Don’t Deploy Exchange Server 2016 on Windows Server 2016 For Now Due to Stability Issues

Since the release of Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 3 (CU3), which added support for installing Exchange 2016 onto Windows Server 2016 servers, there’s been a series of reports in support forums and blog comments about errors that customers are seeing.

Now Microsoft has acknowledged that there is in fact a known issue, and there is no current workaround for it.

If you attempt to run Microsoft Exchange 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016, you will experience errors in the IIS host process W3WP.exe. There is no workaround at this time. You should postpone deployment of Exchange 2016 CU3 on Windows Server 2016 until a supported fix is available.

That’s all the detail that has been publicly released by Microsoft at this time, but the guidance is clear. You should deploy Exchange 2016 only on Windows Server 2012 R2 until further notice.

Source: https://exchangeserverpro.com/dont-deploy-exchange-server-2016-windows-server-2016-now-due-stability-issues/

MS16-108: Security update for Exchange Server 2007/2010/2013/2016

Summary

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server. The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution in some Oracle Outside In Libraries that are built into Exchange Server. This issue might occur if an attacker sends an email message with a specially crafted attachment to a vulnerable Exchange Server computer. To learn more about this vulnerability, see Microsoft Security Bulletin MS16-108.

More information about this security update

The following articles contain more information about this security update as it relates to individual product versions.

  • 3184736 MS16-108: Description of the security update for Exchange Server 2016 and Exchange Server 2013: September 13, 2016
  • 3184728 MS16-108: Update Rollup 15 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 3: September 13, 2016
  • 3184711 MS16-108: Update Rollup 21 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 3: September 13, 2016

Cumulative Update 2 for Exchange Server 2016

.Net 4.6.1 Support

Support for .Net 4.6.1 is now available for Exchange Server 2016 and 2013 with these updates. We fully support customers upgrading servers running 4.5.2 to 4.6.1 without removing Exchange. We recommend that customers apply Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 2 or Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 13 before upgrading .Net FrameWork. Servers should be placed in maintenance mode during the upgrade as you would do when applying a Cumulative Update. Support for .Net 4.6.1 requires the following post release fixes for .Net as well.

Note: .Net 4.6.1 installation replaces the existing 4.5.2 installation. If you attempt to roll back the .Net 4.6.1 update, you will need to install .Net 4.5.2 again.

AutoReseed Support for BitLocker

Beginning with Exchange 2013 CU13 and Exchange 2016 CU2, the Disk Reclaimer function within AutoReseed supports BitLocker. By default, this feature is disabled. For more information on how to enable this functionality, please seeEnabling BitLocker on Exchange Servers.

SHA-2 Support for Self-Signed Certificates

The New-ExchangeCertificate cmdlet has been updated to produce a SHA-2 certificate for all self-signed certificates created by Exchange. Creating a SHA-2 certificate is the default behaviour for the cmdlet. Existing certificates will not automatically be regenerated but newly installed servers will receive SHA-2 certificates by default. Customers may opt to replace existing non-SHA2 certificates generated by previous releases as they see fit.

Migration to Modern Public Folder Resolved

The issue reported in KB3161916 has been resolved.

 

This cumulative update fixes the following issues:

This cumulative update also fixes the issues that are described in the KB 3160339 MS16-079: Security update for Microsoft Exchange: June 14, 2016 and KB 3134844 Cumulative Update 1 for Exchange Server 2016

Microsoft Knowledge Base articles.
This update also includes new daylight saving time (DST) updates for Exchange Server 2016. For more information about DST, go to Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Center.

Download: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52968

SSL3.0 Enabled after install Exchange 2013 Cumulative update

After installing a cumalitive update on Exchange 2013 SSL3.0 is weer enabled.

With the following script you can disable SSL3.0

DisableSSL3.0.ps1:
$keyPathRoot = “HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols”;
$keyPath = $keyPathRoot + “\SSL 3.0\Server”;
if (!(Test-Path $keyPath))
{
New-Item -path $keyPathRoot”\SSL 3.0″ -ItemType key -Name “Server” -Force;
}
Set-ItemProperty -path $keyPath -name “Enabled” -value 0x0 -Type DWORD -Force;

Thnx Andy David for the tip Smile

Configure your Exchange 2016 server with Configure-Echange2016.ps1

The Script is based on my Configure Exchange 2013 Script Download: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Configure-Exchange-2013-e0ffb2a6

At this moment there is only v1.0 so now new features.

You can download this script here:
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Configure-Exchange-2016-0e3c8288

Configure your Exchange 2013 server with Configure-Echange2013.ps1 Updated to V3.2

Updated to V3.2

Change List:

# V1.0 Begin
# V1.1 Added Some New Options 12-10-2014
# V1.2 Added Hyper-V Best Practise & NTFS Partition Offset
# V1.3 Added KB2995145 .NET Framework 4.5 garbage collector heap Fix
# V1.4 Added Set Minimum Disk Space Warning level (180GB Default CU6 200GB CU5)
# V1.5 Added Some new features
# V1.6 Changed the Layout & Add Move Arbitration Mailbox
# V1.7 Added PST Export & KB2990117
# V1.8 Added Full backup, Database in GB and Mailbox Size in GB Export CSV
# V1.9 Added Outlook AnyWhere & SafetyNetHoldTime
# V2.0 Added Check DatacenterActivationMode, Get-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork, Add Static Route, Disable Replation Network on DAG, Database Copies Per Volume (AutoReseed)
# V2.1 Added Edge Subscription
# V2.2 Added Check Transaction Log Growth
# V2.3 Changed the Menu to Submenu’s
# V2.4 Added Check Database White Space
# V2.5 Added MAPI HTTP External URL
# V2.6 Fixed OWA Virtual URL & HTTP URL
# V2.7 Added Fixes & Mountpoints & Changed Set Minimum Disk Space Warning Level from REG to GlobalOverride
# V2.8 Maintaince Added
# V2.9 Set Power to Highperformance
# V3.0 Check of Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.SnapIn is loaded
# V3.1 Added Set-OutlookProvider -Identity EXPR -CertPrincipalName msstd:*.domain.com & Set-OutlookProvider -Identity EXCH -CertPrincipalName msstd:*.domain.com
# V3.2 VMware Best Practises & Fixed soms things

Download: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Configure-Exchange-2013-e0ffb2a6

Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 1 May Cause Edge Server to Reject Email to Valid Recipients

News of a bug with Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 1 has emerged, with some customers running Exchange 2016 Edge Transport servers finding that the Edge server rejects emails sent to valid email addresses.

First reported by MVP Norbert Klenner, details of the bug have been added to the release notes for Exchange 2016.

Edge Transport servers can reject mail sent to valid recipients Exchange 2016 Edge Transport servers may reject messages sent to valid internal recipients when the following are true:

  • Exchange 2016 Cumulative Update 1 (CU1) is installed on the server.
  • Recipient validation is enabled on the server.

When an Edge Transport rejects a message because of this issue, the sender will receive a non-delivery report (NDR) with the status code 5.1.10, and the errorRecipient not found by SMTP address lookup. The recipient won’t receive the message.

From testing it appears that this bug impacts Edge Transport servers receiving email directly from the internet. Edge Transport servers that are used for hybrid mail flow with Exchange Online do not appear to be affected by this bug.

Microsoft’s advice to customers affected by this bug is to either:

  1. Disable recipient validation on Exchange 2016 CU1 Edge Transport servers
  2. Route inbound email to an Edge Transport server that has not been upgraded to Exchange 2016 CU1
  3. Route inbound email directly to a Mailbox server

If you prefer not to bypass their Edge Transport server, and don’t have a non-CU1 Edge to route email to, then disabling recipient filtering on the Edge Transport server involves running the following command on the Edge Transport server:

Set-RecipientFilterConfig -RecipientValidationEnabled $False

Source

Exchange Updates installing slow on Windows Server 2012 R2

For customers who are running Exchange on Windows Server 2012 R2, we want to make certain you are aware of a condition which can substantially increase the amount of time it takes to install Exchange Updates on this OS. Working with the .Net team, we have discovered that systems which have applied Windows Update KB3097966 can take 50% more time to install Exchange. The .Net team is working on a resolution to this and will include a fix in a future product update. In the meantime, customers who have deployed this Windows update can take a one-time action on their server before installing Exchange or a Cumulative Update to bring installation time back to normal. This procedure needs to be done once on every Exchange server running Windows Server 2012 R2. The command to execute is:

“%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\ngen.exe update”

Errors and warnings encountered running this command can be safely ignored provided the final exit status code of 0 is reported in the output.

Cumulative Update 1 for Exchange Server 2016

Exchange Team released:  Cumulative Update 1 for Exchange Server 2016

Issues that the cumulative update fixes

KB 3139730 Edge Transport service crashes when you view the properties of a poison message in Exchange Server 2016
KB 3135689 A custom SAP ODI URI is removed by ActiveSync from an email message in an Exchange Server environment
KB 3135688 Preserves the web.config file for Outlook Web App when you apply a cumulative update in Exchange Server 2016
KB 3135601 Cyrillic characters are displayed as question marks when you run the “Export-PublicFolderStatistics.ps1” script in an Exchange Server 2016 environment
KB 3124242 Mailbox quota is not validated during migration to Exchange Server 2013 or Exchange Server 2016

Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 1 (KB3134844), Download, UM Lang Packs

Cumulative Update 12 for Exchange Server 2013

Exchange team released CU12 for Exchange 2013

Issues that this cumulative update fixes:

KB 3143710 “Failed Search or Export” error occurs when an eDiscovery search in the Exchange Admin Center finishes

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