Prerequisites: Exchange 2007 SP1, Outlook 2003 SP2 (on the backup server), Exchange Management Console and Powershell (on the backup server)

Steps to backing up mailboxes automatically to pst

In the below scenario you don’t need to do anything to your exchange server, this is all done on a backup server (that’s the way I decided to do it, but to each his own).

1. Load Exchange management console on your backup server.

2. Login as administrator (or a backup administrator account if you have one) onto the backup server.

3. Now make sure the administrator has access to all the mailboxes you need to backup. If not go to exchange management console > recipient configuration > mailbox > choose the user. Then click on manage full access permission and make sure the administrator (or backup administrator account is added). Now you may be able to change permissions to a certain level to backup without giving full access, but in this article I just gave the admin account full access to the mailbox.

4. Make sure Outlook 2003 SP2 is loaded on the backup server (this process requires it).

5. Open up exchange powershell, and type in the follow command (for the italics replace it with your organization or server information).

Get-Mailbox -Database “server name\first storage group\mailbox database” | Export-Mailbox -PSTFolderPath d:\pst_backup\

d:\pst_backup was my backup path but you can change to whatever you like.

6. Run the command, and give it a test run (just choose one mailbox for now to pst, just to see if it works).

Now to automate the whole thing.

1. Once you were able to backup one mailbox (from the above command) copy that command somewhere you’ll need it later.

2. Now create two file, pstbackup.cmd, and pstbackup.ps1, and put them in your pst backup folder (doesn’t have to be there).

3. Edit the pstbackup.ps1 file and put the following (same as the earlier command except with the -confirm:$false).

Get-Mailbox -Database “servername\first storage group\mailbox database” | Export-Mailbox -PSTFolderPath d:\pst_backup\ -confirm:$false

4. Save it, and let’s edit the pstbackup.cmd file now. Put in the following command.

powershell -PSConsoleFile “d:\Program Files\exchange\bin\exshell.psc1” -command “d:\pst_backup\pstbackup.ps1” > d:\pst_backup\pstbackup-log.txt

Now your path for the exshell.psc1 may be different so search your server for the exact path of that file.

The pstbackup-log.txt file will generate a log (you can put it wherever you like).

5. Now run the pstbackup.cmd file, and it should starting psting the mailboxes (it only does 4 at a time).

6. Schedule the pstbackup.cmd in your scheduled tasks for your backup, and that’s it.

If you get errors in your log make sure that that the administrator or the logged in user of the backup server has full permissions to the mailbox.  I’ve also provided my files that I used in the download section of this website in case you need a reference.

Download the exchange 2007 pstbackup files

1. Create two profiles on your outlook (control panel > mail > show profiles). Label them easily like one work and the other home, or something like that.

2. Then download this lightweight program called ExtraOutlook.

3. Not unzip the program and place it somewhere.

4. Open a command line prompt and navigate to the directory where you placed extraoutlook.exe.

5. Type in the following command (the outlook path may be different on your computer, right click on your current outlook and find the current path).

extraoutlook.exe “c:\program files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Outlook.exe” /profile “Home”

6. The /profile “Home” the word in the quotes needs to be what you named your profile. Then type in the command again, but replace the profile “Home” with the next profile you created. Now you should have two seperate instances of outlook connecting to two exchange servers.

7. Here is an article with more screenshots of the instructions.

BES with MSDE: 200-250 users

BES with SQL (sql on a different machine): 2000-2500 users

1. Create the BES admin user on you sql server

2. Run the createdb.exe tool, so it creates the sql database (you’ll need this from the orginial installation cd of you BES server, or you can download it from the internet).

3. Give the BES admin user dbo and public rights to the datbase

4. Stop the services on the BES server

5. Backup the database using OSQL -E at the command line.

6. Restore the database to the SQL database that was created by the createdb tool.

7. Change the database on the Blackberry server configuration.

8. Restart all the services.

9. Change the database on the ODBC system dsn if you are 3.0 or 4.0.

10. Don’t forget to change the database in the Blackberry manager (or domain), by right clicking and choosing properties, then choose database, and make sure that information is correct.

That’s it, very simple and easy not as hard as I thought it was initially.

Problem: Printers are missing when user logs on to citrix.

1. Create a another print server for testing purposes. I used a virtual machine for testing. If you don’t want to do this skip to step 6 (but I highly recommend you do this as you’ll be crashing your spooler most likely on your live print server).

2. Go to the live print server and lets migrate all the printers and the drivers to test print server we created in the above step using the Microsoft Printer Migrator 3.1 tool, which you can download here.

3. Now you’ll need to install the tool on the live print server and the test print server.

4. Backup the printer and drivers on the live print server to a file (it’ll create a .cab), then restore the printers and drivers on the test print server using the .cab file you created when you backed it up.

5. Now that’s all you need to do with the live print server, lets focus on the test print server.

6. Download the stress print tool from citrix and read the article on their website explaining the instructions on how to use it http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX109374.

7. Run the stress tool, and also run a perfmon (performance monitor) on the spooler thread and how it interacts with the processor.

8. Now test one driver (check off the driver and highlight it). You really don’t need to change any of the default options, except for the add events use 5, and 5 times to repeat the test (according to what a citrix engineer told me).

9. Now run the test, watch how the driver interacts with the spooler and processor, and also check for any warning in the stress tool.

If it crashes the spooler that’s a bad driver

Now what the citrix engineer told me was that if you get 0 errors, and the spooler didn’t crash that’s a good driver. If you get 1or 2 warning errors from the stress tool it’s ok, anything more than that you need to look into getting another driver for that printer.

10. Now restart the print spooler test and repeat.

Hope that helps some of you, remember you need to check print driver with the tool before installing drivers, saves a lot of headache later.

Download the file: ENVTSCIP.zip

Download PushVnc.zip

Steps on how to setup Push VNC

1. Download the file above and extract the file somewhere.

2. Go to command line navigate to the directory called VNCpassword. Run vncenc with the password you want. Like the screenshot below where I used the password “itsmypassword”

3. Now copy all the “Password = REG_BINARY…….”, and paste it into the VNC4.ini file located in the common directory. Like the screenshot below.

4. Now there is two places where you need to edit the path of where you are planning to put this Push VNC program at. In this example I’m placing it in my c:\temp folder. First we’ll edit the install.bat file, and change the path where I highlighted in the screenshot below. Second we’ll edit the fp82.cmd file, same thing change the path where I highlighted in the screenshot also.

* If you want to place it on the network you need to edit it to use “net use v: \\server\share”.  Then set the path accordingly. Since I’m sharing this program with my IT co-workers I used the net use.

5. Now that’s bascially all you have to do. Now run the install.bat program and you’ll see a screen like below. Type in the ip address of the computer you want to install VNC onto, and then watch it’s magic. Remember you must be logged in as a domain admin or have such privileges to the client computer to install. Feel free to change my name and put yours.

Much credit goes to DarkAge. If you want to dig in more and set more options check out there website.