How to Report the Connection Protocol Used by Outlook Mobile Clients

Microsoft has refreshed the Outlook Mobile architecture (now called “Microsoft Sync Technology”). They suggest that you run some PowerShell to report clients connecting via the old and new architectures. Their code works, but we think ours is better.

Understanding the Email Addresses Used by Microsoft 365 Groups and Teams

Some recent questions in the Microsoft Technical Community show confusion about the email addresses used by Office 365 Groups and Teams. Here’s our attempt to clarify.

Using S/MIME with the Azure Information Protection Client

The latest version of the Azure Information Protection (AIP) client supports the ability to associate S/MIME protection with an AIP label. Although interesting, it’s a feature unlikely to be of much practical use to the majority of Office 365 tenants.

Phishing: Sample Messages Delivered to Exchange Online Mailboxes

Another day, another phishing attempt, this time trying to make unwary Office 365 administrators click on a link to “Retrieve Pending Messages” for their domain. I’m surprised this one got through! Some other examples from November 2019 are included for your review. Make sure that you report these bad boys when they arrive into user mailboxes

Phishing: EFile Document Notification

A very exciting message arrived in my mailbox. So exciting that it was too good to be true. Some basic checks made me more suspicious and then Outlook’s Message Header Analyzer gave more evidence to think the message was bad.

How to Find and Report Inactive Distribution Lists

A recent correspondent asked how to find inactive distribution lists in Exchange Online. We didn’t have a good answer in the book, so here’s some PowerShell code to do the trick.

How to Apply Encryption to Exchange Online Email Containing Sensitive Data

Office 365 offers different ways to apply encryption to important messages. When those messages hold sensitive data known to Office 365, like credit cards or passport numbers, we can define a transport rule or DLP policy to protect outbound email automatically. And while you can define rules and policies through the GUI, PowerShell is available too.

How to Migrate On-Premises Distribution Lists to Exchange Online

If you run a hybrid Exchange deployment, you probably have some on-premises distribution lists that you’d like to move to the cloud. Office 365 offers no way to do this, so it’s up to PowerShell. Instead of starting from scratch, you can use a script created by Tim McMichael of Microsoft and amend it to meet your needs. PowerShell is just great.

How Exchange Online Room Mailboxes Use AutoUpdate and AutoAccept

Microsoft issued Message Center update MC151582 to tell Exchange Online administrators about a new default value for automatic processing of events sent to room mailboxes. Unfortunately, the PowerShell code in the update contains an error, so here’s some fixed code to check existing values and to set them to the new default, if you want to do that.

How to License Exchange 2019 Hybrid Deployment

Microsoft has confirmed that they will not release a free hybrid license for Exchange 2019. That’s OK, because if you want to use Exchange 2019 as the HCW host, you simply assign the server one of your licenses. After all, the server won’t simply be running hybrid connectivity, will it?

How to Use the Office 365 Audit Log to Find Out Who Deleted Messages in a Mailbox

Exchange Online sends its mailbox audit records to the Office 365 audit log. You can search the log to discover who deleted messages from mailboxes, normally only an issue when delegates are involved.

Microsoft Rolls Out Block for Calendar Forwarding

A new Exchange feature rolling out inside Office 365 allows meeting organizers to block people forwarding their meetings to all and sundry. The latest versions of OWA and Outlook 2016 click to run support the UI for the feature and blocks are built into Exchange Online and Exchange on-premises servers to stop blocked meetings sneaking through.

Accelerating Exchange 2019 at Ignite 2018

Have you ever tried to use SSDs with Exchange Server only to be told that it’s a really bad idea and that you should concentrate on JBOD. Well, Microsoft has made some changes in Exchange 2019 and will talk about them at Ignite, and you can learn about it on Wednesday, Sept 26 in-person, online, or afterwards.

How Eradicating Bad Email Habits Improves Microsoft 365 Account Security

Hanging on to old email habits is a bad idea, especially if you use a cloud service like Office 365 where Microsoft introduces a steady stream of new features. The worst bad habit is password sharing. It’s time to stop this now.

Losing the Last Name, First Name Legacy

Office 365 Gravtar

A recent post by MVP Mark Vale describes how to use synchronization transformation rules in AADConnect to change the last name, first name format (for example, Smith, James) for display names to a more user-friendly first name last name format (our example becomes James Smith) for accounts as they synchronize to Azure Active Directory from an …