Outlook 2016

Issue: Outlook 2016 (which I am testing) cannot connect to Office 365 Exchange.

It is no longer possible to manually enter Exchange Server details. A valid Autodiscovery record is required. Use this site to find out which autodiscovery mechanism you are using.

• https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/

Verifies that we do have a valid autodiscovery record and that we use the HTTP Redirect method. It also shows that Outlook tries several other autodiscovery methods before the correct (for my organisation) HTTP redirect method.

Solution

What is actually happening is that Outlook 2016 on the PC is hanging when performing the HTTPsAutoDiscoverDomain method. We can force it to use the correct method by the following registry entries.

• http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/exchange-account-set-up-missing-in-outlook-2016/

If Outlook is slow finding the autodiscover records, you may need to tell Outlook to exclude the root domain or other records.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover\
DWORD: ExcludeHttpsRootDomain
Value: 1

The other records you can exclude, also under the Autodiscover key are as follows. Use a value of 1 to enable, delete the key if you no longer want to exclude these checks.

DWORD: ExcludeScpLookup
DWORD: ExcludeHttpsAutoDiscoverDomain
DWORD: ExcludeHttpRedirect //I DON’T EXCLUDE THIS ONE BECAUSE I USE IT
DWORD: ExcludeSrvRecord

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Office 365 Calendar sharing – share to a group of people within organisation

Good discussion about sharing calendars with distribution groups and why it doesnt work!

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1747210-office-365-calendar-sharing-share-to-a-group-of-people-within-organisation

 

Add PST to Office365

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Use-network-upload-to-import-PST-files-to-Office-365-103f940c-0468-4e1a-b527-cc8ad13a5ea6

.local again!

Full credit to Mark Parris for the original write up

Active Directory: .local domain design and Office 365.

Active Directory: .local domain design and Office 365.

Microsoft since the release of Windows 2000 Server have recommended that any Windows Server environment promoted to host an Active Directory forest/domain should be configured with a registered Top Level Domain (TLD), such as .com, .net, .org etc.

Many companies have ignored this advice and taken the approach of, my internet presence is for example markparris.net so I will therefore call my Active Directory forest markparris.local.

This approach to the .local namespace in Active Directory has caused no real issue, with exception of Apple Mac Integration into the environment (see below).

With the onset of the cloud, premises and off premises computing the .localnamespace now causes a potential issue. The .local namespace issue may be resolved with a simple fix or it could involve a fair amount of remediation work.

In order to use Microsoft Office 365 Cloud Services with an on premise Active Directory synchronised via DirSync to the “Microsoft Cloud” the forests namespace or to be more precise the users UPN (User Principal Name) must be an internet registered TLD.   In most companies this can be easily achieved by setting all cloud users UPN’s to their email address (or another registered namespace) and then this is what the user presents to Microsoft, to be authenticated/validated.

In some companies, the .local UPN namespace may already be in use for something else and a UPN remediation project may need to be completed prior to any Microsoft cloud integration. This could again be a simple resolution or a huge global project.

So to summarise, the recommendation is still not to use the .local namespace in any new Active Directory implementation, if you have utilised the .localnamespace and you have a requirement to implement Office 365, then identify and configure a registered UPN for the affected accounts.

To be fair to Microsoft, they did tell you.

DNS name registration with an Internet registrar

We recommend that you register DNS names for the top-most internal and external DNS namespaces with an Internet registrar. This includes the forest root domain of any Active Directory forests unless such names are sub-domains of DNS names that are registered by your organization name (For example, the forest root domain “corp.example.com” is a sub-domain of an internal “example.com.” namespace.) Article ID: 300684 – Last Review: February 16, 2011 – Revision: 25.1.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300684

As I put my thoughts down, it has also become apparent to me that anyone with an Active Directory namespace that uses a TLD namespace that is not registered to them will also have this same issue and will also need to configure new UPN’s.

Apple Issues

Mac OS X: About Multicast DNS

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20999?viewlocale=en_US

You receive an “unexpected error occurred” error message when you try to access resources on a Windows-based network from your Macintosh computer

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/836413

Azure/Dir Sync

Sometimes you want to run a manual sync of your Azure/Dir Sync tool, you can do this via powershell using the following command;

 

Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta

Connect to Office365 Powershell

So you may have noticed the incredible new feature that Microsoft have rolled out to your Office 365 tenancy called “clutter”

Pain in the ass.

To disable it and to carry out many of useful admin tasks you can connect to your hosted exchange online using the following instructions – Note Im using Win10 on VMWARE Fusion

 

Open powershell as administrator

Connect PowerShell to Exchange Online

I always recommend running PowerShell as an administrator. To do that, right click on the PowerShell icon and select Run As Administrator from the context menu.

First we need to set the execution policy.

 C:\> Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

Next we need to store our Office 365 credentials in a variable. Type the command below and hit enter.

 C:\> $UserCredential = Get-Credential

A dialog box will appear. Type in your Office 365 credentials and click Ok.

The account you use will need permissions to Exchange Online. By default only Global Administrators in Office 365 have Organization Management rights in Exchange Online.

Now let’s connect. In the command below we put our connection info into a variable. This results in less typing later.

 C:\> $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection

Finally, let’s use that variable to connect to Exchange Online and import all Exchange cmdlets into our session.

 C:\> Import-PSSession $Session

To disable clutter for your whole tenancy run the following command;

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Set-Clutter -Enable $false

Until next time

Sai

Keep Website with Office 365

Keep your current website when you add your domain to Office 365

To add a custom domain, like fourthcoffee.com, to Office 365, you follow the steps in the domains setup wizard.

If you already have a website outside of Office 365 that uses the domain you’re adding, likehttp://www.fourthcoffee.com, select No, I have an existing website or prefer to manage my own DNS records. Then the wizard will guide you to set up your domain with your domain’s DNS records hosted at your current DNS host. If you don’t have a website, you can opt to have Office 365 set up and manage DNS for your domain instead.

Want to have Office 365 manage DNS for your domain anyway (not recommended)? You must redirect to your current website

This is not the recommended option if you already have a website outside Office 365 that uses your domain (unless you’ve set up an outside website using one of Office 365’s web hosting partners). We recommend that you continue to manage your domain’s DNS at your current DNS host to help prevent problems with access to your current website when you set up your domain with Office 365.

If you still want Office 365 to manage DNS for your domain, you may be able to set up redirection from Office 365 to your current website. If you don’t set up redirection using a static address for your website, people won’t be able to get to your website after you add your domain to Office 365 and change your domain’s nameservers to point to Office 365 nameservers.

Why is access to your website affected? Because nameserver settings tell web browsers, and other Internet services, where to look for your domain. After you change your domain’s nameservers to Office 365, so Office 365 can manage DNS for your domain, web browsers will look for your website at Office 365. Since your website is hosted by a different service, the site won’t be found.

Add your domain to Office 365 and set up redirection to your website

1. Before you begin, you will need a static IP address or FQDN for your current website. Contact your website hosting provider to get the IP address or FQDN. (Using a dynamic IP address, such as the address returned when you run a program like Ping, will not let you set up reliable redirection because the IP address can change at any time.)
2. Add your domain to Office 365, following the steps in the domains setup wizard.

   In the wizard, choose the option that you do not have a website with your domain. Do not change your domain’s nameserver records in the setup wizard until you complete the following step.

3. Follow these steps to create an A record to redirect traffic to your website, using the static IP address (or FQDN) that you got from your current website hosting provider.
4. We recommend that you also create a CNAME record to help make sure that your customers will find your website whether or not they include www together with your domain name. Follow these steps to add the CNAME record in Office 365 in Office 365.

   If the option to create an A record or CNAME record is not available, see Can’t update the A record or CNAME record?.

5. Complete the final step of the domains setup wizard, to change your nameserver records to point to the Office 365 nameservers.

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Now that you’ve got email accounts and website redirection set up, you can update your domain nameserver (NS) records for the domain to point to Office 365. By setting up email addresses and the A record first, as described above, you and other people in your organization will have email accounts that use the domain address, and your website will still be available at your current website hosting provider after you change the NS records.

NOTE    When you change your domain’s NS records as described here, you change the destination of domain services, such as email, to point to Office 365. Remember—if you’re already using the domain for email outside Office 365, make sure that you’ve created Office 365 email addresses with the domain for your users (likeben@contoso.com) so that they won’t lose email messages when you update the NS records to point to Office 365.

Complete the setup wizard: Change your nameserver records

1. Sign in to Office 365 with your work or school account.
2. Go to the Manage domains page.
3. On the Manage Domains page, for the domain that you’re setting up, choose Complete setup.
4. Follow the steps to update your nameserver records to point to the Office 365 nameservers.

After you’ve updated your NS records, email will begin to be routed to Office 365, but traffic to the website address that uses the domain will continue to go to your current hosting provider.