Auto Reply when email sent to a Distribution Group (Exchange 2010)

If you need to auto reply to all messages sent to an Exchange 2010 Distribution Group, you will be disappointed as there is no straightforward way to do that. 

First thing that came to mind was Transport Rules, but there is no "reply" option.

Therefore I had to create an mailbox account, make it a member of Distribution Group and configure reply rule on that mailbox. 

Also for this to work you have to enable "Send out-of-office message to originator" on the Distribution Group properties.

So here is a step by step:

1. Create new mailbox like noreply@domain.com

2. Make it a member of desired Distribution Group

3. In Exchange Management Console open properties of desired Distribution Group and choose Advanced tab. Turn on "Send out-of-office message to originator".

4. Configure noreply@domain.com exchange account on outlook (because owa won't let you create auto reply rules).

5. In outlook create a rule:

Apply this rule after the message arrives

from people or distribution list (select your distribution group)

have server reply using a specific message (create your message "Save & Close" it)

6. (optional) Create another rule to delete messages delivered to your noreply mailbox, make sure "delete rule" is below "reply rule" or messages will get deleted before reply rule is applied.

You could also Set Automatic Replies in owa for noreply@domain.com mailbox, if you only need auto replies for one Distribution Group. However with the suggested solution above, you can use this mailbox for as many Distribution Groups as you want by creating additional rules specifying different "from people or distribution list" for each Distribution Group and specifying different message to reply with.

Also have in mind that deleted messages will be moved to "Deleted Items" in noreply@domain.com mailbox, so you will have to do some maintenance or setup a Retention Policy.

Shared folders on windows 7 can't be accessed from windows XP machines

I had a problem accessing file shares from windows XP machines, it worked at first, but after some time the following error started to occur:

\\server\folder is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.

Not enough server storage is available to process this command.

Examining Windows 7 computer event logs, I found following error in system logs:

source: srv

Event ID: 2017

The server was unable to allocate from the system nonpaged pool because the server reached the configured limit for nonpaged pool allocations.

This led me to the solution:

Open regedit and change the following registry keys:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\LargeSystemCache 

 Value = 1

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\Size

Value = 3

Links: http://www.storagecraft.com/support/kb/article/131

Task 'me@emaildomain.com Sending' reported error (0x800CCC78) : 'Unable to send the message. Please verify the e-mail address in your account properties. The server responded: 530 5.7.1 Client was not authenticated'

IMAP and POP3 users with outlook 2003 were getting this error when trying to send mail:

Task 'me@emaildomain.com Sending' reported error (0x800CCC78) : 'Unable to send the message. Please verify the e-mail address in your account properties.  The server responded: 530 5.7.1 Client was not authenticated'

 Since they were connecting to exchange 2010 Hub Transport server as their SMTP server, I had to adjust "Authentication" tab of default receive connector for Client Email.

What fixed the problem - unticking "Offer Basic authentication only after starting TLS".

Other possible causes:

In outlook account properties Advanced tab untick "This server requires an encrypted connection (SSL)"

Configuring Exchange 2010 Autodiscover for internal clients

Problem - internal exchange clients depending on you environment receive one of the following certificate  errors/warnings:

Information you exchange with this site cannot be viewed or changed by others. However, there is a problem with the site's security certificate.

The security certificate was issued by a company you have not chosen to trust. View the certificate to determine whether you want to trust the certifying authority.

The security certificate has expired or is not yet valid.

The name on the security certificate is invalid or does not match the name of the site.

most probably you will be seeing the last error unless you have some self signed certificate in place, this happens because internal exchange server FQDN differs from external FQDN with the latter defined in the trusted certificate you bought.

Solution:

Change Autodiscover Service Internal Uri to the external FQDN (make sure it resolves to your exchange CAS server or CAS array)

Set-ClientAccessServer -Identity CASServer -AutoDiscoverServiceInternalUri https://email.domain.com/Autodiscover/Autodiscover.xml

Now Autodiscover service for internal clients will work without certificate errors as long as you have valid certificate for your OWA FQDN.

Links:

http://www.shudnow.net/2008/11/18/autodiscover-dns-certificates-and-what-you-need-to-know/

New-EdgeSubscription: You can't use the FileName parameter when running this command.

After installing Exchange 2010 Edge role I have tried to create Edge Subscription file and got the following error:

[PS] C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop>New-EdgeSubscription -FileName "c:\edgesusbscription.xml"
New-EdgeSubscription : You can't use the FileName parameter when running this command inside your Exchange organization
.
At line:1 char:21
+ New-EdgeSubscription <<<< -FileName "c:\edgesusbscription.xml"
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [New-EdgeSubscription], InvalidOperationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : 780CD20B,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.SystemConfigurationTasks.NewEdgeSubscription

At first the cause was a mystery to me, but after searching the web I found some clues, reading some posts someone mentioned that they experienced same thing when server was renamed after Edge role installation.

This gave me an idea what could be a problem in my case. After I installed the server I automatically  joined it to the domain and installed Edge, then I came to my senses that it's no good idea to make Edge server part of a domain :) So I removed the server from the domain.

And that what caused my problems.

To fix this I had to rejoin the domain and only then I could uninstall Edge role (errors prevented uninstalling it while the environment was different from one I installed on).

Then I could leave the domain, install Edge role and successfully create Edge Subscription file using New-EdgeSubscription cmdlet.

Links: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchange2010/thread/d93c06b3-fffb-474c-b352-cdf359b67506/