Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory Blog
In this article you will find my settings for hardening Windows Server 2022. These settings can be used for the template for VMs. New VMs based on these settings therefore already have a certain level of security. In my opinion, the settings are not too restrictive and should therefore be suitable for most applications/services. Read more
The Windows updates that Microsoft released on 11.01.2022 are causing some problems on Windows servers. In the meantime, there are increasing reports that domain controllers keep restarting after January CU has been installed. Some other problems seem to increasingly affect Windows Server 2012 R2. After installing the update, Hyper-V no longer starts and ReFS formatted ... Read more
Microsoft has released new security updates for Exchange Server 2013, 2016 and 2019. The security update is intended to fix the following three vulnerabilities CVE-2022-21969 (Important) CVE-2022-21855 (Important) CVE-2022-21846 (Critical) The three vulnerabilities mentioned are errors that allow remote code execution. The updates should therefore be installed as soon as possible, even if no exploitation is currently ... Read more
Schannel error messages are common and can have many different causes. Here is a rather specific error message that occurred on a Windows Server 2022 after the operating system underwent standard hardening. After disabling outdated cipher suites and SSL / TLS protocols, the following error message appeared very frequently in the system event log: Source: Schannel ... Read more
By default, Windows servers use self-signed certificates for the RDP connection. The self-signed certificates then cause a certificate warning when the RDP connection to a Windows server is established: This warning can be avoided by automatically rolling out certificates from a Windows certification authority on the servers and renewing them if necessary. The installation ... Read more
At the turn of the year, there is a problem with mail delivery on Exchange servers. Mails get stuck in the queue with the following message: "The message was put on hold by the categorization agent" Mails are neither sent nor received. This problem has been occurring on all Exchange 2016 / 2019 servers since 01.01.2022 and is caused by the transport agent "Malware Agent" ... Read more
I wish all visitors, readers, supporters and friends a happy and healthy new year, may all your good intentions and wishes come true in the new year. As every year, I would like to take this opportunity to look back on the past year. Visitor numbers have risen again slightly in 2021. Just under 2.5 million visitors are ... Read more
I wish all friends, readers and supporters a Merry Christmas, take care of yourselves and stay healthy. I wish all admins who are looking after the well-being of the systems during or between the holidays every success. Take a few days off as soon as possible and treat yourselves to something nice. As in every ... Read more
The Exchange 2019 hybrid environment has already been set up in Part 4. I actually wanted to go into the migration batches in more detail in this article, but decided against it. The migration batches and their options are usually only relevant in larger environments. In smaller environments, the migration batches can be conveniently set up via the Exchange Online Admin Center ... Read more
Exchange Server leaves old data or versions of the OWA and ECP directories on the file system after almost every update. In particular, the directory "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\ClientAccess\Owa\prem" takes up a lot of space on the file system after a long runtime and correspondingly many updates. Here is an example of an Exchange Server that has been running for a while: Old file versions ... Read more
