New XML update for ExBPA

[The_Exchange_Team]

Yesterday we released an xml update for ExBPA suite of tools. The update applies to the tools shipped with Exchange Server 2007 systems with Service Pack 1 applied. It is currently only available for English language servers at this time.

The following tools have received an updated set of rules:

1. Best Practices Analyzer
2. Disaster Recovery and Performance Troubleshooter

What is contained in the update?
The update contains mainly bug fixes for the above tools.

The BPA tool is also run automatically during setup and readiness checks. We have updated the prerequisites XML file for setup. So any Exchange setup launched on a machine connected to the Internet will download the updated prerequisites file to check for the correct prerequisites.

How do I obtain the update for the Best Practices Analyzer tool?
Start the Best Practices Analyzer tool from Exchange Management Console. If you have previously selected the option to check for updates on startup, you will be prompted to update the tool automatically. If the option to check for updates on startup is not selected, click on the Updates and Customer Feedback link from the application and check for new updates. (Note that this process only updates the Best Practices Analyzer tool and not the other tools. If you need the update for other tools they must be started up separately and checked for updates.)

What files are included in this update?

For the Best Practices Analyzer tool
ExBPA.PreReqs.XML
ExBPA config XML
ExBPA.Readiness.XML
ExBPA.CHM

For Disaster Recovery and Performance Management Tool

ExDRA config XML
ExTraceMan.Config.XML
ExTRA.CHM

Thanks!
-- Ananth Ramanathan

[#2]

I support a number of environments where Internet access is not available. What is the recommended way of updating the XML files in in this case - do I just overwrite the versions of the files in setupserverrolescommonen. Also, setup takes ages to do the checks as it goes to the Internet to check for updates. I note that in the setup log, test-setuphealth is launched with DownloadConfigurationUpdates set to $True - is there any way to change that to $False for these environments?

[#3]

Will there be any further updates to the ExBPA for E23k?

[#4]

Stuart,
test-setuphealth cmdlet also does the readiness checks. So setup is not taking all the time just to check for updates on the internet.

If you want to update the ExBPA.PreReqs.XML file, before setup runs on a machine which does not have internet access then you need to replace the file under SetupServerRolesCommon<language>". Detailed instructions on this are located when we posted an article on this blog about updating the prereqs file when installing Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 in a Single Labeled Domain environment. The blog article can be found at http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/03/26/448511.aspx.

If you want the update the files on an already installed server which does not have internet access, you can copy over the files manually. After installation the files will be at <Exchange Server Installation folder>Bin<language>. E.g. D:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerBinen. As a best practice do not overwrite the existing files, but make a backup of them. You can emulate what BPA does. The updater downloads the latest ExBPA.Config.XML from the Microsoft web site. It renames the existing ExBPA.Config.XML on the machine to ExBPA.Config.XML.<version number> (e.g. ExBPA.Config.XML.12.11.15.0). For the curious, the version number is located inside the XML file under the ConfigVersion key (E.g. ConfigVersion="12.11.15.0" for ExBPA.Config.XML).

Adam,
At this time we do not have any updates planned for E2K3.

[#5]

Yep, we noticed this was updated when we were unable to install a mailbox role all of a sudden in a hosted Exchange scenario as the readiness check started to fail.  By the next week (end of last week) it seems that we were passing the readiness check again. In the future, it would be nice if the setup would give the end-user the option to choose to download the latest update instead of doing it in the background as this caused us operational headaches while we determined how best to work around it.  By the time we determined how to work around it another update had been published that fixed the issue.

Incidentally, the two checks that were failing were:

1) A check for inheritance to be turned on on CN=All Address Lists
2) The existence of CN=Public Folder under CN=All Address Lists

Thanks.
-matt

[#6]

when running against Exchange 2007 SP1 running on Server 2008, on some the new xml is reporting that the msfte.dll is missing, as that the dhcp client isn't running and that IPv4 is not enabled.  All of which are not true, and can't see any reason why it's doing this.

Thots