Microsoft released an update for the MAPI/CDO download package that works on Windows Server 2008 and Vista.

Exchange's MAPI has always replaced mapi32.dll with its own version and Windows Server 2008 and Vista mark mapi32.dll as a system file so that any attempt to replace it would be blocked or undone. Microsoft fixed this by moving the MAPI binaries out of the system32 folder and into Program Files\ExchangeMAPI. They also renamed Exchange's mapi32.dll binary to ExMAPI32.dll.

If you have an earlier version of this package installed, you need to uninstall it first; you can't do an in-place upgrade. MAPI and CDO are 32 bit only. You can install it on a x64 machine but it only works with 32 bit applications.

Download this update from
Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Client and Collaboration Data Objects 1.2.1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94274318-27c4-4d8d-9bc5-3e6484286b1f&DisplayLang=en

For more information, see
This Just In: MAPI and Windows Server 2008 Now Get Along
http://blogs.msdn.com/stephen_griffin/archive/2008/06/02/this-just-in-mapi-and-windows-server-2008-now-get-along.aspx

Outlook 2007 – with the lasted update installed – now supports multi-year recurrences. This means you won’t need to use "every 24 months" for appointments which recur every 2 years. Sorry, that is the only change to recurrence patterns. Maybe next time we’ll see quarterly appointments but don't hold your breath waiting for "every fifth week each month" because making Outlook handle it correctly when there is not a 5th week in a month would be too difficult.

See "An update is available for Outlook 2007 that improves Internet Calendar functionality and improves compatibility with IMAP servers" for more information and a link to the download.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=950219 

by Michael B. Smith, MCSE/Exchange MVP

In our last issue, I introduced some basic concepts behind measuring performance on a Windows Server, and encouraged you to try out Performance Monitor and see what you could learn to do with it. Another item just as important as the performance of a server is how healthy that server is.

A healthy server is one that is performing well and that is working properly. How does someone define “working properly” for a Windows Server? Well, you look at the things that are required for that server to work, of course! Some of these are closely related to performance metrics - and you can often tie performance measurement and health measurement together.

Many people have applications that run on a monitoring server (perhaps with a monitoring agent installed on the monitored server) that helps them keep up with the health and performance of their servers. There are many applications in this space: Microsoft’s Operations Manger, Open Manage, Servers Alive, What’s Up Gold, and many others. They all have their individual advantages and disadvantages. You may need to evaluate which is right for you and your environment. Most work by generating “alerts”. An alert is a way to notify a system administrator that something needs to be done.

I’m certain that you’ve already thought of a few things that are required for a healthy server. A working network connection is one. Unless you are brand-new to the computer world, you have already learned that to test whether a computer is up (or not) you “ping it”. What does mean? It means you send a special kind of network packet to the server - if the server is up, that special packet says “respond - right now!”

Another important factor is disk space. If your server is out of disk space, it can’t be healthy. However, you may define different levels of health, depending on whether a disk is a system disk (usually C: on Windows computers) or a data disk (usually D: or a higher letter of the English alphabet on Windows computers). Some common tests are for errors to be less than 5% of disk space available - or less than 200 MB for a system disk and less than 1 GB for a data disk. You might also choose to generate a warning alert, perhaps at 10%.

Another factor is memory. If you have less than 1% of its memory available (or say 100 MB as an absolute number) - then your computer has a problem and you probably want to know about it. Similarly, you might want to know, as a warning, when those values dropped below, for example, 250 MB or 3%. Obviously, these values can change - if you only have 1 GB of RAM, then 100 MB is almost 10% of your RAM - you need to look where your servers normally sit, and adjust accordingly.

Of course, you can’t ignore processor utilization. If your processor utilization is more than 95% for more than five minutes - you probably want to know. Some process has probably run amok.

Probably the last most important thing is service health. A Windows Server requires quite a number of system services to be running to be healthy. You should check these. If they aren’t running, you need to figure out why. Among these are:

• DHCP Client
• DNS Client
• Workstation
• Server
• TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
• Logical Disk Manager
• RPC
• Plug and Play
• Event Log

and there may be others important in your environment.

If you take these guidelines and implement examining them for each of your servers - you’ll have an excellent idea whether that server is healthy - or not. And if you server is not healthy, you now can know where you need to start looking to get it healthy.

Maybe it's just my nature to check out all the menus and try new and different things (but not Lake Erie Perch). I'm always curious about everything, often to the annoyance of my husband and children, and I always check out all the menus on new software before I start using it.

The past week was exasperating. First, there was the Outlook 2007 user who is trying to send an email message to everyone in a specific category began his rant with this: "How do I do this. So far everyone's description is very complex or wrong. eg. right-click and choose "New Message to Contact" - this is not an option when I right-click." Well, it is correct, just not for your version of Outlook, but if you had taken the time to explore the context menu, you'd discover New Message to Contact is on the Create menu in Outlook 2007.

Anyone who works in online forums knows there are many users who don't know how to use Google, but I was surprised to discover some friends won't search before asking either. I really thought I trained them better. I'm planning an event and several attendees emailed me, asking for directions. They had the web site address for the location and it comes up on top in Google but they couldn't be bothered to look it up. I was a nice person and sent a link to the maps to everyone, then had to laugh when one recipient asked me to send the directions to their blackberry address. Is it too much to hope that it was because their Forward button was broken?

I give up. Well, not really, but the attendees who asked for directions are getting a copy of my Google and Other Search Engines book.