Today we are announcing the availability of quarterly servicing cumulative updates for Exchange Server 2016 and 2019. These updates include fixes for customer reported issues as well as all previously released security updates. In a change to a previous announcement, we now plan to release the final cumulative update for Exchange Server 2016 in March 2021, which will include all fixes made for customer reported and accepted issues received before the end of mainstream support.
A full list of fixes is contained in the KB article for each CU, but we wanted to highlight the following.
OWA Cannot Download Attachment
This update addresses a customer reported issue which meant that a user was unable to preview or download an attachment in a mailbox they had access to when they had signed into it using OWA’s “open another mailbox” feature. When logging in directly to the mailbox there was no issue. This update resolves this issue for both Exchange Server 2016 and Exchange Server 2019.
Server Assisted Search
This update resolves an Exchange Server 2019 issue which meant that a search using Outlook in cached mode returned a maximum of 175 results. This update will ensure the search response is complete, or to a maximum of 1000 results.
New-MoveRequest Not Logged in Audit Logs
This update resolves an issue which meant resulted in New/Resume/Remove-MoveRequest actions by an admin not being logged by the admin audit logging agent. Update-MoveRequest was being correctly logged. This update resolves this for both Exchange Server 2016 and Exchange Server 2019, to ensure all *-MoveRequest requests are properly logged.
Release Details
The KB articles that describe the fixes in each release and product downloads are available as follows:
- Exchange Server 2019 Cumulative Update 8 (KB4588885), VLSC Download
- Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 19 (KB4588884), Download, UM Lang Packs
These updates contain schema and directory changes and so require you prepare AD and all domains. You can find more information on that process here.
Additional Information
Microsoft recommends all customers test the deployment of any update in their lab environment to determine the proper installation process for your production environment. For information on extending the schema and configuring Active Directory, please review the appropriate documentation.
Also, to prevent installation issues you should ensure that the Windows PowerShell Script Execution Policy is set to “Unrestricted” on the server being upgraded or installed. To verify the policy settings, run the Get-ExecutionPolicy cmdlet from PowerShell on the machine being upgraded. If the policies are NOT set to Unrestricted you should use the resolution steps in here to adjust the settings.
Additionally, a reminder that if you plan to install any Cumulative Update using the unattended option with either PowerShell or Command Prompt, make sure you specify either the full path to the setup.exe file or use a “.” in front of the command if you are running it directly from directory containing the update. If you do not the Exchange Server Setup program starts and may indicate that it completed successfully. Read more here.
Reminder: Customers in hybrid deployments where Exchange is deployed on-premises and in the cloud, or who are using Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) with their on-premises Exchange deployment are required to deploy the currently supported cumulative update for the product version in use, e.g., 2013 Cumulative Update 23; 2016 Cumulative Update 19 or 18; 2019 Cumulative Update 8 or 7.
For the latest information on the Exchange Server and product announcements please see What's New in Exchange Server and Exchange Server Release Notes.
Note: Documentation may not be fully available at the time this post is published.
