This is a pretty common question. how much memory do i need? 2gb? 4gb? 8gb? This heavily depends on how you use your system and if you even have 64-bit support!
See the link below for a pretty good explination!
Archive for November, 2009
This was shamelessly stolen from MsExchangeTeam.com
Updates to the Exchange Supportability Matrix
With the release of Exchange 2007 SP2 we provided a Supportability Matrix which outlined the supported configurations for Exchange 2000 SP3, Exchange 2003 SP2, and Exchange 2007 (RTM, SP1, and SP2). But as many are aware, with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2 there have been a variety of questions raised about our support policies and a multitude of feedback. Two pieces of feedback occurred numerous times - the need to support Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2 and the need to support Exchange 2003 against Windows Server 2008 R2 Active Directory servers.
In response to this feedback we will be making several updates to the supportability matrix.
- As I recently blogged about, we will be adding support for Exchange 2007 on the Windows Server 2008 R2 platform. While we had hoped to add this application/operating system combination quickly, unfortunately adding this support requires code changes to setup in Exchange 2007. Therefore, our vehicle for adding this support will be via a third Service Pack for Exchange 2007 in the second half of calendar year 2010.
- Exchange 2003 SP2 will now be supported against writeable Windows Server 2008 R2 Active Directory Servers. Additionally, with the General Availability of Exchange Server 2010, and those looking to standardize on Windows Server 2008 R2 we have enhanced the supportability of forest and domain functional levels up to Windows Server 2008 R2. This change is effective immediately on Exchange 2003 SP2.
- Exchange 2007 is now supported on servers running .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 provided that the .NET platform was upgraded from .NET Framework 2.0. This change is also effective immediately on Exchange 2007 SP2.
Each of these changes are being made to provide the flexibility you requested – to change your operating system architecture without changing your messaging architecture. In addition to the existing combinations, we will be adding supportability guidance for Exchange 2010 to the matrix. Note that all of these changes may not immediately appear on the supportability matrix, but be assured that any documentation update lag will not affect your supportability with Microsoft Support.
Finally I do want to update all on one other piece of feedback we have received – allowing the in place upgrade of the operating system under Exchange. Technically the work required to provide this capability is consistent with the work we would need to do to support an in-place upgrade of Exchange itself. As such the amount of work needed is outside the scope and complexity of what we can do in a post release product update. Still we do understand the demand and desire and it is something we will continue to look at for future versions of the product.
While we hope these changes are welcome news and address questions you may have had, we also understand we have areas to improve in. Our desire is to simplify and improve the support experience with Exchange. If you have more feedback, please continue to provide it.
Kevin Allison
General Manager, Exchange Customer Experience
Looks like the final version should be out in June of 2010! I really hope so since I’ve enjoyed the beta so thoroughly so far. Outlook 2010 is very impressive and a few PPT decks i’ve built with PowerPoint 2010 has not disappointed either. Just using the built in tools I was able to make a very polished looking presentation in a matter of minutes!
Microsoft has just released a new document outlining the progression and transition steps to move to Windows Server 2008 and R2 domain controllers!
Today in my class Sherri asked, "this mail address policy thing is neat in exchange 2007, is there an equivalent in 2003?"
Sure is Sherri! Exchange 2003 uses a slightly different terminology on how it handles organizational address changes. It uses Recipient Policies to perform bulk SMTP address changes. Scenarios where this may be applicable is may if you purchase a new domain name and want to add it as an alias to all of your existing mailboxes.
Here are some handy links to some MSKB and technet documents with explinations and walk-throughs!
One of the many "Gotcha’s" that most Exchange administrators miss when transitioning from Exchange 2k or 2k3 to 2007 is forgetting to move other resources to the new 2007 environment. Admins will never miss mailboxes, but what about our little friend the OAB (Offline address book) Alot of administrators miss this before they perform their uninstallation of Exchange from the generating server! I too have fallen prey to this.
Best practice is to move the OAB from the one server to the 2007 environment. Steps for moving the OAB found here…
One of the ways I have gotten around this issue if you’ve already blown the 2k3 server away and cannot restore it is to create a fresh one. Issue is there will already be a reference to the old one ( the one the clients are trying to pull ) that needs to be removed. Until you do, users will continue to get the dreaded 0X8004010F outlook errors during send and receive! Once the object is removed you can then create a new one with a new name and after about 24 hrs all the clients should have authenticated and queried for which OAB to get and from where.
Note – this delete remove solution is NOT microsoft "approved" but what I was able to do with a few steps to get it going again.
Reference info..
Step by step…
Liberated from… Here..
How to Move OAB
1. Start the Exchange Management Console.
2. In the console tree, expand Organization Configuration, and then click Mailbox.
3. In the result pane, click the Offline Address Book tab, and then select the OAB for which you want to move the generation to a new server.
4. In the action pane, click Move. The Move Offline Address Book wizard appears.
5. On the Move Offline Address Book page, click Browse to open the Select Mailbox Server dialog box.
6. Select the server to which you want to move the OAB generation process, and then click OK.
7. Click Move to move the OAB generation process to the new server.
8. View the status of the move operation. The wizard will move the generation of your OAB to the new server and copy the existing files for the OAB to the new server.
9. On the Completion page, confirm whether the OAB generation process was moved successfully. A status of Completed indicates that the wizard completed the task successfully. A status of Failed indicates that the task was not completed. If the task fails, review the summary for an explanation, and then click Back to make any configuration changes.
10. Click Finish to complete the Move Offline Address Book wizard.
1. Start the Exchange Management Console.
2. In the console tree, expand Organization Configuration, and then click Mailbox.
3. In the result pane, click the Offline Address Book tab, and then select the OAB for which you want to move the generation to a new server.
4. In the action pane, click Move. The Move Offline Address Book wizard appears.
5. On the Move Offline Address Book page, click Browse to open the Select Mailbox Server dialog box.
6. Select the server to which you want to move the OAB generation process, and then click OK.
7. Click Move to move the OAB generation process to the new server.
8. View the status of the move operation. The wizard will move the generation of your OAB to the new server and copy the existing files for the OAB to the new server.
9. On the Completion page, confirm whether the OAB generation process was moved successfully. A status of Completed indicates that the wizard completed the task successfully. A status of Failed indicates that the task was not completed. If the task fails, review the summary for an explanation, and then click Back to make any configuration changes.
10. Click Finish to complete the Move Offline Address Book wizard.
Click in the browse and select E2K7 and then click on move
If you want to perform it from powershell follow this command
Move-OfflineAddressBook -Identity "My OAB" -Server SERVER01
I hope this article is being very informative for you all. Thank you for your time and patience for going through this article.
This topic usually draws from the deepest of emotions from the tech field due to intense personal experiences we’ve all had. Some of us like McAfee, some swear by Norton, others by AVG or Kaspersky. Anti-virus while all moving towards the same goals, get there in completely different fashions. The following is NOT fact based in any way shape or form, so consume my views and opinions with a grain of salt. 
I have used a plethora of Anti-Virus apps in my days. Ranging from One care (/shiver) , McAfee, CA, PC-cillin, AVG, Kaspersky, Norton 360 and even the new kid on the block – Microsoft Security Essentials. Some of these apps have tried (and failed) at being an "all-in-one" solution, * cough, cough – Norton 360…Cough * and have failed miserably. I fall on the side of the fence where I would rather prefer multiple dedicated and specialized products than a single massive or suite of solutions from one provider. The McAfee and Norton’s of the industry try to do this. I feel personally they are positioning themselves to the home consumer as a silver bullet or one stop shop solution for the basic, non-tech savvy consumer. The end user feels heavily protected by all the interfaces and pop-ups and warnings… but at what cost? I’ve found these total solution style packages to be resource robbing and they themselves should come up in a scan for mal-ware! I regularly joke that Norton’s suites are a virus themselves.
Some of the more dedicated providers may lack some of the development back end that larger companies can forego. AVG (since it’s free) and Kaspersky yes your ears should be burning by now. I have experienced they have done little to nothing on my system other than take up real estate in my notification area (system tray for you old schoolers!) So what I was looking for was a best of both scenarios between them. A free product with a big enough company to really dedicate a team and dollars to make sure the product stays relevant and up to speed with emerging threats. Microsoft my old buddy has come through! Microsoft Security Essentials.
"Oh dear Lord, we don’t need another One Care in these parts!" Yes I too shared your lack of optimism when I heard they were coming out with a new anti-virus app, so soon after washing their hands and admittedly throwing up the white flag on the one-care product. I tested it, for about 8 hrs. It slowed my Vista box down so much I thought it was a massive tumor in the OS. Lifehacker.com has recently compiled the 5 best anti-virus apps voted by the community and guess which one was in there. MSE. AVG was in there too. Seeing a commonality amongst the top vote getters? Dedicated apps, low to no cost. Do you see any of these on the shelf at Best Buy or Wal-Mart? Um, no.
I was part of the Microsoft Connect Beta for this product and was very early on impressed with the ease of install, config and navigation of its tools. Now that the final product is RTM and on the streets, I have been telling anyone with a spare minute about this great product. I use it exclusively on all my systems.
One drawback… not supported on server OS’s. Sorry Charlie, you can’t have your cake and eat it too!
One of my students this week "Buck" (his nickname used here to protect the identity of the innocent!) asked me for some more information about MAK’s (Multiple Activation Keys) for windows server 2008.
Buck works full time as an admin in a very large team. His team is looking to roll out Windows Server 2008 R2 (good call ) and says that once he activates windows with his product keys his systems will be behind the firewall in a very secured environment. What is a way I can activate these servers and limit the authorization traffic to microsoft? He had learned a bit about MKS (Key Management Server) as an available role, but decided that since these systems weren’t going to be public facing and internal use only, a KMS may be overkill and didn’t want to have to allow anything out from behind the firewall that wasn’t necessary. Buck made the right choice by selecting the MAK activations structure…
) and says that once he activates windows with his product keys his systems will be behind the firewall in a very secured environment. What is a way I can activate these servers and limit the authorization traffic to microsoft? He had learned a bit about MKS (Key Management Server) as an available role, but decided that since these systems weren’t going to be public facing and internal use only, a KMS may be overkill and didn’t want to have to allow anything out from behind the firewall that wasn’t necessary. Buck made the right choice by selecting the MAK activations structure…So Buck and anyone else, here is a great launching point for more info on Volume Activation as it pertains to Win 7 & Windows server 2008
Buck here are some more MAK specific links – ENJOY!
Looking to set up Direct Access (DA) and wondered what was required of your infrastructure?
List shamelessly stolen from Edge.technet.com
DirectAccess requirements include:
- A DirectAccess server (a Windows Server 2008 R2 joined to an Active Directory® domain with DirectAccess Management Console feature added and cannot be behind a Network Address Translation, or NAT, device) with two network adapters: one connected to the Intranet, and the other to the internet with at least two consecutive public IPv4 addresses
- All DirectAccess clients running Windows 7
- At least one domain controller and Domain Name System (DNS) server running Windows Server 2008 SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2
- A Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for issuing computer certificates, smart card certificates, and, for Network Access Protection (NAP), health certificates
- IPsec policies to specify protection for traffic
- IPv6 transition technologies, i.e. ISATAP (RFC 4214), Teredo (RFC 4380), and 6to4 (RFC 3056), for DirectAccess server
- Optionally, a non-Microsoft NAT-PT (RFC 2766) device to provide access to IPv4-only resources for DirectAccess clients
Role Based Access Control (RBAC) is the new permissions model in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. With RBAC, you don’t need to modify and manage access control lists (ACLs), which was done in Exchange Server 2007 and earlier. On the flip side – as with anything new, RBAC can seem a bit intimidating at first.
I am going to try an explain how to think about RBAC, and the order to create things in so that you end up with a working RBAC setup that does exactly what you want….
Continued at source (You Had Me at EHLO)….. RBAC explanation at MS Exchange team blog