I like to configure my VMWare Guests to manual startup/shutdown because I use the host for both as a management platform and a developer workstation.

To assist me with managing such environment, i use VI Tookit. Only 1.0 is compatible with VMWare Server 2.0, here. Install it on either x86 or amd64 box. Then, add a few lines of configuration to initialize the PSSnapin into your user’s PowerShell profile location:

Add-PSSnapin Vmware.VimAutomation.core
. "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\Infrastructure\VIToolkitForWindows\Scripts\Initialize-VIToolkitEnvironment.ps1"

Fire up PowerShell and you can do the following now

Connect-VIServer -Server "vmware_host" -Port 8333
get-vm sqldev2k8 | shutdown-vmguest

Windows Management Framework was released!

I always like playing with management tools for windows since dos days.  I think the release of Windows Management Framework at the end of October is truly the next step in Microsoft console/command-line tooling revolution.  Thank you, Jeffrey Snover.

Converting Mail-Enabled recipient to Mailbox-Enabled recipient

    Out of the box, MS Exchange 2003/2007 do not offer any kind of way converting a mail-enabled recipient (MEU) into a mailbox-enabled recpieint (MBXU).  At first, you would think that scenario is least likely. Mail-enabled recipients forward to outside of exchange organization and why would you create a mailbox.  Well, in complex environments where organization has multiple email systems and a user wants to migrate to exchange but already utilizes AD, or if your organization is going through a complex migration.

    To convert an MEU into MBXU, we could just strip the AD object of exchange attributes and then ask exchange to create a mailbox.  However, you will notice that there might be side effects. Any secondary emails that might be attached to the MEU are now gone.  Secondly, a less trivial issue, is that repliability of emails which contain MEU address book entry is now broken. To fix these both, you’ll need to track secondary emails and legacyExchangeDn of the MEU and append them to proxyAddresses attribute when MBXU is created.

$userIdentity = 'testuser'
$mailboxDatabase = exserver\mbxdb'
$err = @()
$user = Get-MailUser -Identity $userIdentity `
         -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable +err
if ($err.count -ne 0)
{
    Write-Error 'The user is not a mail-enabled user.'
    return;
}
$mbxDB = Get-MailboxDatabase -Identity $mailboxDatabase `
        -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable +err
if ($err.count -ne 0)
{
    Write-Error "The database value is incorrect."
    return;
}
$extAddress = $user.ExternalEmailAddress
$currAddresses = $user.EmailAddresses
$legDn = $user.LegacyExchangeDn
Disable-MailUser $user -Confirm:$false | Out-Null
$mbxUser = Enable-Mailbox $user -Confirm:$false `
                       -Database $mailboxDatabase 
$addresses = $mbxUser.EmailAddresses
if ($mbxUser.LegacyExchangeDn -ne $legDn) {
    $addresses.add("X500:$legDn")
}
$currAddresses | ?{ $_ -ne $extAddress } | %{
    if ( -not $addresses.Contains($_)) {
        $addresses.Add($_) | Out-Null
    }
}
if ($addresses.Changed) {
    Set-mailbox $mbxUser `
                -EmailAddresses $addresses | Out-Null
}

Working with Active Directory Dates

Recently, my friend and colleague asked me about how to limit an ldap search to only return objects that were created after a certain date. 'whenCreated' should be a logical choice to solve that. However, this attribute has an interesting format, see this reference. So, i marked up a few functions to help us work with the date naturally within Powershell.

function ConvertToAdDate([DateTime]$date) {
   "{0:0000}{1:00}{2:00}{3:00}{4:00}{5:00}.0Z" -f $date.year,$date.month, `
           $date.day, $date.Hour, $date.Minute, $date.Second
}
function ConvertFromAdDate([String] $date) {
   $pattern = `
      '^(?<year>\d{4})(?<month>\d{2})(?<day>\d{2})(?<hrs>\d{2})`
              (?<min>\d{2})(?<sec>\d{2})\.0Z$'
   $match = [regex]::Match($date,$pattern)
   if ($match.success) {
       $result = New-Object System.DateTime($match.groups["year"].value,`
           $match.groups["month"].value,$match.groups["day"].value,`
           $match.groups["hrs"].value,$match.groups["min"].value, `
           $match.groups["sec"].value,[DateTimeKind]::Utc)
       $result.ToLocalTime()
   } else {
       $null
   }
}

Purging Mailboxes In Exchange 2003

I have recently demonstrated how to Purge a mailbox in Exchange 2007 but did not show anything for Exchange 2003. Here is what I do to purge mailboxes on Exchange 2003 server.

$list = gwmi -ComputerName "ex2k3srv" -Class Exchange_Mailbox -Namespace Root\MicrosoftExchangeV2 | ?{ $_.DateDiscoveredAbsentInDS -ne $null }
$list | %{ $_.Purge() }

Purging Mailboxes in Exchange 2007

We all know how vastly different Exchange 2007 Management Console (EMC) is from Exchange System Manager (ESM) in Exchange 2003. The other day I had to test a migration for work and realized that I no longer have an easy ability to purge mailboxes through EMC just like I used to in ESM:

Under the hood, selecting Purge in ESM calls Exchange_Mailbox.Purge method.
In Exchange 2007, WMI is gone. So Powershell comes to the rescue.
After reviewing "Remove-Mailbox" reference at TechNet, it sounds like "-Permanent" should be piped when removing the user and that's it. However, things are not that simple.
If mailbox is already disassociated, then I can query a list of disconnected mailboxes like this:

Get-MailboxStatistics | ?{ $_.DisconnectDate -ne $null}

Now, I need to pipe the "Remove-Mailbox", but which parameters do I choose?
It took me some mocking around but it turns out this is what you need:

Get-MailboxStatistics | ?{ $_.DisconnectDate -ne $null} | `
 %{ Remove-Mailbox -Database "Mailbox Database" `
    -StoreMailboxIdentity $_.MailboxGuid -WhatIf:$false} 

PowerShell Team is working hard, and for a good reason

So, I am involved lately in issues other than Exchange administration. However, I've always liked to keep tabs on what's new. Powershell team recently came out with their new CTP2 of Powershell V2. The hot buzz so far is Remoting features, but they do require understanding of WinRm. Anyone who wants to stay in the Exchange development scene for a few years to come would need to understand both platforms.

Getting Export-Mailbox Cmdlet to work

After installing Exchange 2007 SP1 Management Tools on Windows 2003 SP2 x86 and Outlook 2007 with SP1, the export-mailbox cmdlet was returning this error:

Export-Mailbox : Error was found for "Name" () because: Error occurred in the step: Approving object. An unknown error has occurred., error code: -2147221233

Running FixMapi.exe from the command prompt easily fixes the problem.