got our third update for Exchange 2016.

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 Server 2016 Cumulative Update 3 | KB3152589 | UM Language Pack

Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 14 | KB3177670 | UM Language Pack

Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 15 | KB3184728

Exchange Server 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 21 | KB3184711

So what’s new in these Cumulative Updates?

Quite a lot actually. Namely Exchange 2016 can now be deployed on Windows Server 2016. Keep in mind that you must deploy Cumulative Update 3 to Windows Server 2016. Older Cumulative Updates will not work. Exchange 2013 is not supported on Windows Server 2016. It is unlikely support will ever be added.

Exchange will also work with Server 2016 domain controllers. However, this will require raising the domain and forest functional levels to a minimum of Server 2008 R2.

Another amazing addition to Cumulative Update 3 is the ability for search indexes to read from their local database copies. In prior versions, search indexes would reach across the network to read from the active database copy. With search indexes using their local copies network utilization can drop by a staggering 40%.

Windows Server 2016 ships with .NET Framework 4.6.2. That said Exchange Server 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016 will be the only supported scenario for .NET Framework 4.6.2. The Exchange Team plans to support .NET 4.6.2 for older releases in the December update. Until then keep .NET 4.6.2 blocked from your 2012 servers.

The Exchange Team has also changed how servers are placed into server-wide offline mode during upgrades. In previous versions, when applying a cumulative update, Exchange 2013 and 2016 would be placed into offline mode during pre-requisite analysis. If a server were to fail analysis it could remain offline despite no changes being made. Starting with the September releases server-wide offline is not set until after analysis completes and the installation is ready to make changes. [Read more…] about Exchange September 2016 Updates