UC Unleashed

Microsoft has released Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Exchange Server 2007.

The 800+MB download is just like SP1 – a full install package that incorporates the Service Pack. Existing installations can be upgraded, as new installs can be completed with the Service Pack integrated.

Service Pack 3 also includes support for running Exchange on Windows Server 2008 R2 – a much sought after feature, and for running the Management tools on Windows 7.

Update: I guess it would help if I included a download link.

The Exchange Product Group has finally released to the public some information regarding the upcoming service pack for Exchange 2010. A coming beta will allow admins to test in their own labs.

Among the cool features are:

Import PST Files

1. Import historical e-mail data from PST files directly into Exchange 2010

Archive

1. locate the Personal Archive on a different mailbox database than primary mailbox
2. Delegate access to a user’s Personal Archive
3. Support access to a user’s Personal Archive in Outlook 2007

Search

1. Multi-Mailbox Search (aka Discovery): Search preview to obtain an estimate of number of items in search result-set with keyword statistics— before messages are copied to the discovery mailbox
2. Multi-Mailbox Search: Search result de-duplication— only copies one instance of a message to the discovery mailbox, reduces amount of messages you need to review following the search
3. Multi-Mailbox Search: Annotation of reviewed items

OWA

1. OWA: Pre-fetch message content
2. OWA: Delete, mark-as-read, and categorize operations run asynchronously
3. OWA: Long-running operations such as attaching a very large file will not block the rest of the OWA experience
4. OWA: Number of other UI improvements
5. OWA: Web-Ready Document Viewing of IRM-protected documents in Safari on a Mac, and FireFox and Internet Explorer on Windows
6. OWA: OWA themes are back!
7. OWA: Reading pane can be placed on the bottom or on the right

Calendar Sharing

1. Users can share calendars with anonymous viewers via the web (provided the admin enables the capability)

Mobility

1. Mobility: Tether-free IRM support in EAS
2. Mobility: Support for Send-As
3. Mobility: Notifying users if their device is placed on block or quarantine
4. Mobility: Full implementation of conversation view

Management UI: Exchange 2010 SP1 brings plenty of new management UI in both EMC and ECP, including:

1. Create/configure Retention Tags + Retention Policies in EMC
2. Configure Transport Rules in ECP
3. Configure Journal Rules in ECP
4. Configure MailTips in ECP
5. Provision and configure Personal Archive in ECP
6. Configure Litigation Hold in ECP
7. Configure Allow/Block/Quarantie mobile device policies in ECP
8. RBAC role management in ECP
9. Configure DAG IP Addresses and Alternate Witness Server in EMC
10. Recursive public folder settings management (including permissions) in EMC

For more information, including a video, see the Product Groups blog post “Yes Virginia, there is an Exchange Server 2010 SP1“, as well as Bharat Suneja’s blog post “Announced: Exchange 2010 SP1, Beta in June“.

Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Exchange Server 2007.

The 800+MB download is just like SP1 – a full install package that incorporates the Service Pack. Existing installations can be upgraded, as new installs can be completed with the Service Pack integrated.

Microsoft states: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) has been designed specifically to help meet the challenges of any business and the needs of all the different groups with a stake in the messaging system. Exchange Server 2007 SP2 is a mission-critical communications tool that enables employees to be more productive and access their information anywhere and anytime while providing a messaging system that enables rich, efficient access to e-mail, calendar items, voice mail, and contacts. For the administrator, Exchange Server 2007 SP2 provides advanced protection options against e-mail security threats, such as spam and viruses, as well as the tools to help manage internal compliance and high availability needs.

Service Pack 2 also includes the much anticipated backup option that the product group announced in May. It also includes some key components that allow for coexistence with Exchange 2010.

Service Pack 2 requires Windows Installer 4.5, which will require a reboot once installed.

The Service Pack can be downloaded in both x86 and x64 flavors here.

Update 02-25-2010: The method defined below is NOT supported for UPGRADING servers, such as new service packs and rollups. This method is ONLY for NEW installations.

Note: The Service Packs and Update Rollups mentioned here are no longer current, but the process is still the same. Simply substitute the latest SP and UR packages when using this process.

One of the very slick features built into the setup routines of Exchange Server 2007 is the ability to install Exchange with service packs and rollups already applied. Microsoft has previously provided this feature in operating system installations via it’s slipstreaming process, but the Exchange 2007 method is even easier.

The Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 download is a full install, so you can install Exchange directly from that download, instead of having to install Exchange first, then the service pack. This alone will save you some time. But we can shorten this up further by incorporating the latest Rollup package into the install as well.

When you look at the file structure of an Exchange 2007 RTM DVD, you see something like:

\Forefront
\Scripts
\Setup
\UM
\Updates
autorun.inf
EXCHANGESERVER.msi
relnotes.htm
Setup.com
Setup.EXE

But when you download the SP1 file and expand it, you’ll notice that the \UM and \Forefront folders don’t exist. That’s because those components are not part of the SP1 download. The SP1 Unified Messaging language packs are available as a separate download. Due to their size, I can certainly understand why Microsoft provides them as separate downloads. You can also download an updated version of Forefront including the latest service pack via a separate download. The rest of the file is a full, complete set of Exchange installation
files.

The clue here is the \Updates folder. The latest rollup, which, as of this time is Service Pack 1 Rollup 2, can be installed at the same time by placing the rollup .msp file in the \Updates folder of your installation point. By doing that, the setup routine will automatically apply the rollup as it installs Exchange.

If you’re doing unattended installations, you can also specify the directory containing updates using the /UpdatesDir switch. For more information on unattended installs, see How to Install Exchange 2007 in Unattended Mode

If you do a lot of Exchange installs, you might want to put together a full DVD by downloading the SP1 file, the rollup file, Forefront, and the UM language packs and tossing them onto a DVD or thumbdrive, recreating the original folder structure. An interesting note in that the Exchange autoplay program checks for the existence of the Forefront folder to determine if the install option should be displayed on the menu.

I also include the 32bit SP1 download so I can install the management tools on workstations, as well as the 32 and 64 bit versions of the prerequisites, .Net Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 (32 bit)(64 bit), Management Console 3.0 (32 bit), and PowerShell. This gives me a full set of everything needed to install Exchange server, right on a thumbdrive, without having to resort to lengthy downloads.

As we can see, we don’t need to sit and watch the blue bars go by as we wait for files to download. We can speed up the time it takes to deploy Exchange.