The Exchange team is announcing today the availability of our most recent quarterly servicing update to Exchange Server 2013. Cumulative Update 3 for Exchange Server 2013 and updated UM Language Packs are now available on the Microsoft Download Center. Cumulative Update 3 includes fixes for customer reported issues, minor product enhancements and previously released security bulletins. A complete list of customer reported issues resolved in Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 3 can be found in Knowledge Base Article KB 2892464.
Note: Some article links may not be available at the time of this post's publication. Updated Exchange 2013 documentation, including Release Notes, will be available on TechNet soon.
We would like to call attention to an important fix in Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 3 which impacts customers who rely upon Backup and Recovery mechanisms to protect Exchange data. Cumulative Update 3 includes a fix for an issue which may randomly prevent a backup dataset taken from Exchange Server 2013 from restoring correctly. Customers who rely on Backup and Recovery in their day-to-day operations are encouraged to deploy Cumulative Update 3 and initiate backups of their data to ensure that data contained in backups may be restored correctly. More information on this fix is available in KB 2888315.
In addition to the customer-reported fixes in Cumulative Update 3, the following new enhancements and improvements to existing functionality have also been added for Exchange Server 2013 customers:
More information on these topics can be found in What’s New in Exchange Server 2013, Release Notes and Exchange 2013 documentation on TechNet.
Before you deploy Exchange 2013 CU3...
Here are some things to consider before you deploy Exchange 2013 CU3.
- Active Directory schema and configuration update: Exchange 2013 CU3 includes Exchange related updates to the Active Directory schema and configuration. For information on extending the schema and configuring Active Directory, please review the appropriate TechNet documentation.
- PowerShell Execution Policy: 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 KB 981474 to adjust the settings.
- Hybrid deployments and EOA: 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 maintain currency on Cumulative Update releases.
Our next update for Exchange 2013, Cumulative Update 4, will be released as Exchange 2013 Service Pack 1. Customers who are accustomed to deploying Cumulative Updates should consider Exchange 2013 SP1 to be equivalent to CU4 and deploy as normal.
The Exchange Team
