Category: Configuration

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Flashback to what it took to do math in DOS batch files

While working on a script for an upcoming project, I wanted to test for the presence of various Office versions, including 32-bit and 64-bit components before initiating setup. Here’s one way I found:

@ECHO OFF
SET CURRLOCATION32="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16"
SET CURRLOCATION64="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16"
SET PREV1LOCATION32="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office15"
SET PREV1LOCATION64="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office15"
SET PREV2LOCATION32="C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office14"
SET PREV2LOCATION64="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office14"

REM Check for 64-bit versions
IF EXIST ""%CURRLOCATION64%\MANIFEST.XML""
… [ Continue reading ]
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Update to Create-LabUsers Script

My colleague Andreas asked today for some help troubleshooting an issue he’d run into with the Create-LabUsers script failing while using the InflateMailboxes parameter.

The problem ended up being three-fold:

  • I had some pre-populated user names that had spaces in them
  • I hadn’t trimmed the spaces out when constructing the SMTP address (although I had for the UPN)
  • I didn’t test for a valid RFC sender address when constructing the mail

So, all of those things together conspired to generate errors whenever some of those user names were hit. … [ Continue reading ]

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Apply Security & Compliance Center Retention Labels to Outlook Folders

I couldn’t really come up with a cool-sounding title for this post, so I just went with the basics of what it does.

Last week, I worked with a customer that wanted to deploy custom retention labels to custom folders inside a user’s mailbox–the idea being that they would create a custom folder structure such as this under a user’s Inbox:

\Inbox
\Inbox\Retention Schedule
\Inbox\Retention Schedule\2 Year (apply a 2-year retention label to everything in this folder)
\Inbox\Retention Schedule\4 Year (apply a 4-year retention label to everything in this folder)
\Inbox\Retention Schedule\7 Year (apply a 7-year retention label to everything in this folder)
\Inbox\Retention Schedule\Forever (apply a ‘Never delete’ retention label to everything in this folder)

Seems easy enough, right? … [ Continue reading ]

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Exchange Online Protection (EOP) Best Practices and Recommendations

Yes. I said it.

Someone needed to put a line in the sand and today, that person is me.  I’m going to say these are some best practices.

Of course, your mileage may vary, depending on your type of organization–users at a local bank or city government will have different threats presented to them than an engineering firm with international customers, for example.… [ Continue reading ]

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Update to OneDrive for Business Admin tool

Based on some user feedback, I’ve made the following modifications to the OneDrive for Business Admin Tool:

  • Fixed a reference to the original function name for FolderToDelete
  • Added verbiage referencing the -Confirm parameter when using FolderToDelete parameter
  • Tidied up code indentations to make it more readable

I’ve got some additional feedback that I will incorporate as well (once I figure out how to do it).… [ Continue reading ]

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Cloud UPNs for AAD Connect users with Alt-ID don’t update after domain verified in tenant

A few weeks ago, I ran into an issue with a customer.  Scenario:

  • Customer had configured alternate-id sign in with AAD Connect (the gist is that it flows on-premises mail to cloud UPN)
  • Synced identity to tenant
  • Tenant did not have any verified domains

As expected, without a matching verified domain in the tenant, UPN suffixes in the tenant were actually set as @tenant.onmicrosoft.com. … [ Continue reading ]

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Adopting OneDrive for Business

OneDrive for Business is, from my perspective, one of the most under-utilized but benefit-rich parts of the Office 365 platform, allowing organizations (especially organizations that subscribe to the E3 or higher SKU) virtually unlimited storage, versioning, and recovery capability for their file-based storage.… [ Continue reading ]

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DLP for Bitcoin Addresses

One of the up-and-coming combination phish-ransom attacks is to trick the mark into thinking that you’ve got access to their data, and then get them to send money to a Bitcoin address to protect them from data leakage.  You can create a DLP rule in the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center (or an Exchange Online transport rule) to try to combat this.… [ Continue reading ]