Exchange 2007 Support

[Guest]

Since the Exchange 2007 management tools no longer work with Active Directory Users and Computers, is Hyena going to be able to work with Exchange 2007?

[kstanush]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

I not see any reason why they would not work and we have not heard of any problems. I don't see any differences between the Exchange interfaces that Hyena uses from one Exchange version to the next.

[Guest]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

I can not access any of my exchange 2007 properties or change them using Hyena. I would say that is dosn't work at all, based on my experience. My exchange domain is new, not upgraded from 2003, so the old exchange admin tools were not installed on my Hyena workstation.

I get the error unable to display shell property sheet.

[kstanush]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

Hyena does not directly provide any Exchange management functions, except for creating and removing mailboxes.

The functions for manipulating Exchange properties is done through the Active Directory shell property pages, which are added as dynamic property sheet extensions to existing AD shell pages for users, etc. This is all done by Microsoft when you install the Exchange Admin tools. Hyena then accesses the shell objects, loads the pages and any extension pages, and displays them. We have both a complete shell properties 'sheet' and also a subset just for Exchange. Some refer to this interface as 'MMC', but its not really an MMC feature, but rather built into Active Directory, and both MMC and Hyena tap into the same interface.

So, in a nutshell, you must install and load the appropriate Exchange and Active Directory admin tools in order to allow Hyena to manage the Exchange properties.

The only other way to manage the Exchange attributes would be to use the 'Manage Directory Attributes' function in Hyena, which is similar to ADSIedit, but that is very unsafe when you don't have a GUI dialog that shows you what is being changed.

[Guest]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

Loading the exchange 2007 admin tools must not load the same utilities that exchange 2003 does becuase Hyena can't seem to access the shell utilities that are installed on the PC, even though I can manage my exchange 2007 server thru the new MMC and management shell.

[kstanush]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

Please provide the text of the error message that you are getting and what menu actions you take to get that error.

One possibility is that Microsoft has changed the GUID identifier to the 2007 interfaces, and that is easy to fix. I'll investigate this.

[kstanush]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

Microsoft has de-integrated the Exchange functions from using the shell interfaces used by ADU&C and Hyena, so all Exchange administration must now be done through the Microsoft-specific Exchange Management MMC. Microsoft has also removed the Exchange mailbox and attribute management snapins as extension snapins to existing MMC property sheets and functions, so extra pages added to Universal groups and Contacts that have been mail-enabled.

We will investigate if there are any interfaces that Microsoft has added to support Exchange 2007, although it appears that everything has been removed from the o/s and only the Exchange Management console or PowerShell must be used.

[Guest]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

This would be an excellent opportunity for Systemtool to make this THE admin tool of choice for AD & Exchange 2007.
Since using the powershell can be quite challenging and microsoft is planning to move toward powershell for all its products.

[kstanush]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

Unfortunately, Microsoft has designed Powershell to mainly be a scripting tool and the interface is meant for .Net and other less-than-sophisticated development languages. Microsoft is de-emphasizing C/C++ development which is a shame. We will investigate interfacing with Powershell, but have not determined if its possible or practical. But anyone can make a powershell script and run it from Hyena using the command interfaces. But the 'anyone' has to be able to get the extremely complex Powershell commands to work.

In our opinion, Microsoft bungled the Exchange 2007 integration badly and will suffer poor adoption as a result. It also makes no sense not to have an external interface into Exchange for 3rd party products. Unless you are trying to force everyone to use your own tools...

[Guest]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

Does Hyena have Exchange 2007 support yet?

[kstanush]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

No, the situation has not changed. There isn't any interface into Exchange anymore from Windows, except for Powershell or the Exchange Management Snap-in.

[Guest]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

Any traction on this. Are you looking at having the tool creating and running powershell commands. Would be great to have a one stop shop work exchange 2007 and Aduc.

[kstanush]

Re: Exchange 2007 Support

There hasn't been an significant change. Running Powershell scripts can be done with or without Hyena, but there isn't any 'interactiveness' when using them, so there isn't much to offer with Hyena integration and Powershell. Having a Powershell script run when creating a user is possible, and we did get this to work, but the configuration of it is site-specific and again not very interactive. It would probably be difficult to support unless the user already knew enough about Powershell, and if they did, then they would not really need our help.

The main problem is that even if we could create the mailbox, setting the properties for the mailbox is still not possible.

The bottom line is that Microsoft removed all mailbox management (create/delete/move) from the O/S, and the management of the mailbox properties from the AD shell properties. That is why you can't create or manage mailboxes anymore in ADU&C. And Hyena is affected the same way.

I'll update this post if we ever create some 'Powershell script interface' from Hyena, but like I said, its not pretty and difficult to debug.