Microsoft Releases updates for OCS 2007 R2

Microsoft released another set of updates at the 13rd of April 2012. The release updates some vital components of OCS 2007 R2 Server. The components that are updated with this release are shown below:

Update for Standard/Enterprise edition Server
2695383   Description of the update for Office Communications Server 2007 R2: April 2012
Update for Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core Redist 64-bit
2647091   Description of the cumulative update for Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core Redist 64-bit: January, 2012
Update for Web Conferencing Server

2686823   Description of the update for Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core Redist 64-bit: April 2012

The full Knowlegde Article can be found here: KB968802

 

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Microsoft releases update for Lync client

 Microsoft released another update at the end of February for Lync 2010. With this update Microsoft reintroduces Remote Call Control (RCC). This was announced earlier by Microsoft but till now it was not available. Using the RCC functionality users will have the ability to participate in a video call or conference. For the audio part of the call the Lync client will be used.

Besides the RCC functionality the following fixes can be found in the update:

  • 2672922 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2672922/ ) The typing status message is not displayed when you use an IME to type double-byte characters in Lync 2010
  • 2672924 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2672924/ ) Text that is typed by using the right-to-left reading order is displayed by using the left-to-right reading order in the sent message pane in Lync 2010
  • 2672944 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2672944 / ) A contact is displayed with an incorrect picture and incorrect presence information in Lync 2010
  • 2666324 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2666324 / ) The Windows logoff process is delayed when Lync 2010 is started
  • 2666702 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2666702 / ) The time stamp that is displayed in the IM conversation windows is truncated in Lync 2010
  • 2666704 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2666704 / ) You cannot use client policy to exclude a folder from contact search in Lync 2010
  • 2672933 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2672933 / ) A global client policy in which the “EnableExchangeContactSync” parameter is set to False does not work in Lync Server 2010
  • 2666340 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2666340 / ) A RTF header is displayed instead of the conversation history in the Conversation tab of Lync 2010
  • 2661952 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2661952 / ) A user whose display name is in Korean cannot be found in Lync 2010
  • 2666709 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2666709 / ) An update is available for RCC enabled users to make video calls or conference calls in Lync 2010
  • 2644148 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2644148 / ) A server rejects the INFO request from a client by using a “401 Unauthorized” response in a Lync Server 2010 environment
  • 2666343 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2666343/ ) The department field in the contact card of a user is empty when the card is retrieved by a UCMA 3.0-based application
  • 2666338 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2666338/ ) A customized Lync 2010 Help URL does not work in Lync 2010
  • 2672945 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2672945 / ) Double-byte text is transparent in desktop alerts on a computer that is running Windows XP and that has Lync 2010 installed
  • 2665270 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2665270 / ) The “Lync New Online Meeting” button in Outlook does not work in a Lync Server 2010 environment
  • 2670467 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2670467/ ) Large increases in load on the OrgID service because of recurring authentication requests from Lync 2010
  • 2637105 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2637105 / ) “Please verify your logon credentials and try again” error message when a user signs in to Lync Server 2010
  • 2672943 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2672943/ ) A user cannot add a custom location to their contact information by using an application that is developed by using Lync Server 2010 SDK
  • 2664812 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2664812/ ) You receive a System.UnauthorizedAccessException exception when you disconnect a call in a Lync 2010 SDK-based application
  • 2681509 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2681509/ ) Users have to manually input the user name every time that they sign in to the Lync 2010 client

The update can be downloaded via the site below.

download

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Lync Mobile can’t sign in

Lync Mobile is available a while for Windows Phone 7, Android and IOS, On the internet several tutorials can be found how to make this features available. One of the best tutorials is the one from Lync MVP Jeff Schertz.

But what if it doesn’t work? On the TecNet fora several issues are reported. One of the issues reportedis problems with succesfully log-in.

In a lot of cases this is caused by an incorrect DNS configuration. Lync Mobile uses two dns records lyncdiscover.domein.com and lyncdiscoverinternal.domein.com for retrieving the correct configuration.

Lyncdiscover is used when connecting from external. Lyncdiscoverinternal will be used when connecting via the lan.

To see which information is send back to the client by the discover service you can use Internet Explorer:

https://lyncdiscover.domein.com/autodiscover/autodiscoverservice.aspx/root/sipuri=user@domein.com

The browser will ask you where to store the file. Save the file in a temporary place for example your desktop. One saved you can use Notepad to view the content of the file:

{“AccessLocation”:”External”,”Root”:{“Links”:[{"href":"https:\/\/lync.domein.com\/Autodiscover\/AutodiscoverService.svc\/root\/domain","token":"Domain"},{"href":"https:\/\/lync.domein.com\/Autodiscover\/AutodiscoverService.svc\/root\/user","token":"User"}]}}

Here you will see the url which the client will need to connect to. If you look at the fqdn you will see it’s the external url of the Lync environment. This url is published via a reverse proxy.

By following this steps you can verify if the autodiscover mechanism works OK.

But this doesn’t guarantee that you can signin succesfully. In the example below you can see the client has some issues with getting a valid WebTicket. Each client will try to gather a WebTicket if no ticket is available in the cache:

2011-12-22 20:39:04.404 Lync[242:8323] INFO TRANSPORT /Users/comobuildadmin/se_wave1_idx/src/dev/CoMo/transport/_buildIos/../requestProcessor/privateIos/CHttpConnection.cpp/548:Response status = 401 for request WebTicketRequest
2011-12-22 20:39:04.405 Lync[242:8323] INFO TRANSPORT /Users/comobuildadmin/se_wave1_idx/src/dev/CoMo/transport/_buildIos/../requestProcessor/privateIos/CHttpStreamPool.cpp/124:Setting url – https://lync.domain.com/webticket/webticketservice.svc persistent id as 11
2011-12-22 20:39:04.604 Lync[242:8323] INFO TRANSPORT

In the example above a 401 error can be seen whichis caused by an authentication issue. But in the example above this wasn’t the issue.

One of the next steps is capture the network traffic using a networkcaptue tool, for example WireShark. In this case incoming traffic could be seen but nothing was send back. To be more specific no traffic was send back using the Front End nic. The server contained another nic which had an IP address was not disabled but wasn’t used anymore. When the networkcapture was used to view traffic on this interface the traffic which needed to be send back to Lync Mobile was send via this nic. But since the nic wasn’t configured with a default gateway the traffic wouldn’t arrive.

In this case disabling the nic solved the issue. After some searching on the internet more people had this issue

On the site of Ståle Hansen the issue is described as follows:

If you have a multi-homed Front End server the Mobility Service (Mcx) may sometimes fail

  • Reason: When calculating routing for a Mobility request the service makes a call to read DNS settings of the registered adapter. In some instances it is possible for the non-registered adapter to be returned.
  • This causes routing of the request to fail This is regardless subnet configuration on the second NIC
  • There should be a forthcoming Release Note or KB Article on this topic

So it looks like Microsoft is aware of this issue an will publish a KB article about this issue.

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Lync Server Control Panel: Navigation to the webpage was canceled

The Lync Server Control Panel can be used to manage your Lync 2010 Server environment. Besides the Lync Control Panel you can use the Lync Server Management Shell.

When you co-locate the Mediation server on a Front End Server you will have the option to assign a specific IP address. This IP address can be used to only handle Mediation server traffic. Best practice is to configure this IP address on a seperate NIC. This to prevent that traffic for the Mediation server will be transported via the other NIC.

In some cases this will cause a misconfiguration in the IIS bindings. As Lync will offer several services via IIS this can have a huge impact.

One of the results will be that the Lync Server Control Panel won’t work anymore. When you open the Lync Server Control Panel you will receive the following message:

Navigation to the webpage was canceled

The problem can be solved quiet easy. Open the IIS Manager:

Select the Lync Server Internal Web Site and select the Bindings option which can be found in the Actions menu.

Verify the value in the column IP Address. In some cases you will see specific IP address  of the Mediation Server instead of the *. Since Lync won’t allow this traffic the Lync Server Control Panel won’t be opened.

Change the bindings to All unasigned for both http and https. Once modified you can open the Lync Server Control Panel.

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Polycom CX700 certificate issue

With a recent implementation at a customer’s site I installed some Polycom CX700 ”TANJAY” phones. This phone is supported for Office Communicator Server 2007 R2 as wel foor Lync Server 2010.

At the installation I have configured the required DNS records and the distribution of the
Root certificate. I used an updated Polycom CX700 to test this procedure.
But the new phones were stuck in the startup process. This is what I saw in the screen:

  1. locating domain controller, based on input information
  2. download the root certificate
  3. install the root certificate
  4. connect to the OCS pool / sip domain, based on input information
  5. Loop, start at 1

Normally the startup and logon process will walk through the following steps:

  1. locating domain controller, based on input information
  2. download the root certificate
  3. install the root certificate
  4. connect to the OCS pool / sip domain, based on input information
  5. authenticate to the OCS pool
  6. Log on

After some research I came by two good blogs of Louis and Mino who are describing the exact same issue that I was getting at this particular customer. The internal Certificate Authority was using a 4096 bits SHA-2 Root certificate key. As the Polycom documentation describes the SHA-2 method is not supported on the software platform.

The blogs from Mino and Louis  gives us two solutions. Implement a new CA environment or use the Edge server to authenticate the phones.

I found a third better solution for this issue and it gives us also a nice walkthrough to update the Polycom CX700 to the latest Lync software version. This solution also provides a valid upgrade path for phones that are shipped from Polycom with the OCS 2007 R2 1.0.522.101 version.

  1. Download the latest Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 package for the Polycom CX700
  2. Use “Import-CsDeviceUpdate” to install the software package onto the Lync server
  3. Approve the update to release the update for the phone
  4. Download the latest Lync 2010 update for the Polycom CX700
  5. Use “Import-CsDeviceUpdate” to install the software package onto the Lync server
  6. Approve the update to release the update for the phone
  7. After the installation of the latest Lync package you can successfully logon to the
    Lync system using the Front End Server/Pool using a Root certificate with SHA2  4096 bits encryption key
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Lync contact card is not updated

In the Lync client each contact has a so called contact card. On this contact card several contact methods are displayed:

  • via e-mail
  • via a business telephone number
  • via a mobile number

This are just a few examples of information which is displayed on the contact card.

Besides the contact information contains information about the person:

  • what is the title of the person
  • which department does he/she work for
  • who is his/her manager

All this information is stored in a database. Lync uses two databases for this purpose:

  • RTCab
  • RTCab1

These databases work alternate days. To increase the performance the data will be reindexed.

But what happens when for example a title of a person changes? In the schema below an overview is displayed of this process.

  1. The administrator changes the title of the user in Active Directory (AD);
  2. Lync retrieves updates from the AD by using the Update-CsUserDatabase which runs every minute;
  3. This information is stored in RTCab/RTCab1;
  4. Once per 24 hours, default 1:30AM, the addressbook files will be generated. This is done by using the information stored in RTCab/RTCab1;
  5. When a client signs in the addressbook will be downloaded within 60 minutes. If you would like to force this process you will need to add a registry key:reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator /v GalDownloadInitialDelay /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /fClose the client and remove both GalContacts files from the user profile:%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Communicator\sip_<username@domain.com>\Start the client.
  6. After the client has downloaded the addressbook it will verify if the contact card needs to be updated. If the contact card needs to be updated the client will upload the new contact card to the database.

In some cases it can happen that the adminstrator makes the changes but the information is not visible in the addresslist. For example:

Person A makes promotion from servicedesk engineer to engineer. Person A goes on holiday and doesn’t use the Lync client. The administrator changes the title during the holiday of peson A.

In this example the title of person A will be changed after he signs in again when returning from his holiday.

Is there another way to upgrade the contact card without signing in? Yes, there is another way: use dbimpexp.

If you do not have experience with this tool don’t use it. Using this tool the wrong way can result in large problems.

The dbimpexp tool can be found in the support directory of Lync:

X:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010\Support

To change the information we will first need to export the information from the database:

dbimpexp /hrxmlfile:”c:\export.xml” /restype:user /user:user@domain.com

When you open the created file and search for, for example, title you will find several entries like the one displayed below:

If you want to change the title you will need to update all entries in the XML. When you have replaced each entry save the file and import it into the database:

dbimpexp /import /hrxmlfile:”c:\export.xml” /restype:user /user:user@domain.com

When the data is uploaded in the database a new addressbook needs to be generated. This to update the addressbook with the new information.

Depending on when the client downloads the new addressbook the changes will be displayed within 60 minutes.

Special thanks to Stuart Birkett from Microsoft PSS who provided all this information

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What’s your favorite Lync App/tool

What’s you favorite Lync App/tool

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Lync May updates

In May Microsoft released software updates as wel as documentation updates for Lync. Compared to the software updates from April the amount of updates is not very much. The only software update released applies to the Lync client. In this update the following issues are fixes:

  • 2551849 Lync 2010
    still polls for the conversation history of a non-listed contact
  • 2551847 Lync 2010
    still polls for the voice mail of a non-listed contact
  • 2551846 An update is
    available that adds npMeetingJoinPluginOC.dll and MeetingJoinAxOC.dll files to
    Lync 2010
  • 2551848 The Office
    Communicator Object Model API requires calling additional subscription to stop
    polling subscriptions in a Lync 2010 environment

The update can be downloaded from the links below:

Besides this the documentation got updated, a complete overview of the updated documents can be found here:

 

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Microsoft releases Power Pack Applications for Lync

Microsoft has released a bunch of new Power Pack Applications. Earlier the IM and Expert application was launched. Today 5 new applications were added:

  • Conversations Analyzer, tool to analyze IM conversations
  • Conversation Translator, this tool has been released earlier and makes it possible to translate IM conversations in real-time
  • Information Dashboard, a nice addition to the client which makes if possible to search for information about the location where the contact person lives. This makes it possible to have a look at the local time, weather and region news before contacting the person
  • Tabbed conversations, this application makes it possible to just use one window for all IM sessions. Each IM is placed on a separate tab.
  • Group Chat Stress Tool, application which can be used to perform a stress test on a Group Chat Server. This tool can be used to check if the configuration which was designed can actually handle the load which is placed on it.

All applications can be downloaded via this page.
In a future blog we will have a look at each tool separately.

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April 2011 Lync client update

After the release earlier this month for the Lync client, Microsoft released another update on april the 27th. This update includes the following fixes:

  • Credential prompts occur when you sign in to Lync 2010 by using the Lync Online service
  • Lync 2010 does not authenticate after you resume the computer from hibernation

You can read more information about this article at the following location:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2540951/

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