Category Archives: PowerShell

Comparing PowerShell Switch Parameters with Boolean Parameters

If you’ve ever take a look at the help output (or TechNet documentation) for PowerShell cmdlets, you see that they list several pieces of information about each of the various parameters the cmdlet can use: The parameter name Whether it … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, PowerShell | Leave a comment

A certificate roundup

Certificates are one of the biggest issues I keep hearing about with Exchange and OCS, and apparently I’m not the only one. Fellow MVP Michael B. Smith has recently posted two blog articles on certs: how to use SAN certificates … Continue reading

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Sweet PowerShell lovin’…for free!

And yes, that’s “free as in beer,” not “free as in what some people think all information wants to be.”[1] Frank Koch and Marcel Trümpy of Microsoft (in Switzerland) have created not one, but two Windows PowerShell ebooks, and you … Continue reading

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Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 3

Good morning! Back for day 3. (You can see my day 2 notes here.) 09:13: Back when I first started doing OCS, the vision included “hybrid“ gateway devices which included the Mediation Server role functionality in the gateway. Well, they exist … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS, PowerShell | 2 Comments

Post-Connections report

Vegas was great again, this year; the hotel was as lovely as ever, but the overlap with the Latin Grammys sure did some interesting things to the elevators. Mandalay Bay felt full this year! On the other hand, the beach … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, DPM, Exchange, PowerShell | Leave a comment

It’s a release!

For those of you who have been waiting for that sweet, sweet DPM 2007 goodness…wait no more. It’s gone RTM. DPM 2007 is an amazing product, so amazing that somebody and his cow-orker are writing a book about it. (Yes, … Continue reading

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Testing your new Exchange 2007 Send connector

Updated 1401 PDT: added the diagram. A recent post on a mailing list I frequent gives me today’s blog post. So you’ve got an Exchange 2000/2003 organization and you’ve decided that you want to upgrade to Exchange 2007. You’ve done … Continue reading

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Using PowerShell to admin Exchange 2000/2003

Via Evan’s blog, I found out about this pair of postings on using PowerShell’s WMI provider to manage Exchange 2000/2003 servers. I’m still working up my notes on my Exhange Connections session on this topic; once I get past the … Continue reading

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Bouncing email to Exchange 2007 distribution groups

A few days ago, I was asked to track down what was, on the surface, a troubling problem with Exchange 2003: bounced messages to addresses I knew for a fact existed in the organization. They were both generating a 5.1.1 … Continue reading

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Post-Connections post

Another Exchange Connections event has come and gone. As nice as the venues are, I really wish the spring Connections events weren’t in Orlando — the town itself is spread out, limiting how easy it is to get out of … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, DCAR, Exchange, PowerShell | Leave a comment

Need some PowerShell help

Normally, when I write a blog post, I’m trying to help other people out. I forget that it can work both ways. So, today’s post is a plea for help: if you know a lot about PowerShell, I could use … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, PowerShell | 1 Comment

Getting to know the legacy Routing Group Connector in Exchange 2007

If you install Exchange 2007 into a legacy Exchange organization (by legacy, I mean Exchange 2000/2003), the first time you install the Hub Transport (HT) role into the organization you are asked to designate one of the legacy Exchange servers … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, PowerShell | 1 Comment

Gaps in PowerShell cmdlet coverage

As I’ve been working more and more with PowerShell, I’ve discovered a few gaps in coverage in the cmdlets it offers. Most of my PowerShell noodling has been with Exchange 2007, so represents holes in the Exchange Management Shell extensions, … Continue reading

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Managing public folders in Exchange 2007

In general, I love Exchange 2007. I love Exchange 2007 with a love that is brighter than the aggregate IQ of a science fiction convention and stronger than the body odor of the RPG section of that same convention[1]. However, … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, PowerShell | 4 Comments

Using PowerShell to sort mailboxes by size

This weekend I was playing with the Exchange Management Shell while performing some troubleshooting on our Exchange 2007 system and discovered some fun combinations of cmdlets I thought I’d share. First, let’s start with a command that lists all of … Continue reading

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Using PowerShell to find the average size in a group of files

Today I wanted to find out the average size of a group of files. To make it more challenging, I wanted to find the average size of a group of files that existed co-mingled in a directory with several other … Continue reading

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$true-thiness

Microsoft’s Evan Dodds has a post on why you need to use the tokens $true and $false in PowerShell scripts instead of the strings “true” and “false”.

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Another PowerShell one-liner

Today I needed to evenly split 40,000 files between 5 directories. The math is simple — 8,000 files in each directory — but the way I’d have normally handled a one-off task like this is by using Windows Explorer to … Continue reading

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Bulk creating Exchange mailboxes from a CSV file

The current project I’m working on required me to create a large number of mailbox-enabled user accounts in an Exchange 2007 organization. When you’re using Exchange 2007, you need to provision your accounts with Exchange 2007′s tools, and the Exchange … Continue reading

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Database and disk spindle management in Exchange 2007

When you’re optimizing Exchange 2003/2000 servers for performance, one of the first places you look is at your disk configuration. As a rule of thumb, you want to get as many of the following components as possible reading and writing … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, PowerShell | 3 Comments

Which version of Powershell do I need for Exchange 2007?

I was working up a post on this very topic when I noticed that Paul beat me to it. No need for me to repeat it…go read him! (And tell him I sent you!)

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A nifty PowerShell example

Let us say you have a directory full of files written to it over a period of time, and you need to quickly move all of the files written on a given day (any time during that day) to a … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, PowerShell | 1 Comment

What’s in a name?

Microsoft has made two big product name announcements in the last couple of days: Monad (formerly the Microsoft Shell or Management Shell) has been renamed to Windows PowerShell. I, personally, am disappointed; Monad is a great name (grade-school sound substitutions … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, PowerShell | 1 Comment