Installing Exchange 2010 SP3 on Windows 2012 (NOT R2)

There are plenty of easily found documents on how to do this, so I'm not going to repeat the instructions here. However, I ran into an issue that none of those articles mentioned, the details of which are below.

I had installed all of the various Exchange 2010 SP3 prerequisites on Windows Server 2012 and followed all of the articles exactly, but whenever I ran setup.exe (GUI) or setup.com (CLI) to install Exchange, I got the an error containing the following phrase:

Could not load file or assembly 'System.Management.Automation' or one of its dependencies.

If you encounter the error message, you simply need to use Server Management Console to install the Windows PowerShell 2.0 Engine feature.



References:
Standard install instructions for Exchange 2010 on Windows 2012 (NOT R2)
http://oxfordsbsguy.com/2013/03/24/how-to-install-exchange-2010-sp3-on-windows-server-2012/

Installing the Windows PowerShell 2.0 Engine
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849675.aspx

The forum discussions that gave me a clue as to the PowerShell version issue
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15473734/could-not-load-file-or-assembly-system-management-automation

OWA 2010 Website Is Blank

After you install update rollups on Exchange 2010 it is common to get a blank white OWA page when browsing to the OWA page.


the URL will show something like the following "https://mail.mydomain.com/owa/auth/logon.aspx?url=https://mail.mydomain.com/owa/&reason=0 ."

To fix this issue you must run the Exchange Management Shell and execute the updatecas.ps1 command from the "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin" folder. This will fix your issue, it causes the owa install to complete correctly.

References:
Blantantly ripped off from this site
http://www.prestigecomputersolutions.com/knowledge-base/entry/exchange-2010-owa-blank-white-screen-fix.html

Get Exchange Mailbox Stats

Get-MailboxStatistics

Get-MailboxStatistics | ft DisplayName,TotalItemSize,ItemCount

Get-MailboxStatistics | Sort-Object TotalItemSize –Descending | ft DisplayName,TotalItemSize,ItemCount

References:
http://www.msexchange.org/articles-tutorials/exchange-server-2007/management-administration/getting-mailbox-statistics-exchange-2007.html

Find A Specific Email Address in Exchange

Sometimes we want to know what mailbox is associated with a particular email address. Here is the easy way to find out.

Exchange 2003
For Exchange 2003, Neil Hobson writes a very good article on www.msexchange.org that makes the process very simple. You must be logged onto a PC or server that has both Active Directory tools and Exchange 2003 management tools installed. See the full article at http://www.msexchange.org/articles/finding-duplicate-smtp-addresses.html

One thing he doesn't specifically mention is that you can use wildcards, such as '*', in your search, which is handy when you don't know the exact address you're looking for.

Exchange 2007/2010
For newer versions of Exchange, simply open the Exchange Management Shell on your mail server and type the following command:

get-recipient emailaddress@domain.com

References
http://www.msexchange.org/articles/finding-duplicate-smtp-addresses.html

Notes on Recovering / Restoring Exchange

Here are a few key sites regarding recovery or restore of Microsoft Exchange:

Checking Database State or Integrity
http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/2943-find-and-replay-missing-log-files-in-exchange

Database in Dirty State
http://blogs.technet.com/b/mspfe/archive/2012/09/06/why-exchange-databases-might-remain-dirty-after-eseutil-r-recovery.aspx

Backup Recovery Issues
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvradminlegacy/thread/9af2afca-3e49-4fa6-ad06-5c6c50671a45

Add an Exchange Mailbox for an Existing Active Directory User

If you have a user in Active Directory that does not have an email address or Exchange Mailbox, you need to do the following to set them up.

These instructions are valid for Exchange 2007 or 2010. Ensure you are a member of the Exchange Recipient Administrators group within Active Directory. If you cannot set this up yourself, ask your network administrator to do this.

If you have a 64-bit version of Windows Vista or 7, you can have the Exchange Management Console (EMC) installed directly on your PC. How to do this is not covered in this post however. If you don't already have the EMC on your PC, to complete the following steps you will need to log onto one of your Exchange servers or another PC or server that has the EMC installed.

Once logged onto a PC or server that has the EMC installed:

1. Go to Start | All Programs | Microsoft Exchange | Exchange Management Console 
2. Once that opens, navigate to Recipient Configuration | Mailbox
3. Then on the right click New Mailbox
4. Ensure User Mailbox is selected and click Next
5. Select Existing User and click the Add button
6. Find the new user, select them and click OK
7. Click Next
8. Tick Specify the mailbox… (for Exchange 2010) or Mailbox Database (for Exchange 2007) and click Browse  
9. Select the database (there may only be one if you have a small Exchange environment) and click OK  
10. Click Next 
11. At the final page, click New to proceed with the mailbox creation

Your user should now have a new mailbox. Well done!