Tuesday, June 30, 2009

PowerShell at the tip of your browser By Shay Levy

Shay Levy has a great Power Shell browser toolbar using Conduit community toolbars. It is incredible useful , will take you tons of resources with a single click…..

here is his blog and link to download it

 

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best,

Oz Casey Dedeal,

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)

Monday, June 29, 2009

Hot Dog without ketchup PowerShell Without Power GUI (-:

Beside joke, the reality is that Power GUI and PG Script editor  are such a powerful tools, I cannot imagine not having them a side and using PowerShell (-: without it.

Now we will have scheduled job and one of the reports we did generate by using PowerGUI to e-mail to us everyday. Once you get this down you can have any reports to be e-mailed to a group or yourself.

Step one

Open PowerGUI and bring up the mailbox report script we have done on the previous article, click below to download it

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Now go to your C drive and create folder called “PSScript” or anything you wish to call

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Open Command line, go to came directory,  copy and paste below


powershell -command "& {C:\PSScript\MailBoxReport.ps1}"

 

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When you hit enter you get command prompt back

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Now open your e-mail to make sure it worked

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Remember when you download the script you need to change the from to address and so forth just read the comments in the script

  • Now let’s create the .BAT file which will execute the MailBoxReport script
  • Open notepad in the same directory
  • Copy and paste the same command

powershell -command "& {C:\PSScript\MailBoxReport.ps1}"

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  • Do not forget to put Quotes beginning and ending otherwise you will end up having TXT file (-: instead of batch file

To test it double click on it

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Go back to outlook and verify again you got the mail

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Almost done

All you need to do is to use scheduled task and define how many times you want the report (-:

I recommend using DL to sent these e-mails and adding people who should see these type of information every day.

I am going to continue to keep posting creating different type of reports and as you can imagine you can PS script the entire AD and Exchange so easy with POWER GUI (-:

All credits again goes to POWER GUI it is incredible  amazing tool , I am loving it more every other day (-:

 

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Oz Casey Dedeal,

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)

Bulk Changes with PowerGUI

In this article we will find users who's names start with letter “H” and we will make some bulk changes on these users by using PowerGUI and power shell….

First open PGUI and use build in container Active directory and click on users as shown below.

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Now  use filters to capture the HR users

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Click Apply and results are here

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on right pane there are set of functions, 

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All you need to do is pick one and you will make the bulk changes. Now I am sure you are convinced how easy to use PowerGUI, how about the PS script got executed in the background, and did the actual work, would it be nice if you could see that so that you would try to understand the PS script itself.

Fair enough on the bottom of the PowerGUI click PowerShell code

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As you see the last line is the PS code provided desired results

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Now copy and paste this into PGUI script editor

| where { $_.'DisplayName'  -like  'H*' } | Select-Object -property 'Name', 'Type', 'DN'


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This is not going to produce the same results as we are missing the very first piece of the PS Code, go back to PSC ( code) GUI,

Take a look at the starting line, to see the PS starting codeimage

now copy this and paste into PGU Script editor combining with first one


Get-QADUser



Get-QADUser |where { $_.'DisplayName'  -like  'H*' } | Select-Object -property 'Name', 'Type', 'DN'


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click on Run

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You get the same results

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Now you got the idea you don’t have to know PS to make it work, all you need is PowerGUI (-:, as you see PowerGUI is incredible easy to use and very useful to learn the PS.

Now you can be more creative and use same simple technique go back to PGUI,  find the folder you created,

  • New
  • Script node
  • paste the same code there

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Give it any name you like

 

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Now you have your special query picking up users who's name is starting with letter “H”

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PS is fairly simple to learn if you have the right tool, PG is one of the best tool out there and makes life easy so go download the PGUI if you have not done it and register the forums to ask any question you wish to experts to help you out, once you start hanging to it I recommend buying a PS book and start getting deep into it

I don't have a recommended book yet (-: as soon as I find out one, I will be happy to share with you the name of the book ……

All credits goes to PowerGUI (-:

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Oz Casey Dedeal,

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)

Saturday, June 27, 2009

OWA Exchange 2010 New look and Features and Improvements

Each version of exchange OWA seems to be improving and new functions been added, in Exchange 2010 , some of these features seems to be, right on the spot. Beside its neat look and easy interface, OWA 2010 is promising....

Users can perform basic search to e-mail they have sent this will give extra information to user , what happen to their e-mails. For instance I can search e-mails I sent to certain e-mail addresses

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I am going to search for E-mail I sent to “telnet25@Gmail.com

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here is the output from search

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I can click on delivery report to see what happen to my e-mail

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As you see in the details there are dates showing message is sent successfully to the recipient…..

I think the future is pretty need and intend to give more information to the user in regards to their e-mail and hopefully this might cut off some of the help desk calls

Another Neat future is improvement GALMODE (-:, remember that from exchange 5.5, users are having ability to change their own personal information.

under account settings here is where you can change the personal information

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Beside this users can also create Groups and invite others to be member for the gorups they own.

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Real smart futures and very useful in my opinion, Exchange team seems to have done great job by making it east to navigate and took more task off the helpdesk and give it to user…….

What is new in Exchange 2010

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Oz Casey Dedeal

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)

Friday, June 26, 2009

Send Mail With Attachment Using PowerGUI

Here is another nice PS script made by PowerGUI and this script will sent “ attachment” along with the e-mail. You can imagine where we will be using this script, all scripts we have created within the PowerGUI can be integrated with this script and we can automatically sent attachments.

Click here to download

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#Send mail with attachment Script by Oz Casey Dedeal
#Send mail with attachment Script
#Created with PowerGUI
#I cannot thank enough to PowerGUI, it is life saver (-:
#If you want your hands get dirty go download PG from www.powergui.org
# This PS Script is worked by Oz Casey Dedeal all Credits goes to PowerGUI (-:
#Send an email
$FromAddress = "report@telnet25.org"
$ToAddress = "odedeal@telnet25.org"
$MessageSubject = "Mailbox Size Report"
$MessageBody = "Please see the Mailbox report"
# Mail2 is my Relay Server, Change this to your own Relay Server
# Make sure port 25 is open, there is no firewall turned on, might me blocking port 25, if you are not going to run this from relay server itself
$SendingServer = "Mail2"
$SMTPMessage = New-Object System.Net.Mail.MailMessage $FromAddress, $ToAddress, $MessageSubject, $MessageBody
# Make sure this directory is Valid, I used C drive and created folder called Report from my workstation
$Attachment = New-Object Net.Mail.Attachment("c:\Report\report.csv")
$SMTPMessage.Attachments.Add($Attachment)
$SMTPClient = New-Object System.Net.Mail.SMTPClient $SendingServer
$SMTPClient.Send($SMTPMessage)
# now mail is sent check your mailbox

  • You can also copy and paste the script included above table
  • Make sure port 25 is open if you are going to be using your workstation
  • Make sure from your workstation , relay is allowed to the relay server
  • Make sure you can resolve the name of the relay server
  • Make sure you created the folder on your C Drive ( change this as you wish)

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Oz Casey Dedeal

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Text Message Notification Exchange 2010

Here is another real nice future build into Exchange 2010, being able to turn on “Test Messaging” right from OWA. by the way OWA interface is incredible useful , easy to find things and so much close to desktop outlook experience….. 

Some of the clients I supported would find this future very useful since , imagine you can open your OWA and turn on notification to your cell phone with 3 click. You can also set the notification to e-mails or calendar notification

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  • To set up e-mail notification select the sender from address list ,
  • When e-mail arrives , Received from “Sender@yourdomain.com
  • do fallowing
  • Send test message

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The bottom line is there are so  many good futures build into Exchange 2010, refusing to go for it will be hard decision (-:

Beside simple test messaging many other strong changes will save big $$$ for businesses and I am pretty sure exchange 2010 will be the best version of all exchange versions.

 

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What is new in exchange 2010

Oz Casey Dedeal

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Exchange 2010 & New Futures

I just finished building new Exchange 2010 org and posting the screenshots for those who did not have chance to see the new OWA, and its beautiful interface coped with many great futures.

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As you have noticed on the bottom I have “archived mailbox” The idea is to give more with Exchange 2010, and product itself has many improvements. before I start talking about 2010, I would like to say it one more time, the exchange team has done “Incredible work” and I truly believe this is the best version of all in many aspects. so thanks to Exchange team and all its members for their hard work !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Exchange always suffered so far with performance in my perspective and therefore it could not offer more, unlikely the version 2010, the major changes on message table schema and its structure allowed Exchange 2010 to run another 70 percent lighter on top of version 2007 and result is no more I/O  fair , this does not mean we still have to pay attention when we deploy exchange but since the 2010 is much lighter application , it did not have any problem including “ Second mailbox” linked to production called archived mailbox and not to worry about performance or the RAID configuration.

Exchange is becoming more like Active directory domain controllers, meaning ability to be redundant out the box as long as you stood up more then one exchange server.

Watch or download the part 1

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Watch or download the part 2

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Watch or download the part 3

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Watch or download the part 4

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Database mobility , mailbox database  gets replicated to other Exchange servers in your SMTP organization

DAG: Group of 16 Mailbox server ( max) which can host set of replicated mail databases. Mailbox copied on other servers kept in synch via “Data replication”

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Database availability Groups,

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learn more watch the videos

Oz Casey Dedeal

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Named Properties, Round 2: What lies Ahead

This is a nice post needs your input for named properties for x-headers, Exchange team is asking and need your input

So, the questions I ask are: ( exchange Team)

  1. Do you own or run an application which requires a custom x-header to be promoted to a property but does NOT create the mapping?
  2. Do you own or run an application which uses an IMAP header search for a custom x-header.

Things that aren't on the table:

  • Ability to remove named properties.
  • Ability to pre-register named properties.

Please click here for full article

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Oz Casey Dedeal

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

PS Sent Mail Script

This time we will have PS to sent mail with Subject and Body we will define within the PS parameters. You can imagine what will be the upcoming articles about shortly , plugging this into PS script  and using PS to sent automated e-mails or alerts as you wish.

This little script is just going to sent mail out……..

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# From relay@smtp25.org  This is from address Change it as you wish
# To oz@smtp25.org this is To address
# This is Subject line "Testing PS Script mail"
# This is Body of this E-mail "This script will E-mail you from Power Shell"
# smtpserver="HTS2" HTS2 is my Hub Transfer server, replace this to #your own
# Finally make sure Port 25 is not Blocked from where ever you running #this from and relay is working
$smtpserver="HTS2"
$smtp=New-Object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($smtpserver)
$smtp.send("relay@smtp25.org","oz@smtp25.org","Testing PS Script mail ","This script will E-mail you from Power Shell")

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open your outlook you will see the e-mail. all credits goes to  powershellcommunity.org, and PowerGUI (-: for making live easy

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Oz Casey Dedeal

MVP (Exchange)
MCITP (EMA), MCITP (SA)
MCSE 2003, M+, S+, MCDST
Security+, Project +, Server +

Http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.spaces.live.com (Blog)

Https://telnet25.worldpress.com (Blog)