Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer

The Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer will help you confirm that your server is configured correctly and flag any errors.

Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer - Exchange 2000 and 2003

This is the tool for Exchange 2000 and 2003.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=DBAB201F-4BEE-4943-AC22-E2DDBD258DF3&displaylang=en

Microsoft Exchange Best Practices Analyzer - Exchange 2007 and 2010

For Exchange 2007 and 2010, the best practices and troubleshooting tool is built in to the product. You can find them in the toolbox within the Management Console.

Small Business Server Best Practices Analyzer

While you can use the Exchange tool, this is the tool that is dedicated for Small Business Server. It can be used with the Exchange Best Practices tool as well.

2003: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Familyid=3874527a-de19-49bb-800f-352f3b6f2922&displaylang=en

2008: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Familyid=86a1aa32-9814-484e-bd43-3e42aec7F731&displaylang=en

Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant

Exchange 2003

The Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting tool can help you find where problems with your Exchange server may be.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4BDC1D6B-DE34-4F1C-AEBA-FED1256CAF9A&displaylang=en

Exchange 2007 and 2010

For the latest versions of Exchange, 2007 and 2010, you will find the troubleshooting assistant in the toolbox which is part of the management console.

Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer

This is now the primary tool for diagnosing remote access issues for Exchange. It includes diagnostics for:

• ActiveSync
  • ActiveSync
  • ActiveSync with Autodiscover
• Web Services Connectivity Test
  • Synchronization, Notification, Availability, and Automatic Replies (OOF)
  • Service Account Access (Developers)
• Outlook Connectivity Tests
  • Anywhere/RPC over HTTPS
  • Autodiscover
• Internet Email Tests
  • Inbound SMTP Email
  • Outbound SMTP Email - which does checks on your reverse DNS configuration, real time blacklists and sender ID. Requires your public IP address.

If you have not already tested your server through this tool you will almost certainly be pointed towards it as a first diagnostics step.

http://testexchangeconnectivity.com/ or http://et.exbpa.com (shorter link - ends up in the same place)

Microsoft Microsoft Resources

Microsoft have lots more resources for the Microsoft Exchange product.

Microsoft Tech Centre

Microsoft have a home page for each version of Exchange on Technet. These links will take you to the version for your own location.

Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/default.aspx
Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/exchange/bb330841.aspx
Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/exchange/bb288525.aspx
Exchange 2000: http://technet.microsoft.com/exchange/bb330822.aspx

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Exchange Pre-Deployment Analyzer

This tool will scan your existing environment to confirm readiness for Exchange 2010. It is based on the same checks carried out by the Best Practises Tool, just with a focus on the readiness for the upgrade to the latest version.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=88b304e7-9912-4cb0-8ead-7479dab1abf2&displaylang=en

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Exchange 2010 Deployment Assistant

This is a tool that will take your scenario and give you a customised set of instructions for the upgrade to Exchange 2010. Scenarios include Upgrade from Exchange 2003, Upgrade from Exchange 2007, Upgrade from a mixed Exchange 2003 and 2007 environment and a new Installation. Requires Silverlight.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exdeploy2010/default.aspx#Home

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More Microsoft Tools

Microsoft have lots of tools for Microsoft Exchange.
Many of the tools for Exchange 2003 can work with Exchange 2007, but care should be taken to ensure compatibility and that the functionality is not provided natively in the product.

Exchange 2003 Tools: http://technet.microsoft.com/exchange/bb288488.aspx
Exchange 2007 Tools: http://technet.microsoft.com/exchange/bb330849.aspx

Other Sites of Assistance

Exchange 2007 Wiki http://www.exchangeninjas.com/
Msexchange.org: http://www.msexchange.org/
Amset.info (Sembee) http://www.amset.info/exchange/
Daniel Petri: http://www.petri.co.il/

Forums

Some people prefer to use web based forums to ask their questions. Microsoft have their TechNet forums and there are others on the internet where you can seek assistance.

Microsoft TechNet

All versions of Exchange Server: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/exchangeserver
Exchange Server 2010: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/exchange2010

MSExchange.org

Divided in to categories and versions
http://forums.msexchange.org/

Windows IT Pro Forum
http://community.exchangeprovip.com/web/forum/categories.aspx?catid=40&entercat=y

Experts Exchange

The Exchange section is very busy. You can sign up for a free account which will allow you to see the entire solution:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/registerExpert.jsp

Daniel Petri's Exchange Forums

Exchange 2000/2003:http://www.petri.co.il/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=12
Exchange 2007/2010:http://www.petri.co.il/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=36 

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Email Lists

Most email lists can get quite busy. Therefore a good trick is to create a public folder for them and subscribe the public folder to the list.
Then subscribe your personal email account, but set your email address settings to "no email" (ie where it is a member but doesn't receive email) That allows you to reply to messages from the public folder, but as yourself.

Sunbelt Exchange List

You can subscribe to Sunbelt's list either via the web interface or by email. It is very high traffic, so a public folder is a good way to separate the traffic out.

Web Interface: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/?forum=exchangelist&sb=1

Email: mailto:lyris@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com?body=Subscribe exchangelist

Yahoo Groups Lists

Yahoo has a number of groups dedicated to Exchange Server. Access to these groups either through the Yahoo web interface or you can subscribe via e-mail. To subscribe via email, send an e-mail to <groupname>-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, such as exchange2007-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
The traffic on these groups is quite low.

These are the web site interfaces
Exchange 2003: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exchange-2003 
Exchange 2007: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exchange2007
Exchange 2010: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exchange2010

Blogs (All open in a new window)

The Exchange community has a large number of bloggers, which can be useful to keep track on what is going on, tips and techniques on working with Exchange, across all of the versions. This is not an exhaustive list of Exchange related blogs.

This first one is pretty much mandatory if you manage Exchange
You Had Me At EHLO...aka the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog http://msexchangeteam.com/ . This content is also available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/teamblog/default.aspx 

Other Microsoft Blogs

Scott Schnoll http://blogs.technet.com/scottschnoll/
Bharat Suneja http://www.exchangepedia.com/blog/
Ben Winzenz http://blogs.technet.com/benw/
Dave Goldman http://blogs.msdn.com/dgoldman/
Vivek Sharma http://www.viveksharma.com/techlog/
Nick Smith http://blogs.msdn.com/karsmith/
Messaging News Tips and tricks http://blogs.technet.com/exchangept/

Other blogs  (in no particular order, but ours first)

Sembee: http://blog.sembee.co.uk/ 

Amit Tank http://exchangeshare.wordpress.com/
Andy Grogan http://telnetport25.wordpress.com/
Devin L. Ganger http://www.thecabal.org/
Brian Tirch: http://www.exchange-genie.com/genie-articles/
Brian Desmond http://briandesmond.com/blog/
Elan Shudnow http://www.shudnow.net/
Glen Scales http://gsexdev.blogspot.com/
Jim McBee http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com/
Joel Stidley: http://ExchangeExchange.com/
Michael B Smith http://theessentialexchange.com/blogs/michael/
Michael Lundgren http://exchangeorg.net/
MS Exchange Blog http://hellomate.typepad.com/exchange/
MS Exchange Tips http://msexchangetips.blogspot.com/
Nicolas Blank http://blankmanblog.spaces.live.com/
Oliver Moazzezi / Cobweb http://www.exchange2007.com/
Oz Ozugurlu http://smtp25.blogspot.com/
Pat Richard http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/Default.aspx
Paul Cunningham http://exchangeserverpro.com/ 
Paul Flaherty http://blog.flaphead.dns2go.com/
Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog/
Rui Silva http://msmvps.com/blogs/ehlo/
Shaun Croucher: http://exchangeshell.wordpress.com/

Acronyms

The Exchange community uses a lot of acronyms.

ESM - Exchange System Manager (Exchange 2003)
EMC - Exchange Management Console (Exchange 2007/2010)
EMS - Exchange Management Shell (aka PowerShell) (Exchange 2007/2010)

RUS - Recipient Update Services
GAL - Global Address List
OAB - Offline Address Book

NDR - Non Delivery Report
OOTO - Out Of The Office

DL - Distribution List
DDL - Dynamic Distribution List

UC - Unified Communications
SAN - Subject Alternative Name (when referring to SSL certificates)

GC - Global Catalog (Domain Controller role)

Missing one? Send us a message to contact @ sembee.co.uk

About This Site

The domain exbpa.com used to belong to Microsoft. They released it in December 2009.
Fortunately UK based Microsoft Exchange consultancy Sembee Ltd were able to pick it up and have used it for this site.

This list of resources originally started as a posting on Daniel Petri's forum and can be seen here: http://www.petri.co.il/forums/showthread.php?t=26946

DO NOT CONTACT US WITH QUERIES ABOUT THE MICROSOFT TOOLS, OR ANYTHING ELSE LINKED TO FROM THIS SITE - WE ARE JUST PROVIDING A LINK TO THEM. If a link is broken, send an email to contact @ sembee.co.uk.

Other sites that are owned and operated by Sembee Ltd include kbsearch.info, certificatesforexchange.com, dosprompt.info loginscripts.info, office-recovery.info, wuauclt.info, blog.sembee.co.uk, and amset.info.

Content Update Log

30/08/2010 - Last Site Update
08/05/2010 - Blog URLs reviewed
24/02/2010 - Added link to the Exchange Pre-Deployment Analyzer
11/02/2010 - Added link to MS Exchange team blog on Technet.
15/01/2010 - Added Exchange 2010 Deployment Assistant Link
21/12/2009 - First posting to exbpa.com
07/12/2009 - Review of links, updated information throughout.
04/11/2008 - Added information about repairing Windows Mobile emulator images to get short cuts.
22/08/2008 - Added to Acronyms list
21/08/2008 - First posting on petri.co.il.