MS Exchange

anything I don't mind

anything I don't mind

anything I don't mind

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Has anyone else thought that Exchange 2007 was worse than Exchange 2003? Has anyone tried 2007 and upgraded to 2010 and found it to be a big improvement. Do you think exchange 2007 was like the vista version of exchange, ie it was the version that they released that was not very good and the 2010 is the windows 7 equivalent? I just seem to have run in to a brick wall at every attempt of using exchange 2007. It seems they made things extra difficult for no apparent reason.

Do you think the command shell is better than the previously 2003 management console. Does anyone else find the 2007 version of exchange to be extremely slow to start up and to use. Exchange 2003 was quite snappy and it just worked. Now to do basic functions i am expected to use the command shell that to put it bluntly sucks. Do you think they moved towards a command shell and away from a working gui to increase the difficulty of basic functions so that exchange admins can continue to have a job ?

What are the actual improvements with using the command shell over the management console, do you think the management console was not developed enough in 2007 because they focused on the command shell instead?


I am having this realy annoying problem with exchange 2007 where the GAL does not update and after googling it seems like a common problem, with the usual responses about updating the offline address book and running all sorts of commands in the command shell to do what is essentially a basic fundamental function of exchange. Have i missed a lesson or something?
 
I think both 2007 and 2010 feel like beta products. They're too rough around the edges. Deployment is always a nightmare. It seems you can do almost nothing without resorting to PowerShell cmdlets. I have nothing against PowerShell (I love it, in fact). It's just that Exchange has now reached a point where deploying and administering it simply isn't possible without being a full-time Exchange expert that knows all the commands like the back of his hand.

It feels like such a heavyweight product now with endless levels of complexity whereas back in the 2003 days it did not. It was just a bunch of server logic, some MMC snap-ins etc. Job done.

At the end of the day it is JUST a glorified mail server. Why does it need to be so ridiculously complex?

The Exchange product has actually got so bad now that I wonder if top brass at Microsoft have ever tried to actually deploy it themselves. Including doing such things as importing mailboxes from an old server. I think if they actually tried this then Steve Ballmer would have a seizure and a huge fit when he realised what an absolute turd of a product they are shipping to customers with a straight face.

Of course, once deployed and configured, Exchange is second to none. It's just getting there that is so difficult nowadays. They could do with sorting out the ridiculous memory consumption issues though. Maybe then it would be a more popular as a cloud service...
 
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Ok i fixed it, command was Update-GlobalAddressList -Identity "Default Global Address List"

Still remains to be seen if this updated GAL will update within the OAB as by default outlook 2010 sets all clients to cache mode and when you try to download OAB it comes up with an error that it can't find it. *sigh*
 
I like Exchange 2007 and 2010; powershell is an incredibly powerful way of managing Exchange once you become familiar with it. The additional features in OWA are also very welcome - OWA in Exchange 2003 was really quite primitive.
 
I've just moved from 2003 to 2010, and after you get around the layout of the console manager its all good. As above, OWA is a huge leap.
I'm running it in a VM and it eats 95% of RAM allocated but interestly enough vmturbo tells me its only using 1/2 of it (and thus its overallocated) :confused:
 
groen said:
Still remains to be seen if this updated GAL will update within the OAB as by default outlook 2010 sets all clients to cache mode and when you try to download OAB it comes up with an error that it can't find it. *sigh*
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Exchange 2010 doesn't seem any better than 2007 for this.

We've deployed up to SP1 RU5 at a few organisations now, and every update seems to break as many things as it fixes (Public Folder deleted email recovery anyone?).
I'm hoping SP2 RU1 will sort many of the issues and hopefully be the next stable patch since RU5 has it's own issues (GALs randomly breaking being one of them).

Even on our largest Exchange servers, the Management Console can be ponderously slow when it wants to be (30 seconds or more just to open on a single domain).

@NathanE, I completely agree. There is a lot to be said for Linux email servers.
Trying to set up any sort of advanced features (DAGs, Clustering etc.) requires a fluency in Powershell. This is not a problem in itself, but these complaints are exactly what our smaller customers say, and I totally agree with them.
 
We've just migrated from our parent company after a management buyout. Setting up Exchange 2010 from scratch was fairly pain-free but had to use Exchange Management Shell cmdlets for a few things.
General administration in Exchange 2010 is a breeze though. I have no other experience with exchange apart from a bit of 2007. I'm 24 years old so relatively new to the game.
 
We started with Exchange 2000 and then went Exchange 2003. We missed out Exchange 2007 and went straight to Exchange 2010.
I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but using a combination of Google searches, well known online Exchange resources and Knowedge Base we've managed to solve around 99% of problems we've stumbled across - not that there have been that many.

Only on one occasion did we have to get outside help in when a CAS setup was just refusing to failover correctly.
 
Yamahahahahaha said:
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Your points are valid and well made, and I have to concede that the scale I support it at probably insulates me from problems such as the ones you mention. The vast majority of the customers I support run SBS boxes, so we don't have to worry about configuring more involved setups with DAGs etc.

The main problems we have is with certificates at implementation; our consultants don't really seem to understand how it works, which means I typically get support calls along the lines of "Outlook keeps asking me if I trust our server". I then have to wade through generating certificates with the right SANs and then installing them, making sure that the autodiscover site works properly etc, which wasn't an issue in 2k3. Not having to worry about the 75 GB maibox store limit (as per Exchange 2003 Standard) is a bonus, from an SBS perspective at least.
 
We have just finished setting upa 2010 test environment before we move from 2003 and I am a bit surprised about these comments.
About 90-95% of the work was completed through the GUI and was very straight forward and painless. Yes there was some amount of powershell required but it was for what I describe advance features like cas arrays. However, a quick look on technet got a simple walk through.

I would so far rate it as far superior than 2003 on any point. The management gui is far better than 2003 and the few stuff that you must use powershell for is again fairly straight forward.

Haven't come across any bugs yet either but, atm only got 3 mailboxes in a 2 database dag.
 
NathanE said:
I think both 2007 and 2010 feel like beta products. They're too rough around the edges. Deployment is always a nightmare. It seems you can do almost nothing without resorting to PowerShell cmdlets. I have nothing against PowerShell (I love it, in fact). It's just that Exchange has now reached a point where deploying and administering it simply isn't possible without being a full-time Exchange expert that knows all the commands like the back of his hand.
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You must be doing some very odd things then. As I've done a fair few Exch 2k7 & 2k10 installation/upgrades and they've all been, touch wood, reasonably smooth, with almost no power shell needed.
 
The first time I've ever touched Exchange is 2010, I pretty much fell into a job that required me to administer a load of Windows servers including AD, Exchange and SQL etc.

Coming from a Linux sysadmin background I thought I would hate it, but I actually really quite like it. I think Powershell is awesome - particularly the data model it's built around.

I've gotten to grips with Exchange pretty well and try to use do things the console way where possible - it just seems so much more efficient.
 
MikeHiow said:
The first time I've ever touched Exchange is 2010, I pretty much fell into a job that required me to administer a load of Windows servers including AD, Exchange and SQL etc.

Coming from a Linux sysadmin background I thought I would hate it, but I actually really quite like it. I think Powershell is awesome - particularly the data model it's built around.

I've gotten to grips with Exchange pretty well and try to use do things the console way where possible - it just seems so much more efficient.
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I completely agree. I'll buck the trend here and say I much prefer 2010/2007 over 2003. Powershell for me is a big part of this.
 
I suspect the issue that most people have with 2007/2010 is that they're so used to 2003 that moving away from it a very jarring. Trying to get your head around the change in architecture is hard enough, and you then have to contend with all of the UI changes and the introduction of Powershell.

Personally I really struggled with 2k7 to begin with, but as our customers have moved away from 2k3 I've grown much more comfortable with it, to the point where I prefer working with it to 2k3. I would imagine it's the same for most people in my sort of situation, though. The lack of formal training probably didn't help matters in my case, admittedly :rolleyes:
 
Bry said:
We have just finished setting upa 2010 test environment before we move from 2003 and I am a bit surprised about these comments.
About 90-95% of the work was completed through the GUI and was very straight forward and painless. Yes there was some amount of powershell required but it was for what I describe advance features like cas arrays. However, a quick look on technet got a simple walk through.

I would so far rate it as far superior than 2003 on any point. The management gui is far better than 2003 and the few stuff that you must use powershell for is again fairly straight forward.

Haven't come across any bugs yet either but, atm only got 3 mailboxes in a 2 database dag.
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BoomAM said:
You must be doing some very odd things then. As I've done a fair few Exch 2k7 & 2k10 installation/upgrades and they've all been, touch wood, reasonably smooth, with almost no power shell needed.
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Burnsy2023 said:
I completely agree. I'll buck the trend here and say I much prefer 2010/2007 over 2003. Powershell for me is a big part of this.
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All of these. How anyone can say 2003 is better than 2010 is absolutley mind boggling. Let's not even go down the route of discussing the old way of clustering mailbox database servers, it's terrible.

DAG = Way forward
Powershell = Winner
I/O Reductions = More storage for everyone!

That's just naming a FEW of the improvments. Not to mention what everyone else has said about easier setup and administration.

As far as 2007 goes...it was the work in progress as far as major changes moving away from 2003 so it is understandable that there are some nuances that need overcomming. I suppose it could be likened to XP to Vista on some level but most things can be fixed. Powershell is always your friend!
 
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Exchange 2007/Exchange 2010 are infinitely better than 2003!

We use the /hosting version of Exchange 2010 at work though, and some things are stupid when you need to use powershell to do them, for example adding Transport Rules. The number of options/switches available is ridiculous.
 
Although we use 2003 at work, I've just done a 2010 exchange course and found it a big improvement generally.
Hopefully I'll still think this when we deploy it in a few weeks time!
 
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