Anyone have real SP1 feedback yet? 1

[onsetcomp]

I really want to hear the good and the bad of the non-beta SP1 being installed before I install it on my orig RTM sys.

 

[Zelandakh]

Great install, lots of new features. Current "issue" around receive connectors if you didn't use the "correct" naming conventions for the server's real name. Barring that, no issues.

 

[GrimR]

I find it strange my WSUS has not picked it up as yet

 

[58sniper]

Works fine. Tons of mailboxes on it, and no problems.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP

 

[BobSchleicher]

When you upgraded from 2007 to 2007 SP1 did you have to use:
/PrepareSchema
/PrepareAD
commands? Or did you just have to launch the SP1 executable and that took care of everything for you?

BobSchleicher

 

[Stevehewitt]

Reading through the release notes it doesn't state that you need to do it. Going to try it tonight (e.g. now performing a full backup)

FYI - does SP1 work with 3rd party apps like Backup Exec? My experience with BE is poor to say the least. (It took HOW long to add support for 2007?!)

Anyone wants the release notes:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/e/6/5e672458-592a-44a2-b489-11cec19d3c82/RelNotes.htm

Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson

 

[epsilon6]

We just upgraded from RTM (Release to Manufacturer) to SP1. We encountered the following issues:

1. We had to apply a .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 before we could continue with the installation. (Reboot Required)
2. For exchange 2007, we did not have an Exchange Organization Administrator assigned. We had to assign an Exchange Organization Administrator (done thru Active Directory Users & Computers)(had to log off my system admin account and log back in for changes to take effect).
3. We had to stop BackupExec (11d). The SP1 setup said it had open files.

After we took care of these issues, it was about a 30 minute installation.

Before our mobile phones using exchange activesync would sync, there are security polices that had to be downloaded to the phone (the phones will prompt you).

 

[Cstorms]

I ran into the same problems as above (not running Veritas however), hopefully instead of just a hunch, the combined updates fixed the issue people were seeing in the thread below.

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1794723&SiteID=17

Cory

 

[onsetcomp]

I'd like to know what would happen if you run the /PrepareSchema and
/PrepareAD commands when they were not needed before the SP1 install?

-E

 

[GrimR]

epsilon6 if I new how to give you a star I would, thanks for the post, I thought I was going mad, I add myself with all the permissions etc, done everything I could think of, then I saw your post log off and back on and would you believe it, it worked.

 

[cajuntank]

I too got the Framework update needed warning, updated, restart install and thought I was home free till it bombed on installation of the roles. I got an error referencing the receive connector's default property where I changed the field to my public domain (the one where it respondes to HELO or EHLO). I had to acknowledge the failed install, restart the Exchange services, change that property back to the internal FQDN of my .local domain and restart the SP1 install where she went through without issue. Now when I try to change that field again after the SP1 install, I get an error:
__________________________________________________________
set -receiveconnector Failed
Error
When the AuthMechanism on the receive connector is set to the value ExchangeServer. You must set the FQDN parameter on the receive connecter to one of the following values: the FQDN of the Transport server
"servername.domainname.local", the NETBIOS name of the Transport server
__________________________________________________________

The ExchangeServer value was checked by default and I don't want an external host doing a reverse and see my internal name.local
So far every example I see searching at different sites makes reference of being able to change this to the external FQDN, and again it was without issue till SP1.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Stevehewitt]

Hey,

Got this too:

set -receiveconnector Failed
Error
When the AuthMechanism on the receive connector is set to the value ExchangeServer. You must set the FQDN parameter on the receive connecter to one of the following values: the FQDN of the Transport server
"servername.domainname.local", the NETBIOS name of the Transport server
__________________________________________________________

Ended up changing the value to the NETBIOS server name (e.g. Exchange) - kept it happy.

I did have to tweak a few permissions (my account is not a schema admin for obvious reasons, but the 'god' account is not an exchange admin as it's not used daily...!), and also required reboot before the installation as something else was using it.

Although doesn't look like Backup Exec is loving it. Gonna tweak a reg entry and try again though.

Cheers.




Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson

 

[epsilon6]

Grimr: It's the little details that count. I always try to include them.

 

[GrimR]

epsilon6 as you can see you got that star I was looking for, thanks to all so far for the feedback.

 

[onsetcomp]

If you just run the SP1 installer (without running the AD prep commands) does it automatically add the "Exchange Public Folder Administrators" security group to AD? This is new in SP1 and I'd like someone who only ran the SP1 installer to look for this in the Exchange security groups in active dir.

Thanks for all the tips so far - I'll be doing the update tonight and already know that .NET 2.0 SP1 was not previously installed. Is it worthwhile to install .NET 3.0 now too?

-E

 

[Stevehewitt]

Yep - Public Folder Admins was created in the correct place within AD.

Good luck with the upgrade. The hardest / most annoying bit for me was doing a full back to disk of the exchange store...! Took forever!




Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson

 

[Cstorms]

Steve what product are you using to do your backups? I am torn between Veritas and DPM. I have the trial version of DPM but have had nothing but problems getting the agents to load without throwing errors/simply not running. It sounds really good but I am getting a bit irritated by it up to this point.

Cory

 

[jcrapps]

I got this error when installing SP1:
Error:
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 setup cannot continue because this computer belongs to a domain that has a single-labeled DNS name. DNS domain name: MYDOMAIN

Does this mean that I have to rename my WHOLE domain to something like MYDOMAIN.LOCAL? This will be a lot of work and I'd rather avoid it. Any ideas?

 

[onsetcomp]

Hey, common theme happening:

Got this too:

set -receiveconnector Failed
Error
When the AuthMechanism on the receive connector is set to the value ExchangeServer. You must set the FQDN parameter on the receive connecter to one of the following values: the FQDN of the Transport server
"servername.domainname.local", the NETBIOS name of the Transport server

I changed the receive connector to the netbios name and it worked perfectly.

The Best Practices wizard requested that I set the memory from 5005MB to 4095MB - the same as the installed ram. No errors now.

Thanks for the tips,

-E

 

[Stevehewitt]

Hi Cory,

I'm using Backup Exec 11d. To be honest when it works, it works really well. However the support is abysmal. You pay for updates and support on a yearly basis - but you can't actually speak to an engineer directly, it's a call back system. Best time i've had back on a 'critical' issue was 3 hours. Compared to MS that's crap (MS put you straight through)

Plus the lead time on getting an Exchange 2007 agent for Backup Exec was just wrong. Took months and months - yet again though we are paying for these updates (unlike MS) which considoring the beta's and RC programmes MS runs for things like Exchange I simply don't see how 3rd parties can can take over 6 months POST RTM just to get a compatible agent released.

Overall, I'm not really very pleased with BE. It's very expensive for what you get, support is poor and it's quite clunky. We're MS partners so get DPM for free. I'll be migrating to that when our BE upgrades/support expires and give that a go. Can't be much worse than BE.

Oh, and that applies to other technologies too like SharePoint 2007 - again no agent for well over 6 months post RTM. Not good enough in my opinion.

jcrapps

Your using a flat DNS name for your directory?! Is that even possible?! You most definatly should be doing something like company.internal or location.com or something. (Ideally the .internal to prevent DNS issues with your externally hosted DNS zones)
If your using a competely flat DNS name then for the love of god get that sorted before deploying Exchange. Same with other new MS technologies (SharePoint, SCE2007 etc.)

I wasn't even aware that you could create a fully working AD infrastructure with a flat DNS heirachy. Scary!

Get the AD (inc DNS, replication and sites) setup and working 100% perfectly before trying Exchange. In many ways, AD is more important to the messaging infastructure than your Exchange servers will be.

Good luck!




Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson