Excel 2003 hung or long load time for network files

MLamontagne — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:53:08 +0000

After applying Microsoft Office File Validation for Office 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2501584 users report Excel 2003 hanging when opening documents from a network share, or long load times.

Microsoft released a fix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2570623 but requires the user to be an administrator of their local machine.

To push the fix quickly to all users via GPO (not requiring local admin), create a logon script with the following entries:

ExcelOFVFIX.bat

:: OFV fix for excel
reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation" /f
reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation" /f /v EnableOnLoad /t REG_DWORD /d 0

Or create a reg file with the following entries and have each effected user run it:

ExcelOFVFIX.reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation]
"EnableOnLoad"=dword:00000000

Event ID: 2937 Process w3wp.exe, Property [GlobalAddressList] is pointing to the Deleted Objects container

MLamontagne — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:38:06 +0000

During a restart after installing SP1 for Exchange 2010 the event log would report Event ID: 2937

Process w3wp.exe () (PID=1796). Object [CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=####]. Property [GlobalAddressList] is set to value [####/Configuration/Deleted Objects/####/DEL:42677498-dfc0-40de-bdfe-8918bacb9042], it is pointing to the Deleted Objects container in Active Directory. This property should be fixed as soon as possible.

The solution was to open ADSIEDIT and connect to the domain.

Expand: “Configuration”,”CN=Configuration,DC=####”,”CN=Services”
On the left You should see: “CN=Microsoft Exchange”
Right Click on the “CN=Microsoft Excahnge” container and chose properties
Find “globalAddressList” in the list
Select and click “Edit” on “globalAddressList”
Select and click “Remove” on the values that point to Deleted Items “0ADEL…”.
Click “OK”, then “Apply”, and finally “OK” again.
Restart Server and verify Event Log.

Customize Outlook Web App themes in Exchange 2010 sp1

MLamontagne — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:40:17 +0000

Customizing themes for OWA requires understanding the changes Exchange 2010 sp1 has done with theme management and the addition of new themes.

OWA Theme selection (about 28 themes to choose from):

Customizing all these themes would be painful. Thankfully you can disable users from being able to change OWA themes.

Using EMC GUI: Disable the Theme Selection option in the segmentation tab of OWA (Default Web Site) in Client Access under Server Configuration.

Using PowerShell:

set-owavirtualdirectory -identity "\owa (default web site)" -themeselectionenabled $false

OWA Theme selection removed:

I’ll be going over modifying an existing theme. Detailed information for creating a new theme can be found: Create a Theme for Outlook Web App

The OWA themes are stored:
\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ClientAccess\Owa\\themes\

*Theme location changes as Exchange service packs or rollups are installed. Customizations will need to be copied to the new path after major updates.*

To set the default theme from powershell if not modifying the base theme:

set-owavirtualdirectory -identity "\owa (default web site)" -defaulttheme NewCustomtheme

Replacing the favicon.ico and the logo used for the signon and signoff screens can be done by replacing the favicon.ico and lgntopl.gif contained in the resources folder:
\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ClientAccess\Owa\\themes\resources\

favicon.ico (16 x 16)
lgntopl.gif (456 x 115)

lgntop1.gif before and after:

Updating the Logo used in OWA is a little harder as it’s contained in a sprite map in the csssprites.png file located:
\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ClientAccess\Owa\\themes\

looking at the csssprites.css file located in the same directory as the png shows the logo is 144 x 42:

.sprites-logoowa-png{background-image:url(‘csssprites.png’);background-position:-62px 0px;width: 144px;height: 42px;}

When modifying the csssprites.png file remember to keep images the same size and location as the original, otherwise major changes to the csssprites.css will be required.

csssprites.png before and after:

OWA main before and after (Including favicon.ico changes):

Exchange 2010 sp1 Mailbox export to PST

MLamontagne — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:28:35 +0000

In Exchange 2010, Outlook was required to be installed on the server in order to export a mailbox to PST. This is no longer the case and the MailboxExportRequest commandlet runs without any additional requirements after the install of Exchange 2010 sp1, except the user must have the “Mailbox Import Export” role.
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee633455.aspx#Exp)

Syntax:


# Export request command
New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox "name" -FilePath "\\uncpath\name.pst"

# Check on request status
Get-MailboxExportRequest | Get-MailboxExportRequestStatistics

# Remove request after completion
Get-MailboxExportRequest |Remove-MailboxExportRequest

Exchange 2010 sp1 OWA password reset

MLamontagne — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:59:41 +0000

Exchange 2010 sp1 contains the reset user password feature in Outlook Web App, but it’s disabled by default. (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb684904.aspx)

To enable this feature, make the following changes on all CAS servers in your environment:

In registry editor, navigate to: HLKM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchange OWA
Create or modify the following DWORD entry: ChangeExpiredPasswordEnabled and set the value to 1.

Changes to OWA

ActiveSync device connection errors

MLamontagne — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:50:00 +0000

While trying to connect a couple sample devices to Exchange 2010 ActiveSync, I came across the following errors while setting the test email account:

iPhone error: “The connection to the server failed”

Android error: “Unable to open connection to server”

Looking at the Exchange server’s event logs, I found EventID 1053: “Exchange ActiveSync doesn’t have sufficient permissions to create the… container under Active Directory user…”

To resolve this issue, enable the Advanced Security permission: “Include inheritable permissions from the object’s parent” for the effected user within Active Directory.

Exchange 2010 management console: “An error caused a change in the current set of domain controllers…”

MLamontagne — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:12:43 +0000

While using the Exchange 2010 Management Console and navigating to the recipient mailbox, I received:

An error caused a change in the current set of domain controllers. It was running the command ‘Get-Recipient -PropertySet ConsoleLargeSet -resultSize ’1000′ -SortBy DisplayName -RecipientType ‘UserMailbox”.

This error started to occur shortly after the decommission of our old primary domain controller.

To fix this error, close the EMC and delete the xml file:

“C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\MMC\Exchange Management Console”

Outlook 2010 thumbnailPhoto in Active Directory

MLamontagne — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:30:55 +0000

While testing Outlook 2010 on Exchange 2010, I found the GAL now supports photos (out of the box… almost)

Requirements (GAL Photos in Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010):

Outlook 2010 (Note: Exchange 2010 OWA doesn’t retrieve AD photos).
AD forest upgraded to support 2008 domain controllers (adprep, not Function Level).
Modify the thumbnailPhoto attribute in AD schema to replicate to the Global Catalog.

Uploading photos into AD can be done using the Exchange cmdlet: Import-RecipientDataProperty, but is limited to a max 10k photo size.

Import-RecipientDataProperty -Identity Michael -Picture -FileData ([Byte[]]$(Get-Content -Path "S:\Staff_Photos\Michael.jpg" -Encoding Byte -ReadCount 0))

I came across this free tool: ADPhotoEdit which can push the size limit to 100k and has a pretty awesome gui. There is a paid version which includes bulk features.

Update: Outlook 2003-2007 can access the thumbnailPhoto if the Outlook Social Connector is installed and the thumbnailPhoto property in OAB is changed from an indicator to a value. (Updating OAB & Deploying OSC)

Collection of freeware tools

MLamontagne — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:20:42 +0000

Over the years I have used many of the freeware utilities found on these sites:

List Local Admins from list of computers

MLamontagne — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:13:29 +0000

I came across this Blog posting: Brian Desmond, while looking for a simple script to list all the users that had Local Administrator rights to their computer.

DumpLocalAdministrators.vbs (click “show source” below)

'==========================================================================
' NAME: Dump Local Administrators Membership
'
' AUTHOR: Brian Desmond,
' DATE  : 4/16/2007
'==========================================================================

Option Explicit

Const LogFile = "LocalAdmins.log"
Const resultFile = "LocalAdministratorsMembership.csv"
Const inputFile = "computers.txt"

Dim fso
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Dim shl
Set shl = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Dim fil
Set fil = fso.OpenTextFile(inputFile)

Dim results
Set results = fso.CreateTextFile(resultFile, True)

WriteToLog "Beginning Pass of " & inputFile & " at " & Now()
'WScript.Echo "Beginning Pass of " & inputFile & " at " & Now()
'On Error Resume Next

Dim grp
Dim line
Dim exec
Dim pingResults
Dim member

While Not fil.AtEndOfStream
	line = fil.ReadLine

	Set exec = shl.Exec("ping -n 2 -w 1000 " & line)
  	pingResults = LCase(exec.StdOut.ReadAll)

 	If InStr(pingResults, "reply from") Then
 		WriteToLog line & " responded to ping"
 		'WScript.Echo line & " responded to ping"

 		'On Error Resume Next

		Set grp = GetObject("WinNT://" & line & "/Administrators")

		'WScript.Echo line & ", Administrators"
		results.WriteLine line & ",Administrators,"

		For Each member In grp.Members
			'WScript.Echo 	"Administrators: " & member.Name
			WriteToLog line & ": Administrators - " & member.Name
			results.WriteLine ",," & member.Name
		Next
	Else
		WriteToLog line & " did not respond to ping"
		'WScript.Echo line & " did not respond to ping"
	End If
Wend

results.Close

Sub WriteToLog(LogData)
	On Error Resume Next

	Dim fil
	'8 = ForAppending
	Set fil = fso.OpenTextFile(LogFile, 8, True)

	fil.WriteLine(LogData)

	fil.Close
	Set fil = Nothing
End Sub