Lync shows ‘The address book is preparing to synchronize. Search result might not be current.’

Error

When user try to search one Lync user from Lync client user gets a message that ‘The address book is preparing to synchronize. Search result might not be current.’

Solution

1. From the client system, logoff from Lync client and close it.
2. Open registry editor [Use regedit] .
3. From Registry Editor browse through and go to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator’
   
4. Create a DWORD value by name ‘GalDownloadInitialDelay’ with value ‘0’
5. Go to ‘%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Communicator’ and open the folder by user’s sip-address.
6. Delete ‘GalContacts.db.idx’ and ‘GalContacts.db’
   
7. Start Lync client and wait for some time the error message should be gone.

Update-CsAddressBook fails with below Error="Retrieving the COM ….

 

Description

Update-CsAddressBook fails with below error.

Update-CsAddressBook : Error="Retrieving the COM class factory for remote component with CLSID {2766B7D8-C4FA-4617-9718 -31198883538A} from machine 10.33.243.20 failed due to the following error: 80070005.", Possible causes="Make sure that the Lync Server Front-End service is correctly installed and is running on the computer: "10.33.243.20"."
At line:1 char:21
+ Update-CsAddressBook <<<<
+ CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Update-CsAddressBook], DcomException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DCOM_TYPE_CREATION,Microsoft.Rtc.Management.AddressBook.Cmdlet.UpdateAddressBookCmdlet

Solution

1. Add the ‘RTCUniversalServerAdmins into local admin group from where the command fails.
2. Log off and login and run the command again. It should work

‘Unable to connect to the remote server’ error when try to open SQL reporting link

 

You may get an error while configuring the reporting service and opening the reporting service URL stating that ‘Unable to connect to the remote server’. This error normally visible when you change the default reporting DB name or reporting URL.

Solution

From the SQL server where you have reporting DBs configured,

1. Go to the ReportServer folder [By default its C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.3\Reporting Services\ReportServer]

A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the SQL Server Reporting Services (Sql Instance name) service to connect.

 

Error

A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the SQL Server Reporting Services (SQLDB04) service to connect.

Reason

A timeout was reached (30000 milliseconds) while waiting for the SQL Server Reporting Services (MSSQLSERVER) service to connect.

Solution

To solve this issue you have add registry key with higher value than 30000 milliseconds.

Here are the steps to do so,

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

How to check SRV records by using ‘nslookup’

Even though the nslookup is very familiar to lot people its a so confusing tool to always Yesterday I had spent lot of time to see whether the srv record which i have created for Lync 2010 is correct or not.

Oops! I didn't mention why I wanted to verify from the client side, I did setup lync 2010 for my client but auto-login for the client was not working. When setup the client to use the server name manually it worked. You all know that, when client starts it always search for _sipinternaltls SRV records its configured to auto-login.

Lets come back to the point how we can check SRV records from nslookup, here is the steps.

1. Open cmd and type nslookup and press enter key
2. Inside nalookup type ‘set type=all’ and press enter.
   
3. Type ‘_sipinternal._tcp.domainname.com’ and press enter
   
4. You will be able to see the SRV record details of _sipinternaltls record. The same way can be followed for any other records like _ladp.

SQL Express Edition Backup by SQLCMD fails with error ‘Named Pipes Provider: Could not open’

Issue

Today I came across a situation that SQL backup by using script with SQLCMD fails.
Below is the error I got,

HResult 0x2, Level 16, State 1
Named Pipes Provider: Could not open a connection to SQL Server [2].
Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 10.0 : A network-related or instance-specific error has occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. Server is not found or not accessible. Check if instance name is correct and if SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. For more information see SQL Server Books Online..
Sqlcmd: Error: Microsoft SQL Server Native Client 10.0 : Login timeout expired.

Set Permission on Enterprise Vault Accounts with EVPM

Here we are going to discuss how to set permission on some EV account to a user by using EVPM script. Below script will help you with the same.

1. Create a file with notepad and save the same in UNICODE format, with an .ini extension.
2. Copy below script to the .ini file created in 1st step and modify with your environmental value on DirectoryComputerName, SiteName, ArchiveName and  Yourdomain\User.

Install Exchange server 2013 Preview

Here is the step by step instructions to install Exchange server 2013 preview version on the LAB. In this scenario I am installing Exch 2013 on Windows server 2008 R2 system.
Preparation Tasks
1. Log the server where you are going install Exchange 2013. In this example server version is Windows 2008 R2 SP2
2. Open powershell and type ‘import-module servermanager.
Then enter ‘Add-windowsFeature rsat-adds’ please refer the below screenshot.

How to Use EVDuplicateCleaner.exe

Symantec has found that under some circumstances post-processing failed to convert items to shortcuts resulting in duplicates in the archive. They have released a tool called EVDUplicateCleaner and the same is available in ClickHere. Since the documentation for the tool is not that clear I thought of writing my experience with the tool here

1 Create report of duplicated items

The tool has 2 options to create reports one is ‘summary’ and other is ‘report ‘. Summary gives you a just summary and report gives you detailed report of duplicate items from a specified archive or entire archive from a specific EV Store.

How to set ‘Archive Usage Limit’ above 16GB for a user in Enterprise Vault

Issue
When you try to set ‘Archive Usage Limit’ for a user from VAC, if the value is above 16Gb, you will get error ‘Enter and integer between 0 and 16000’,

Solution
Its by design and you have to apply the solution via SQL

Prepare Exchange 2010 for Enterprise Vault

To prepare Exchange 2010 for Enterprise vault you should do 2 steps from Exchange 2010 side, that are,
1. Create a throttling policy and assign to EV service account
2. Set permission for EV service account on Exchange
Note;- please make sure that your EV service account has a mailbox in Exchange 2010 before following the below steps.
Create a throttling policy and assign to EV service account
To create a required throttling policy Symantec has give proper PowerShell script which is available with installation media,
1. Go to EV installation media and brows ‘Symantec Enterprise Vault 9.0.3\Server\PowerShellScripts\PowerShellScripts’

EVPM Script for bulk archive

There was a bulk mailbox archive request and its was tough to run the script for each user to change the default policy which force EV to archive mails from users who already left the organization.  Finally we have decided to create a group and include LDAP query in the EVPM script, below is the script which i was using.
[Directory]
directorycomputername=localhost ; Localhost can be changed by the server name
sitename=EVSITE ; Site name of EV

How to report Number of Archived Items and Size

There are various options you have for reporting Number if items in archive and size of archive. Lets check these possibilities
Option 1
1. Go to VAC [Vault Admin Console] 
2. From Admin Console go to Storage Group –> Store –>Right Click—> reporting
Option 2
Run below query against EV Store Database

Find when the archives are created

Below query will will list result of date when the archive accounts are created for all users who belongs to a particular store. Rename ‘VaultStore’ to your Vault store database name before running the query.

SELECT A.ArchiveName, AP.CreatedDate
FROM   EnterpriseVaultDirectory.dbo.Archive A,
       EnterpriseVaultDirectory.dbo.Root R, 
       VaultStore.dbo.ArchivePoint AP
WHERE  A.RootIdentity = R.RootIdentity
  AND  R.VaultEntryId = AP.ArchivePointId
ORDER BY A.ArchiveName

How to find Count of items archived per Archive

 
If you ask me ‘How to find count of item archived since certain dates & archived by a specific archiving task? Oh! its not that easy, I would say. But I always feel that there is a solution for each question!
As far I know the only possible way through we can achieve this goal is by writing a SQL query, below query will help you to find ‘number of items’ and ‘Size of items’ archived into a specific store from each Exchange server/task. You have to change the Vault Store DB name and desired date before running this query.

Backup SQL Database to Share

 

For backing the SQL database to share you should make sure that below points are correct.

1. The service account should have access to share where you are going keep the backup file.

2. The account which you are using should have permission to backup the DB.

If above conditions are met then below query can be used,

USE VaultStore01
GO
BACKUP DATABASE VaultStore01
To Disk = '\\Server01\\SQLBackup\VaultStore01.bak' WITH FORMAT, INIT;
GO

Note;- in above example ‘VaultStore01’ is the name of Database and ‘\\Server01\\SQLBackup\’ is the share where backup file is kept. You should use WITH FORMAT, INIT otherwise the file will append and that create free space issues.

How to mount a vhd as a drive

If you want to open a vhd file and the content then there is builtin option available from Windows 7 or Windows 2008r2

1. Run command prompt as Administrator
2. From command prompt type ‘Diskpart’ and press Enter
3. Under diskpart type  select vdisk file="c:\winr2.vhd"
   
   Note- in this example the vhd file name is winr2.vhd and in your case you have to choose correct file name and path
4. type ‘attach vdisk’
   
5. Open windows explorer and see new drive is added

Exchange 2010–Deleted mailboxes are not able to connect

Its been found that there is a situation when an Exchange Administrator deletes mailboxes from Exchange 2010 and later when try connect from EMC its not able find the AD user to get it connected.

In this scenario please follow below steps for connecting it. In this scenario I was deleting a mailbox going by the name ‘Bad User’.

1. Login to server and open ADSIEDIT.
2. Locate the user from ADSIEDIT tool and go to properties of user.
3. Select the attribute ‘msExchRecipientTypeDetails’ and click on edit.
   
4. Click on ‘Clear’ then on OK
   
5. Make sure that the value changed to <not set> and click on OK
   
6. Go to EMC and locate the deleted user.
   
7. Right click and select connect
   
8. Click on Next
   
9. Click on Brows.. now you will be finding the user
   
10. Fill ‘Alias’ and click on Next
    
11. Click on Connect
    
12. Click on Finish
    

Configure Windows Search for Vault Cache

Enterprise vault is improving much and it has an option to enable/facilitate windows search on cached archived mails. This article will help you to configure Windows search for vault cache.

This article has 3 sections and these are easy steps to follow

I Enable WDS Search auto-enable from EV policy

1. Login to Enterprise Vault server by using EV service account.

2. From VAC got to Policies>Exchange>Desktop

3. Right click on policy and go to properties

4. In properties go to ‚Advanced‘ tab and Vault Cache from dropdown menu

5. Slect WDS search auto-enabled and click on Modify tab

6. From Modify Setting window select Foce On and click on OK

7. Click Apply from properties of polcy it will prompt that “….the change will take affect when the task syncrononize next time….” Click on OK

II Run EV tasks manually to force the policy change.

1. From VAC go to Enterprise Vault Servers>server>Taks

2. Select the tasks and go to properties

3. From properties go to Synchronization tab and make sure that ‘All mailboxes’ are selected and click on ‘Synchonize’

4. Follow above steps for all tasks

II Make sure that Windows search is enabled for EV Cache from client side

1. Login to client computer.

2. Go to Control Panel

3. Select Indexing Options

4. In Indexing Options go to Modify

5. From Indexed Locations make sure that Symantec Vault Cache is slected for the user.

6. Click on OK