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How to reclaim storage from “System Volume Information”

Hans Sleurink — Tue, 21 May 2013 06:52:43 +0000

After diskspace on a Windows 2008 R2 server was decreasing, I noticed that the System Volume Information had a large amount of Gb and was still increasing in size. This command can also be used on other Windows operating systems like Windows Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 2012.

So what does the System Volume Information directory hold for information?

Note: The folder holds information that with casual interference could cause serious system problems.

System Restore points. You can disable System Restore from the “System” control panel.
Content Indexing Service databases for fast file searches.
Distributed Link Tracking Service databases for repairing your shortcuts and linked documents.
Information used by the Volume Snapshot Service (also known as “Volume Shadow Copy”) so you can back up files on a live system.

Check the shadow copy storage

If you want to reclaim your storage follow these steps.

First check your current Shadow Storage usage. Start a command prompt and type: vssadmin list shadowstorage

vssadmin list shadowstorage

vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Shadow Copy Storage association

For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{13064974-e2b3-11e1-b543-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{13064974-e2b3-11e1-b543-806e6f6e6963}\

Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 9.358 GB (2%)
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 9.711 GB (2%)
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 10 GB (2%)

As you can see in this example the maximum amount of shadow copy storage (10 GB) is almost utilized. It’s also possible the maximum is set to UNBOUNDED, which indicates it can use up to 100% of your storage on that volume.

Resize the shadow copy storage

In this example I want to decrease the usage to 5 Gb. As you can see, the number of space being used for the shadow copy storage is larger (9,7 Gb). You can resize the shadow copy storage to a lower amount being used, without disrupting the system. After resizing the diskspace is immediatly reclaimed.

To resize the shadow copy storage use the following command: vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[drive letter]: /For=[drive letter]: /MaxSize=[maximum size]

vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=c: /for=c: /maxsize=5GB

vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.

Successfully resized the shadow copy storage association

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Forward on Response Group to PSTN telephone number not working

Hans Sleurink — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:26:35 +0000

I came across an issue regarding the forward on a Lync response group. There was a queue time-out enabled and set to “Forward to telephone number”. This field was filled with sip:+31301234567@domain.com (where domain.com was the SIP domain).

When a call came and hit the time-out, the call was forwarded to the number specified, but then an error was displayed on the client, on both Lync client 2013 and a Polycom Lync Phone Edition. The error was “the call could not be completed. Please try again later. The call could not be completed due to a busy network.“.

I started the logging on the Lync Front-End server and found the following error that was displayed:

ms-diagnostics: 1003;reason=”User does not exist”;TargetUri=”+31301234567@domain.com”

This is an expected error, as the user is not an existing user. But after this error, there was no SIP signal to the PSTN gateway for an outbound call. After some search on the internet, I saw this blog from Tim Day. This was exactly the same issue I was having. His solution sounded plausible, so I tested it, but with no luck.

Solution

I started testing with different Response Groups and found the problem. This specific Lync environment consists of multiple SIP domains. When a response group was made with a SIP domain that wasn’t the primary SIP domain, the problem existed. As there is no way of changing the SIP address of response group, I recreated the group.

After recreating the response group (workflow) with a primary SIP domain SIP address, the outbound call was made after the time-out was hit.

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Get the number of ActiveSync devices per user

Hans Sleurink — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 19:37:58 +0000

Since Exchange 2010 SP1, the default maximum of ActiveSync devices per user is set to 10. Although this seems rather much for a single user, a user who has multiple phones, uses Windows 8 tiles, tablets etc. can reach this maximum pretty easily.

ActiveSync Settings

ActiveSync settings are applied through a throttling policy. These settings determine the amount of resources that can be used by ActiveSync processes. You can retrieve your current throttling policy settings by running the following command in Exchange Management Shell: Get-ThrottlingPolicy

The settings for ActiveSync all start with EAS. The settings available are: EASMaxConcurrency, EASPercentTimeInAD, EASPercentTimeInCAS, EASPercentTimeInMailboxRPC, EASMaxDevices, EASMaxDeviceDeletesPerMonth

To change the number of ActiveSync devices there are 2 settings you can adjust:

EasMaxDevices: limits the maximum number of active EAS partnerships per user.

EasMaxConcurrency: limits the maximum number of concurrent devices at one time.

Get ActiveSync Devices per user script

Here is a simple powershell script which will look at all the CAS mailboxes, retrieve the ActiveSync device partnerships and show the number of partnerships per user. The output is as follows on screen:

Full Name of the user
Identity of the user
Number of ActiveSync devices / partnerships of the user

You can easily adjust this script to output it to CSV file. If you have an improved version of the script or suggestions, please let me know.

$devices = @()
$mailboxes = Get-CASMailbox -ResultSize:Unlimited | Where-Object {$_.HasActiveSyncDevicePartnership -eq $true}
foreach ($m in $mailboxes) 
{
    $username = $m.Name
    $useridentity = $m.Identity
    $devices = Get-ActiveSyncDeviceStatistics -Mailbox $m.Identity
    if ($devices -is [system.array]) 
    {
	    $numberofdevices = $devices.length
    } else {
	if ($devices)
		{
			$numberofdevices = 1
		} else {
			$numberofdevices = 0
		}
    }
    write-host "$username; $useridentity; $numberofdevices"
}
}

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Exchange2003MBtoMEU.vbs, the working version

Hans Sleurink — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:58:29 +0000

As some of you may have noticed, when downloading the Exchange2003MBtoMEU.vbs script to convert Exchange 2003 Mailboxes to Mail Enabled Users from the Microsoft community forum, this script is not complete.

Here you can find the complete version of the script. I hope this helps anyone searching for it.

Exchange2003MBtoMEU.vbs ( placed as a .TXT file. Save this as a .VBS file )

‘ Script to convert Exchange 2003 mailboxes to mail-enabled users
‘ From: http://community.office365.com/en-us/forums/183/t/14672.aspx
‘ See for usage details: http://community.office365.com/en-us/wikis/exchange/834.aspx
‘Globals/Constants
Const ADS_PROPERTY_APPEND = 3

Dim UserDN
Dim remoteSMTPAddress
Dim remoteLegacyDN
Dim domainController
Dim csvMode
csvMode = FALSE
Dim csvFileName
Dim lastADLookupFailed
Class UserInfo
public OnPremiseEmailAddress
public CloudEmailAddress
public CloudLegacyDN
public LegacyDN
public ProxyAddresses
public Mail
public MailboxGUID
public DistinguishedName

Public Sub Class_Initialize()
Set ProxyAddresses = CreateObject(“Scripting.Dictionary”)
End Sub
End Class

‘Command Line Parameters
If WScript.Arguments.Count = 0 Then
‘No parameters passed
WScript.Echo(“No parameters were passed.”)
ShowHelp()
ElseIf StrComp(WScript.Arguments(0), “-c”, vbTextCompare) = 0 And WScript.Arguments.Count = 2 Then
WScript.Echo(“Missing DC Name.”)
ShowHelp()
ElseIf StrComp(WScript.Arguments(0), “-c”, vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
‘CSV Mode
csvFileName = WScript.Arguments(1)
domainController = WScript.Arguments(2)
csvMode = TRUE
WScript.Echo(“CSV mode detected. Filename: ” & WScript.Arguments(1) & vbCrLf)
ElseIf wscript.Arguments.Count <> 4 Then
‘Invalid Arguments
WScript.Echo WScript.Arguments.Count
Call ShowHelp()
Else
‘Manual Mode
UserDN = wscript.Arguments(0)
remoteSMTPAddress = wscript.Arguments(1)
remoteLegacyDN = wscript.Arguments(2)
domainController = wscript.Arguments(3)
End If

Main()

‘Main entry point
Sub Main

‘Check for CSV Mode
If csvMode = TRUE Then
UserInfoArray = GetUserInfoFromCSVFile()
Else
WScript.Echo “Manual Mode Detected” & vbCrLf
Set info = New UserInfo
info.CloudEmailAddress = remoteSMTPAddress
info.DistinguishedName = UserDN
info.CloudLegacyDN = remoteLegacyDN
ProcessSingleUser(info)
End If

End Sub

‘Process a single user (manual mode)
Sub ProcessSingleUser(ByRef UserInfo)

userADSIPath = “LDAP://” & domainController & “/” & UserInfo.DistinguishedName
WScript.Echo “Processing user ” & userADSIPath
Set MyUser = GetObject(userADSIPath)
proxyCounter = 1
For Each address in MyUser.Get(“proxyAddresses”)
UserInfo.ProxyAddresses.Add proxyCounter, address
proxyCounter = proxyCounter + 1
Next
UserInfo.OnPremiseEmailAddress = GetPrimarySMTPAddress(UserInfo.ProxyAddresses)
UserInfo.Mail = MyUser.Get(“mail”)
UserInfo.MailboxGUID = MyUser.Get(“msExchMailboxGUID”)
UserInfo.LegacyDN = MyUser.Get(“legacyExchangeDN”)
ProcessMailbox(UserInfo)

End Sub

‘Populate user info from CSV data
Function GetUserInfoFromCSVFile()

CSVInfo = ReadCSVFile()
For i = 0 To (UBound(CSVInfo)-1)
lastADLookupFailed = false
Set info = New UserInfo
info.CloudLegacyDN = Split(CSVInfo(i+1), “,”)(0)
info.CloudEmailAddress = Split(CSVInfo(i+1), “,”)(1)
info.OnPremiseEmailAddress = Split(CSVInfo(i+1), “,”)(2)
WScript.Echo “Processing user ” & info.OnPremiseEmailAddress
WScript.Echo “Calling LookupADInformationFromSMTPAddress”
LookupADInformationFromSMTPAddress(info)
If lastADLookupFailed = false Then
WScript.Echo “Calling ProcessMailbox”
ProcessMailbox(info)
End If
set info = nothing
Next

End Function

‘Populate user info from AD
Sub LookupADInformationFromSMTPAddress(ByRef info)

‘Lookup the rest of the info in AD using the SMTP address
Set objRootDSE = GetObject(“LDAP://RootDSE”)
strDomain = objRootDSE.Get(“DefaultNamingContext”)
Set objRootDSE = nothing
Set objConnection = CreateObject(“ADODB.Connection”)
objConnection.Provider = “ADsDSOObject”
objConnection.Open “Active Directory Provider”
Set objCommand = CreateObject(“ADODB.Command”)
BaseDN = “”
adFilter = “(&(proxyAddresses=SMTP:” & info.OnPremiseEmailAddress & “))”
Attributes = “distinguishedName,msExchMailboxGUID,mail,proxyAddresses,legacyExchangeDN”
Query = BaseDN & “;” & adFilter & “;” & Attributes & “;subtree”
objCommand.CommandText = Query
Set objCommand.ActiveConnection = objConnection
On Error Resume Next
Set objRecordSet = objCommand.Execute

‘Handle any errors that result from the query
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
WScript.Echo “Error encountered on query ” & Query & “. Skipping user.”
lastADLookupFailed = true
return
End If

‘Handle zero or ambiguous search results
If objRecordSet.RecordCount = 0 Then
WScript.Echo “No users found for address ” & info.OnPremiseEmailAddress
lastADLookupFailed = true
return
ElseIf objRecordSet.RecordCount > 1 Then
WScript.Echo “Ambiguous search results for email address ” & info.OnPremiseEmailAddress
lastADLookupFailed = true
return
ElseIf Not objRecordSet.EOF Then
info.LegacyDN = objRecordSet.Fields(“legacyExchangeDN”).Value
info.Mail = objRecordSet.Fields(“mail”).Value
info.MailboxGUID = objRecordSet.Fields(“msExchMailboxGUID”).Value
proxyCounter = 1
For Each address in objRecordSet.Fields(“proxyAddresses”).Value
info.ProxyAddresses.Add proxyCounter, address
proxyCounter = proxyCounter + 1
Next
info.DistinguishedName = objRecordSet.Fields(“distinguishedName”).Value
objRecordSet.MoveNext
End If

objConnection = nothing
objCommand = nothing
objRecordSet = nothing
On Error Goto 0

End Sub

‘Populate data from the CSV file
Function ReadCSVFile()

‘Open file
Set objFS = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
Set objTextFile = objFS.OpenTextFile(csvFileName, 1, false, -1)

‘Loop through each line, putting each line of the CSV file into an array to be returned to the caller
counter = 0
Dim CSVArray()
Do While NOT objTextFile.AtEndOfStream
ReDim Preserve CSVArray(counter)
CSVArray(counter) = objTextFile.ReadLine
counter = counter + 1
Loop

‘Close and return
objTextFile.Close
Set objTextFile = nothing
Set objFS = nothing
ReadCSVFile = CSVArray

End Function

‘Process the migration
Sub ProcessMailbox(User)

‘Get user properties
userADSIPath = “LDAP://” & domainController & “/” & User.DistinguishedName
Set MyUser = GetObject(userADSIPath)

‘Add x.500 address to list of existing proxies
existingLegDnFound = FALSE
newLegDnFound = FALSE

‘Loop through each address in User.ProxyAddresses
For i = 1 To User.ProxyAddresses.Count
If StrComp(address, “x500:” & User.LegacyDN, vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
WScript.Echo “x500 proxy ” & User.LegacyDN & ” already exists”
existingLegDNFound = true
End If
If StrComp(address, “x500:” & User.CloudLegacyDN, vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
WScript.Echo “x500 proxy ” & User.CloudLegacyDN & ” already exists”
newLegDnFound = true
End If
Next

‘Add existing leg DN to proxy list
If existingLegDnFound = FALSE Then
WScript.Echo “Adding existing legacy DN ” & User.LegacyDN & ” to proxy addresses”
User.ProxyAddresses.Add (User.ProxyAddresses.Count+1),(“x500:” & User.LegacyDN)
End If

‘Add new leg DN to proxy list
If newLegDnFound = FALSE Then
‘Add new leg DN to proxy addresses
WScript.Echo “Adding new legacy DN ” & User.CloudLegacyDN & ” to existing proxy addresses”
User.ProxyAddresses.Add (User.ProxyAddresses.Count+1),(“x500:” & User.CloudLegacyDN)
End If

‘Dump out new list of addresses
WScript.Echo “Original proxy addresses updated count: ” & User.ProxyAddresses.Count
For i = 1 to User.ProxyAddresses.Count
WScript.Echo ” proxyAddress ” & i & “: ” & User.ProxyAddresses(i)
Next

‘Delete the Mailbox
WScript.Echo “Opening ” & userADSIPath & ” as CDOEXM::IMailboxStore object”
Set Mailbox = MyUser
Wscript.Echo “Deleting Mailbox”
On Error Resume Next
Mailbox.DeleteMailbox

‘Handle any errors deleting the mailbox
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
WScript.Echo “Error ” & Err.number & “. Skipping User.” & vbCrLf & “Description: ” & Err.Description & vbCrLf
Exit Sub
End If
On Error Goto 0

‘Save and continue
WScript.Echo “Saving Changes”
MyUser.SetInfo
WScript.Echo “Refeshing ADSI Cache”
MyUser.GetInfo
Set Mailbox = nothing

‘Mail Enable the User
WScript.Echo “Opening ” & userADSIPath & ” as CDOEXM::IMailRecipient”
Set MailUser = MyUser
WScript.Echo “Mail Enabling user using targetAddress ” & User.CloudEmailAddress
MailUser.MailEnable User.CloudEmailAddress
WScript.Echo “Disabling Recipient Update Service for user”
MyUser.PutEx ADS_PROPERTY_APPEND, “msExchPoliciesExcluded”, Array(“{26491CFC-9E50-4857-861B-0CB8DF22B5D7}”)
WScript.Echo “Saving Changes”
MyUser.SetInfo
WScript.Echo “Refreshing ADSI Cache”
MyUser.GetInfo

‘Add Legacy DN back on to the user
WScript.Echo “Writing legacyExchangeDN as ” & User.LegacyDN
MyUser.Put “legacyExchangeDN”, User.LegacyDN

‘Add old proxies list back on to the MEU
WScript.Echo “Writing proxyAddresses back to the user”
For j=1 To User.ProxyAddresses.Count
MyUser.PutEx ADS_PROPERTY_APPEND, “proxyAddresses”, Array(User.ProxyAddresses(j))
MyUser.SetInfo
MyUser.GetInfo
Next

‘Add mail attribute back on to the MEU
WScript.Echo “Writing mail attribute as ” & User.Mail
MyUser.Put “mail”, User.Mail

‘Add msExchMailboxGUID back on to the MEU
WScript.Echo “Converting mailbox GUID to writable format”
Dim mbxGUIDByteArray
Call ConvertHexStringToByteArray(OctetToHexString(User.MailboxGUID), mbxGUIDByteArray)
WScript.Echo “Writing property msExchMailboxGUID to user object with value ” & OctetToHexString(User.MailboxGUID)
MyUser.Put “msExchMailboxGUID”, mbxGUIDByteArray

WScript.Echo “Saving Changes”
MyUser.SetInfo

WScript.Echo “Migration Complete!” & vbCrLf

End Sub

‘Returns the primary SMTP address of a user
Function GetPrimarySMTPAddress(Addresses)
For Each address in Addresses
If Left(address, 4) = “SMTP” Then GetPrimarySMTPAddress = address
Next
End Function
‘Converts Hex string to byte array for writing to AD
Sub ConvertHexStringToByteArray(ByVal strHexString, ByRef pByteArray)

Set FSO = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
Set Stream = CreateObject(“ADODB.Stream”)

Temp = FSO.GetTempName()
Set TS = FSO.CreateTextFile(Temp)

For i = 1 To (Len (strHexString) -1) Step 2
TS.Write Chr(“&h” & Mid (strHexString, i, 2))
Next

TS.Close

Stream.Type = 1
Stream.Open
Stream.LoadFromFile Temp

pByteArray = Stream.Read

Stream.Close
FSO.DeleteFile Temp

Set Stream = nothing
Set FSO = Nothing

End Sub
‘Converts raw bytes from AD GUID to readable string
Function OctetToHexString (arrbytOctet)

OctetToHexStr = “”
For k = 1 To Lenb (arrbytOctet)
OctetToHexString = OctetToHexString & Right(“0″ & Hex(Ascb(Midb(arrbytOctet, k, 1))), 2)
Next

End Function
Sub ShowHelp()

WScript.Echo(“This script runs in two modes, CSV Mode and Manual Mode.” & vbCrLf & “CSV Mode allows you to specify a CSV file from which to pull user names.” & vbCrLf& “Manual mode allows you to run the script against a single user.”)
WSCript.Echo(“Both modes require you to specify the name of a DC to use in the local domain.” & vbCrLf & “To run the script in CSV Mode, use the following syntax:”)
WScript.Echo(” cscript Exchange2003MBtoMEU.vbs -c x:\csv\csvfilename.csv dc.domain.com”)
WScript.Echo(“To run the script in Manual Mode, you must specify the users AD Distinguished Name, Remote SMTP Address, Remote Legacy Exchange DN, and Domain Controller Name.”)
WSCript.Echo(” cscript Exchange2003MBtoMEU.vbs ” & chr(34) & “CN=UserName,CN=Users,DC=domain,DC=com” & chr(34) & ” ” & chr(34) & “user@cloudaddress.com” & chr(34) & ” ” & chr(34) & “/o=Cloud Org/ou=Cloud Site/ou=Recipients/cn=CloudUser” & chr(34) & ” dc.domain.com”)
WScript.Quit

End Sub

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Lync 2013 CU1 – Call Pickup

Hans Sleurink — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 14:10:46 +0000

Update 28-02-2013

Microsoft has released the Lync 2013 Cumulative Update 1. You can download the update here: Lync Server 2013 Cumulative Update KB 2809243

For an installation guidance, view this KB article: Updates for Lync 2013

Original

With the new cumulative update coming from Microsoft, Lync 2013 will have a fantastic upgrade. With the CU1 (February 2013) , the most asked for feature by customers is finally coming.

When Lync 2010 came out we saw that Enterprise Voice grow rapidly, but some companies were still hesitant in adopting Lync. The feature that customers missed the most, was Call Pickup. With Lync 2013 CU1 coming, this will be a tremendous boost for the product.

For a more detailed process of how Call Pickup will work in Lync 2013, Matt Landis wrote a blog about Call Pickup setup.

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Apple iOS 6.1.2 released fixes Exchange issue

Hans Sleurink — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:08:15 +0000

On 19 februari 2013 Apple has released iOS 6.1.2. This update fixes an issue where iOS 6.1 and iOS 6.1.1 devices would create excessive Exchange activity, also known as the YAII (Yet Another IOS Issue). This issue could create large amounts of log files on the Exchange servers when syncing meeting appointments.

When the issue first arose, I blocked all the iOS 6.1 and iOS 6.1.1 devices with an ActiveSync device access rule on Exchange 2010 SP2. This meant no user with that OS could use ActiveSync to synchronize e-mail, calendar and/or contacts.

I updated my device to iOS 6.1.2 and still cannot sync to Exchange?

When your device is updated to iOS 6.1.2 it’s possible you still cannot connect to your Exchange environment. The error you’ll most likely receive is “Cannot get mail. The connection to the server failed.”

To make sure you can synchronize your device do as follows:

Update your iOS device to version 6.1.2
Log on to your Outlook Web Access (OWA) environment
Select Options -> See all Options
Select Phone -> Mobile Phones
Here you will see all your ActiveSync devices
Select your iOS device (iPhone or iPad)
Select the delete button
Press Yes on the question : “Are your sure you want to delete this mobile phone?”

After this your device will be able to synchronize again.
Also remember, if you manually disabled synchronizing on your iOS device to turn it back on.

For those interested, the new information for an iPhone 4S is :

Header: iOS 6.1.2 10B146
User agent: Apple-iPhone4C1/1002.146

If you have any further information or issues synchronizing after the update, please leave your message here.

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Exchange 2013 Help File

Hans Sleurink — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 07:56:43 +0000

Microsoft has released an updated help file for Microsoft Exchange 2013. This help file has content for Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Hybrid Deployments and the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013.

You can download the help file here.

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Synchronization with your WindowsMail failed

Hans Sleurink — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 07:33:48 +0000

It’s possible you receive the message in your mailbox which states:

Synchronization with your WindowsMail failed for 3 items
Microsoft Exchange was unable to send the following items to your mobile device. These items have not been deleted. You should be able to access them using either Outlook or Outlook Web Access.

The header of the message can be somewhat different, depending on the device you are syncing with:

Synchronization with your WP failed for 3 items (WP stands for Windows Phone)
Synchronization with your iPad failed for 3 items
Synchronization with your iPhone failed for 3 items

Solution

These errors appear when synchronizing your appointments, after you made an appointment in Outlook 2013. The issue lies in the fact that you have made an appointment with the new status in Outlook 2013, “Working Elsewhere”.

Although it’s possible to set the appointment to this status, Exchange 2010 ActiveSync doesn’t support this new status. When your device tries to synchronize the appointment and finds the new status, you receive the e-mail that it’s not possible to synchronize the appointment.

Resolve the issue by changing the status of your appointment to “Out of Office”.

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Windows 8 Lync MX doesn’t use Exchange SRV record for autodiscover

Hans Sleurink — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 07:18:26 +0000

Windows 8 has a Lync client that can be installed from the Windows App Store (formerly known as Lync MX). This new Lync client has active tiles which also shows you your upcoming appointments in a tile. For this to work it connects to your Microsoft Exchange environment using autodiscover.

There are multiple ways you can deploy and configure autodiscover. If you’re only using a service record (SRV) in DNS for autodiscover (_autodiscover._tcp.smtpdomain.com) you will notice that the Lync client cannot connect to the Exchange Web services. For now it is not known if Micorosoft will change the client for it to work. A workaround could be to add an A-record to DNS, autodiscover.smtpdomain.com.

Here a video showing you the Windows 8 Lync client functionality.

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How to recover an Exchange 2007 cluster with the error “The installation on node is inconsistent”

Hans Sleurink — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:03:27 +0000

Problem

When you’re building (or already) have a active/passive Exchange 2007 cluster and you try to move the cluster to the other node, it’s possible you receive an error like this :

The installation on node ‘NODE’ is inconsistent. ConfiguredVersion=, UnpackedVersion=8.2.176.2. An upgrade might not have completed successfully.

As the error already explains, there is a version problem. To understand this problem you need to know a little bit about the installation steps Exchange does while installing.

Installation Steps

When Exchange is installing, it logs all information about the installation in the following folder : C:\ExchangeSetupLogs\

In this directory there are multiple files. Each filename is based on the installation of a particular part of the process. For example, when you install the Mailbox role then the following file is present in the log directory : Install-MailboxRole-.ps1. In this logfile all information is placed regarding the process of the installation of the mailbox role.

Also information about the installation is being written to the file : ExchangeSetup.log.

For troubleshooting installation, these are the files you need to look at.

Furthermore Exchange keeps the process of the installation in the registry of the server. This is done to keep track of the current installation state. Check out the following location in the registry : HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\v8.0\

During an Exchange installation there will be 3 keys : Action, Unpackedversion, Watermark. For example :

Action: Install
UnpackedVersion: 8.2.176.2
Watermark: 73f422c6

When an Exchange server is ready and correctly installed, there will be 2 keys present in that location : ConfiguredVersion, UnpackedVersion.

ConfiguredVersion: 8.2.176.2
UnpackedVersion: 8.2.176.2

But I see the watermark is still present…???

When the installation went wrong and the watermark is still present, you can trace where the installation went wrong. Copy the Watermark (in this example 73f422c6) and open the .ps1 file corresponding the role you were installing. Locate the watermark. You should find something similar like this :

# Tasks for ‘Transport Common Service Control’ component
# [ID = 73f422c6, Wt = 1, isFatal = True] “Starting the Microsoft Exchange Transport Log Search service”
start-SetupService -ServiceName MSExchangeTransportLogSearch

Know we know the installation stopped while starting the Microsoft Exchange Transport Log Search service. To get more detail we open the ExchangeSetup.log and locate the errors regarding the MSExchangeTransportLogSearch. In our example we found the following lines :

[data time] [2] Found process that matches executable file MSExchangeTransportLogSearch for service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch: 2888. Start time: date time, Exit time: -.
[data time] [2] Generated Watson report with dump for the service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch
[data time] [2] [ERROR] Unexpected Error
[data time] [2] [ERROR] Service ‘MSExchangeTransportLogSearch’ failed to reach status ‘Running’ on this server.
[data time] [2] [ERROR] Cannot start service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch on computer ‘.’.
[data time] [2] [ERROR] The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion
[data time] [2] Ending processing.
[data time] [1] The following 1 error(s) occurred during task execution:
[data time] [1] 0. ErrorRecord: Service ‘MSExchangeTransportLogSearch’ failed to reach status ‘Running’ on this server.
[data time] [1] 0. ErrorRecord: Microsoft.Exchange.Configuration.Tasks.ServiceDidNotReachStatusException: Service ‘MSExchangeTransportLogSearch’ failed to reach status ‘Running’ on this server. —> System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot start service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch on computer ‘.’. —> System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion
— End of inner exception stack trace —
at System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController.Start(String[] args)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Configuration.Tasks.ManageServiceBase.StartServiceWorker(ServiceController serviceController, String[] serviceParameters)
— End of inner exception stack trace —
[data time] [1] [ERROR] Service ‘MSExchangeTransportLogSearch’ failed to reach status ‘Running’ on this server.
[data time] [1] [ERROR] Cannot start service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch on computer ‘.’.
[data time] [1] [ERROR] The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion
[data time] [1] Setup is halting task execution because of one or more errors in a critical task.
[data time] [1] Finished executing component tasks.
[data time] [1] Ending processing.
[data time] [0] The Exchange Server Setup operation did not complete. For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com and enter the Error ID.
[data time] [0] End of Setup

As you can read from the lines, the famous Watson was present and caused the installation to fail.

And how do I solve this problem?

To solve the issue there are a few steps to take. You cannot just restart the setup of Exchange.

Make sure that the cluster is running on the clusternode that is correctly installed.
Remove Exchange from the passive cluster node.
setup.com /mode:uninstall /roles:mt,mb
run from a Command prompt in Administrator Mode
After the Microsoft Exchange Server setup operation completed successfully, evict the node from the cluster.
Start the Failover Cluster manager, right click the passive node, select more Actions… and then click Evict.
When the node is gone from the cluster, re-join the node to the cluster again.
Reinstall Exchange on the passive nodesetup.com /mode:install /roles:mailbox
management tools will install automatically

Sources :
Tim McMichael, MsExchange Team

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