Cumulative Update 4 for the following Lync Products have been released

Microsoft releases Lync and Lync Server 2010 CU4

It has been a while since I have updated my blog - between vacation and work it has been hectic. However, Microsoft has currently released Cumulative Update 4 (aka roll-up 4) for the Lync solution over a week ago warranting a post. I have successfuly moved to the new patch without any issues thus far.

 Additional Notes:

Lync Server 2010 build number is 4.0.7577.183
Lync Client and Group Chat build number is 4.0.7577.4051
Lync Attendee build number is 4.0.7577.254
Lync Attendant build number is 4.0.7577.253
Lync Phone Editions build number is 4.0.7577.4047

0 comments - Posted by Brian Ricks at 10:59 AM - Categories: 2010 | patch | UC | Update | Lync | Lync Server

Cumulative Update 2 for the following Lync Products have been released

2001 Updates for Lync 2010 Products

Microsoft Has UpdateD the Lync Client (32 and 64 BIT) updates. KB2496325 has been superseded by KB2540951 which is dated April 27, 2011!

On April 4th, Microsoft anounced the release of the updates for the following Lync client products:

Some links are still working their way through the system and will become available within a week from today.

Some of the KBs are still in process. These should be available by 4/8.

Additional Notes:

Lync Client and Group Chat build number is 4.0.7577.253

Lync Attendee/Attendant build number is 4.0.7577.254

The Phone Editions build number is 4.0.7577.250

0 comments - Posted by Brian Ricks at 6:00 AM - Categories: 2010 | patch | UC | Update | Lync

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 RTM

Stop the Presses...Microsoft Lync Server 2010 has RTM'd!

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 was released to manufacturing last night allowing all of us who have been using/working with the product to move forward with our lives...finally! :) The official announcement can be found here. Please join me in congratulating the MS UC team on meeting their release goals and starting the conversation for wave 15.

Posted by Brian Ricks at 6:48 AM - Categories: 2010 | Microsoft | UC | Lync Server | RTM

Exchange 2007 Roll-up 5 Released

Exchange 2007 RU5 was released yesterday approximately 6 weeks after RU4 was released. The current release corrects numerous bugs with the complete list found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941421. The roll-up does not require a reboot but may take a considerable amount of time to install so be prepared. In testing I have not encountered any issues installing the roll-up and unlike RU4 all services did start as expected. Expect to see the RU released via Microsoft Update the first half of December. Until then, you can download the update directly from Microsoft Download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=652ed33a-11a1-459c-8ffe-90b9cbfe7903&displaylang=en&tm.

0 comments - Posted by Brian Ricks at 8:33 AM - Categories: 2007 | UC | E2K7 | Exchange

Changing the External OCS ABS/Web Conferencing URL

It is not uncommon that I am asked "How do I change the external URL for conferencing within OCS?" There are multiple reasons for a user needing/wanting to change the URL, most often it being either they skipped the entry during setup (it does say <optional>) or the have decided to change the name. Whatever the reason is, the actual update is simple.

The update it self is updating the SQL or MSDE database with the new information. While it is possible to manually 'hack' the database and edit the tables directly, the UC team has made the process much easier using LCSCMD. LCSCMD is a command line application that may be found on the OCS server CD under setup or on your C drive of an OCS server located at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.

To execute the command, simply type:

Lcscmd /web /action:updatepoolurls /externalwebfqdn:externalserver.dnsname.com /poolname:poolname

The externalserver.dnsname.com is the DNS name that is resolvable from the outside and is your 'reverse proxy' role as defined in the documentation. the poolname is only the short name of the pool. For SE this would be your server name (server.contoso.com would be server) and for EE it is the common pool name (pool01.contoso.com would be pool01).

Posted by Brian Ricks at 6:31 AM - Categories: 2007 | UC | ABS | OCS

Eliminating the Outlook 2007 Security Warning w/o Using a UCC Certificate

This tip was sent to me from a good friend and business associate, John Lockett.

This procedure gets rid of the security warning in Outlook 2007, in cases where you apply a standard SSL certificate to the default web site, and the FQDN is different from the AD FQDN of the exchange server. First run the following commands in the Exchange Management Shell on

your Exchange 2007 CAS so that we would have a backup listing of the current settings:

Get-Clientaccessserver | fl > backupCAS.txt

Get-WebServicesVirtualDirectory | fl > backupWeb.txt

Now change the settings to remove the warning.

Set-Clientaccessserver -AutoDiscoverServiceInternalUri https://public FQDN, as appears in the certificate>/Autodiscover/Autodiscover.xml

set-WebServicesVirtualDirectory "\EWS (Default Web Site)" -InternalUrl https://public FQDN, as appears in the certificate>/EWS/Exchange.asmx

Wait a few minutes for implementation to complete.

0 comments - Posted by Brian Ricks at 10:00 AM - Categories: 2007 | Certificates | UC | Exchange

Free/busy (aka Calendar information) within Office Communicator 2007

I have been fielded multiple questions lately about the mysteries of the calendaring information within Office Communicator 2007. Why does my email and SIP URI need to be the same? Why does Communicator Web Access (CWA) not pull information but it can display it? Where does the information pull/push come from? What versions of Exchange server are supported?

Understanding how and where the calendering information is relatively simple - in fact, the basic concept for the user free/busy information is back-end agnostic - Outlook on the desktop is the key component. Office Communicator uses Outlook (natively 2003 sp2 and newer) to make MAPI calls to retrieve the information. This small detail means Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, and service pack level - it really does not matter (from a free/busy perspective) - the client can and will integrate!

This integration is possible when the user's SIP URI matches the user's email address; but what happens when this is not the case? If you install Office Communicator on a home computer and sign into your corporate OCS system, can (and should) it retrieve information from your local Outlook? It can (the should is up to you) if a simple registry change is made. By default Office Communicator compares the SIP URI to the email address of the default email profile and if they do not match, it does not integrate the two. The logic is simple - if the two integrate, conversation history, contacts, and free/busy will be folded into the OC experience. If they are not the same, an integration error is presented.

To modify the registry to all integration of your free/busy and conversation history regardless of your email address run regedt32 and set the following:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator
Key (you may have to create this yourself): DisableEmailComparisonCheck
DWORD: 00000001

Make sure Communicator restarts to load the new registry information (or simply log out and back in) to force the integration. Remember - this registry change will integrate ANY Outlook email address with ANY OCS login so test and make the end result is what you are looking for.

Posted by Brian Ricks at 2:23 AM - Categories: Communicator | UC | OC | OCS