SuperTekBoy

Practical Help for Exchange & Office 365

RunAs Radio #588 – Exchange Updates with Gareth Gudger

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On May 4th I had the great pleasure of being a guest on the RunAs Radio podcast. I joined host Richard Campbell to discuss the latest in Exchange and Office 365. We also discuss the deciding factors and roadblocks companies face when exploring the cloud.

It was great to be back on Richard’s show. We couldn’t believe our last recording together was one and a half years ago. Boy–time flies!

Gareth on Runas Radio #588 - Exchange Updates with Gareth Gudger

Listen to the podcast

(Originally posted at http://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/588)

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Exchange Server – There was a problem loading your options (“add-ins”)

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When upgrading to Exchange 2016 you may receive the errors, “There was a problem loading your options” & “Exchange Server doesn’t support the requested version”.

Both of these errors are centered around the add-ins feature.

What are add-ins?

First introduced in Exchange 2013, add-ins are apps that you can globally distribute to all your Outlook clients, whether they be the full Outlook client, Outlook Web App, or, Outlook for iOS and Android.

Add-ins include features such as Bing Maps, which will identify an address in an email and automatically load a web-part displaying a map. Or, simply the ability to identify action items within an email.

Exchange ships with a few add-ins out of the box. Additional add-ins can be downloaded through the Microsoft store or uploaded via a custom XML file.

The real beauty of an add-in is that you can centrally manage it via the Exchange Admin Center. Much easier than deploying Outlook add-ins with traditional endpoint management software. Plus it ensures everyone is always using the latest version of an app.

There was a problem loading your options (“add-ins”)

While in coexistence with an older version of Exchange your users may receive the error “There was a problem loading your options”. They receive this error when trying to manage their add-ins via Outlook Web App. This error prevents the users from seeing or managing their add-ins.

Outlook Web App - There was a problem loading your options

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#MVPbuzzChat – Data residency, Hybrid Modern Authentication & Exchange 2019

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On March 24th I had the great pleasure of being a guest on #MVPBuzzChat. I joined host Christian Buckley to discuss data residency, hybrid modern authentication and new products shipping in 2018. We also discussed the importance of TAP, Windows Insider program and participating in UserVoice.

[Read more…] about #MVPbuzzChat – Data residency, Hybrid Modern Authentication & Exchange 2019

Exchange March 2018 Updates

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Exchange 2016 Cumulative Update 9Today was a big day for Exchange updates. Not only did we get Cumulative Update 9 for Exchange 2016, but we also got Cumulative Update 20 for Exchange 2013. Exchange 2010 also receives a critical security update in rollup 20.

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 2016 MiniExchange 2016 Cumulative Update 9 | KB4055222 | UM Language Pack

Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 9Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 20 | KB4055221 | UM Language Pack

Exchange 2010 MiniExchange 2010 SP3 Rollup 20 | KB4073537

So, what’s new in these Cumulative Updates?

The March 2018 updates introduces full support for TLS 1.2. This is critical because in future updates Exchange will disable support for the older TLS protocols. TLS 1.2 boasts significantly stronger ciphers than its predecessors by introducing SHA-256. For a great comparison on the differences between each version of the protocol I recommend the article TLS 1.2 vs TLS 1.1 by KeyCDN.

Disabling the older TLS protocols does present some challenges. As mentioned in my article Disabling TLS 1.0 may cause Outlook to crash, older operating systems such as Windows 7, will require additional registry hacks and tweaks to work in a pure TLS 1.2 environment. Before disabling TLS 1.0 in your environment you may want to look at the state of your client operating systems as a whole and determine if a project to upgrade to Windows 10 should be tackled first. TLS support is based on what the operating system can do and not the Outlook client.

I highly recommend checking out Brian Day’s series on transitioning an Exchange organization to TLS 1.2.

These updates also contain security and bug fixes. Check the appropriate KB article above for a list of issues each update resolves. [Read more…] about Exchange March 2018 Updates

131 funny, geeky and creepy questions to ask Alexa

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A couple of years ago we published a post titled 131 funny, geeky and creepy questions to ask Cortana. That post had a fantastic engagement. Despite the original 131 questions, the community discovered hundreds more. In fact, you are still finding new questions even today. Be sure to check out the comments on that article.

With that in mind, we thought it would be really cool to figure out what questions we could ask Alexa. We wondered if we could ask her the some of the funny, geeky and, creepy questions we asked Cortana. But we also went looking for plenty of new questions.

We don’t want to show her responses. That’s for you to enjoy. Besides, who likes spoilers anyway?

Okay, in the name of science, just one spoiler. Plus, it’s a great excuse to quote some Monty Python.

“Alexa, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

Funny, geeky and, creepy questions to ask Alexa

Pro Tip: Be sure to ask Alexa, “Give me the Five-Nine”. This command actually starts an interactive skill with Alexa and is reminiscent of the old choose your own adventure novels. The Alexa adventure is set in the world of one of my favorite TV shows, Mr. Robot. If you haven’t seen that show I highly recommend it. It takes about 5-10 minutes to complete. It’s a lot of fun.

Let’s smash the 400 questions you found for Cortana! Let us know if we missed any good ones in the comments below. [Read more…] about 131 funny, geeky and creepy questions to ask Alexa

MVPs Talk Microsoft 365 podcast – What’s new in Exchange & Office 365

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On January 13th I had the great pleasure of being a guest on the MVPs Talk Microsoft 365 podcast. I joined host Neil McDonnell to discuss what’s new in Exchange and Office 365.

Listen to “Gareth Gudger | Blue Chip Consulting Group | MVPs Talk Microsoft 365 | Episode 8” on Spreaker.

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Fixing frequent blank screens in Outlook for iOS & Android

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When I first started using Outlook for Android it was running great. I use it to check three different email accounts–two accounts in Office 365 and one Outlook.com.

However, as the months went by the app seemed to get slower and slower, with more frequent blank screens. These blank screens would appear most often when I would try to pull up my folder list (pictured below)

Outlook for Android & iOS Slow Folder Opening

Although it would happen at other times as well. Such as trying to open an email (pictured below).

Outlook for Android & iOS Slow Email Opening

This delay would generally last a few seconds. But sometimes it could take as long as 10 seconds for the folder list or email to appear. Certainly enough to hinder productivity in the app. [Read more…] about Fixing frequent blank screens in Outlook for iOS & Android

All network connections broken – Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

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After installing the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (Build 1709) on my PC, all my network connections–whether wired or wireless–were broken. When I checked the device manager I had an exclamation mark against all but one network device. The only device excluded from error was the “Check Point Virtual Network Adapter”.

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update 1709 Check Point VPN Virtual Network Adapter Breaks All Network Connections

Going into the properties of one of these devices gave equally cryptic errors. All devices reported the same thing.

Windows is still setting up the class configuration for this device. (Code 56)

A couple extra reboots did not resolve the odd error either.

Windows is still setting up the class configuration for this device (Code 56)

A quick search on the internet revealed forum postings that identified the Check Point VPN as the culprit (credit SOHIC for the answer). This made sense as the version of the Check Point software I had made no mention that it was supported on Windows 10. My bad!

But this was the key. When I uninstalled the software and rebooted, all my network connections came back to life.  [Read more…] about All network connections broken – Windows 10 Fall Creators Update