Released: Exchange Server 2013 Service Pack 1

[The_Exchange_Team]

• Download
• What's new
• Release notes

Exchange Server 2013 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available for download! Please make sure to read the release notesbefore installing SP1. The final build number for Exchange Server 2013 SP1 is 15.00.0847.032.

SP1 has already been deployed to thousands of production mailboxes in customer environments via the Exchange Server Technology Adoption Program (TAP). In addition to including fixes, SP1 provides enhancements to improve the Exchange 2013 experience. These include enhancements in security and compliance, architecture and administration, and user experiences. These key enhancements are introduced below.

Note: Some of the documentation referenced may not be fully available at the time of publishing of this post.

Security and Compliance

SP1 provides enhancements improving security and compliance capabilities in Exchange Server 2013. This includes improvements in the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) feature and the return of S/MIME encryption for Outlook Web App users.

• DLP Policy Tips in Outlook Web App – DLP Policy Tips are now enabled for Outlook Web App (OWA) and OWA for Devices. These are the same Policy Tips available in Outlook 2013. DLP Policy Tips appear when a user attempts to send a message containing sensitive data that matches a DLP policy. Learn more about DLP Policy Tips.
• DLP Document Fingerprinting – DLP policies already allow you to detect sensitive information such as financial or personal data. DLP Document Fingerprinting expands this capability to detect forms used in your organization. For example, you can create a document fingerprint based on your organization’s patent request form to identify when users are sending that form, and then use DLP actions to properly control dissemination of the content. Learn more about DLP Document Fingerprinting.
• DLP sensitive information types for new regions – SP1 provides an expanded set of standard DLP sensitive information types covering an increased set of regions. SP1 adds region support for Poland, Finland and Taiwan. Learn more about the DLP sensitive information types available.
• S/MIME support for OWA – SP1 also reintroduces the S/MIME feature in OWA, enabling OWA users to send and receive signed and encrypted email. Signed messages allow the recipient to verify that the message came from the specified sender and contains the only the content from the sender. This capability is supported when using OWA with Internet Explorer 9 or later. Learn more about S/MIME in Exchange 2013.

Architecture & Administration

These improvements help Exchange meet our customer requirements and stay in step with the latest platforms.

• Windows Server 2012 R2 support – Exchange 2013 SP1 adds Windows Server 2012 R2 as a supported operating system and Active Directory environment for both domain and forest functional levels. For the complete configuration support information refer to the Exchange Server Supportability Matrix. This matrix includes details regarding Windows Server 2012 R2 support information about earlier versions of Exchange.
• Exchange Admin Center Cmdlet Logging – The Exchange 2010 Management Console includes PowerShell cmdlet logging functionality. Listening to your feedback, we’re happy to announce that this functionality is now included in the Exchange Admin Center (EAC). The logging feature enables you to capture and review the recent (up to 500) commands executed in the EAC user interface while the logging window is open. Logging is invoked from the EAC help menu and continues logging while the logging window remains open.

• ADFS for OWA – Also new for Outlook Web App in SP1 is claims-based authentication for organizations using Active Directory Federation Services. Learn more about the scenario.
• Edge Transport server role – SP1 also reintroduces the Edge Transport server role. If you have deployed Exchange 2013 with a supported legacy Exchange Edge Transport role, you don’t need to upgrade. That configuration is still supported. But we do recommend that future deployments use the Exchange 2013 Edge Transport role. Learn more about Edge Transport in Exchange 2013.
• New communication method for Exchange and Outlook – SP1 introduces a new communication method for Exchange Server and Microsoft Outlook called MAPI over HTTP(MAPI/HTTP). This communication method simplifies connectivity troubleshooting and improves the user connection experience with resuming from hibernate or switching networks. MAPI/HTTP is disabled by default, allowing you to decide when to enable it for your organization. MAPI/HTTP can be used in place of RPC/HTTP (Outlook Anywhere) for your Outlook 2013 SP1 clients while Outlook 2013 RTM and older clients continue to use RPC/HTTP. Learn more about deploying MAPI/HTTP.
• DAGs without Cluster Administrative Access Points - Windows Server 2012 R2 introduces failover clusters that can operate without an administrative access point: no IP addresses or IP address resource, no network name resource, and no cluster name object. SP1 enables you to create a DAG without an administrative access point on Windows Server 2012 R2 from EAC or PowerShell. This is an optional DAG configuration for SP1 and requires Windows Server 2012 R2. DAGs with administrative access points continue to be supported. Learn more about creating a DAG without an administrative access point here and here.
• SSL offloading – SP1 now supports SSL offloading, allowing you to terminate incoming SSL connections in front of your CAS servers and move the SSL workload (encryption & decryption tasks) to a load balancer device. Learn how to configure SSL offloading in Exchange 2013.

User Experience

We know the user experience is crucial to running a great messaging platform. SP1 provides continued enhancements to help your users work smarter.

• Enhanced text editor for OWA - OWA now uses the same rich text editor as SharePoint, thereby improving the user experience, and enabling several new formatting and composition capabilities that you expect from modern Web application - more pasting options, rich previews to linked content, and the ability to create and modify tables.

• Apps for Office in Compose – Mail apps are now available for use during the creation of new mail messages. This allows developers to build and users to leverage apps that can help them while they are composing mails. The compose apps leverage the Apps for Office platform and can be added via the existing Office store or corporate catalogs. Learn more about Apps for Office.

Upgrading to SP1/Deploying SP1

As with all cumulative updates (CUs), SP1 is a full build of Exchange, and the deployment of SP1 is just like the deployment of a cumulative update.

Active Directory Preparation

Prior to or concurrent with upgrading or deploying SP1 onto a server, you must update Active Directory. These are the required actions to perform prior to installing SP1 on a server.

1. Exchange 2013 SP1 includes schema changes. Therefore, you will need to execute the following command to apply the schema changes.

setup.exe /PrepareSchema /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

2. Exchange 2013 SP1 includes enterprise Active Directory changes (e.g., RBAC roles have been updated to support new cmdlets and/or properties). Therefore, you will need to execute the following command.

setup.exe /PrepareAD /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

Server Deployment

Once the above preparatory steps are completed, you can install SP1 on your servers. Of course, as always, if you don’t separately perform the above steps, they will be performed by Setup when you install your first Exchange 2013 SP1 server. If this is your first Exchange 2013 server deployment, you will need to deploy both Client Access Server and Mailbox Server roles in your organization.

If you already deployed Exchange 2013 RTM code and want to upgrade to SP1, you will run the following command from a command line.

setup.exe /m:upgrade /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms

Alternatively you can start the installation through the GUI installer.

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 deploy the most current (e.g., SP1) or the prior (e.g., CU3) Cumulative Update release.

Note: We have learned some customers using 3rd party or custom transport agents may experience issues after installation of SP1.  If you experience installation issues consult KB 2938053 to resolve this issue with transport agents.

Looking Ahead

Our next update for Exchange 2013 will be released as Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 5. This CU release will continue the Exchange Server 2013 release process.

If you want to learn more about Exchange Server 2013 SP1 and have the opportunity to ask questions to the Exchange team in person, come join us at the Microsoft Exchange Conference.

Brian Shiers
Technical Product Manager, Exchange

[#2]

We applied SP1 about a week ago. Exchange 2013 SP1 had probelm stopping WMI service during the setup so we had to kill WMI service manually so it can continue installation. Installation took over an hour on each server on hardware platform. SP1 is working fine, but it had cause some issue with Cisco SSLVPN and OWA is behaving a little different. In CU3, we had set LogonPagePublicPrivateSelection to true so it gave option to use as Private or Public, but it only wants to use as "Private" after SP1. I can't uncheck "private computer" option.

[#3]

Hi Exchange Team: Congrats on getting SP1 out! The product tests fine in our lab apart from one issue:

OWA Apps do not work as they have previously on Windows Server 2012 (non R2).

With Server 2012 R2, some of the App specific URLs that are present in the OWA pages are escaped, e.g. the @ symbol is replaced by '%40'. The referenced resources then do not load properly. This appears to be new behaviour with IIS8.5 & .NET Framework 4.5.1 vs IIS8 &.NET Framework 4.5 on 2012.

http://programmaticallyspeaking.com/the-mysteriously-escaped-request-path-in-aspnet.html has more detail about the issue.

A possible work around may be to edit the web.config to include (aspnet:UseLegacyRequestUrlGeneration" value="true") but we'd rather not mess around with these things ourselves.

We've disabled app functionality for our pilot users but we'd appreciate if you could comment on this ASAP.

Regards

[#4]

Thank you Microsoft Exchange Server Team. Good news for Exchange On-Premises customers.

[#5]

Upgraded both Client access server and mailbox server from 2013 CU3 to SP1 on Win Server 2012 (2 servers, separate roles.) We are currently in co-existence mode with Exchange 2007. Install went fine on both servers but now the mail flow between 2007 and 2013 mailboxes doesn't seem to work. The Queue viewer in 2007 shows the hub transport queue (SMTP Relay in Active Directory Site) just filling up with the messages. Mail delivery for 2007 users still seems to work ok (Except to 2013 users.) Servers have been restarted post install and I haven't noticed any errors. Anything I might be missing? Thanks.

[#6]

@srjohny, if you have third party transport agent use script in following KB

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2938053/en-us

[#7]

@Roger.H: Thx for the reply. But 5 Restarts don't resolve the issue. It seems that the Services "Microsoft Exchange Transport" and "Microsoft Front End Transport" are concurrent, although both are set to start automatically.

[#8]

is the Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Pack 64 bit and Microsoft Office 2010 Filter Pack SP1 64 not required any more?

[#9]

@Jørn, no. :) / @Simon, you can deploy the re-welcomed Edge Transport Role if you would like to move Antispam filtering further out towards the Internet. The CAS role still performs no filtering.

[#10]

Hi,

great product, running still fine.
BUT: Could it be, that DPM2012 R2 did not run correctly with Exchange 2013 SP1 on Windows Server 2012 R2 ? The consistency check for the Exchange 2013 mailbox database backup failed every time!

[#11]

@Brian Day: You're right, it's not the right place here for deeper technical discussions. I found a quick solution for myself: Deactivating the "Microsoft Front End Transport" service, because I don't need a proxy on my system. Event log doesn't cry. If I run into trouble later on, I will open a thread in a technical forum.

[#12]

Currently designing Exchange 2013. Outlook client runs in Online Mode because of terminal server environment.

Customer requires that mail from shared mailboxes goes to sent items folder of shared mailbox. However, according to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2703723/en-us this will not work with Outlook Online Mode clients.

Alternate option is to work with multiple Exchange accounts but this has some significant limitations: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981245

MS provided Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguratio with Exchange 2010 but this is not yet available with Exchange 2013.

Customer requires that mail from shared mailboxes goes to sent items folder of shared mailbox. When can we expect Set-MailboxSentItemsConfiguration implemented in Exchange 2013?

Martijn

[#13]

@Regarding the anon comments - please register with the blog; we still want to hear from you in those (and other!) situations and you will still have the ability to comment and provide feedback.

[#14]

@pam walsh, there is nothing special for VL customers with regards to Service Pack 1. The bits this article links to are the same SP1 bits you'd get from any VLC portal. These bits can be used for a fresh install or an upgrade of an existing system.

[#15]

Glad to have Edge Role back with Exchange 2013 SP1. what about anti spam and anti virus solution like forefront for exchange, that was working perfect with exchange 2010. Do we also expect something like forefront for exchange with edge of exchange 2013 SP1 as well? or edge role by itself is enough for anti spam?.

[#16]

@Brian, awesome, much appreciated. After CU2 and not being able to backout of an update, we're understandably a little more cautious these days. The calendar forwarding issue was a major issue for a number of clients, both on prem and in O365. Now I'm nervous about you being beyond SP1, ie what did you find already that had to be updated... ;) Thanks Exchange Team.

[#17]

@First Exchange 2013 server - Yes, the first server can be an SP1 server.

Ross

[#18]

@Bas - please se http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728623(v=exchg.150).aspx

[#19]

Cool.. we have scheduled coming weekend for Exchange 2010 migration to Exchange 2013... now seems need to try out SP1 on lab..hope it has fixed previous bugs. ..

[#20]

@Brent Alinger [MSFT]: That's great news, thank you. We are deploying the FixIt solution in our test labs.

[#21]

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/Service Pack releases.

What does that mean? Did you mean to say 'current' instead of 'currency'? We are a hybrid environment. If we are required to do this, what is the time frame that we are required to deploy to on-premises from the moment that you release? How does this affect MS supporting our environment?

[#22]

@Korbyn, Office 365 is already beyond the build SP1 for on-premises is (SP1 = 15.00.0847.0032) due to the way we roll changes out in the service before they make it to on-premises. Yes, our on-premises mailboxes on 2013 have been running SP1 builds or beyond. We maintain a variety of versions in our on-premises environments to ensure coverage across releases.

[#23]

Thanks guys!

[#24]

@GregT, yes see this KB if it's live: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2930352

[#25]

@Thomas: Click the small triangle next to the question mark in the top right corner of your screen, then Show Command Logging.

[#26]

@Max, the Office 2010 filter pack was never a hard requirement, and setup in 2013 RTM-CU3 would warn you if it was not installed yet allow you to click-through the warning to continue installing if you chose to. Almost all of the filters the Office 2010 filter pack are included out-of-the-box with the new search infrastructure in Exchange Server 2013. The filter pack does however offer a couple additional filters, I believe OneNote and Project, that are not available out-of-the-box. If you wish to be able to index the additional file types the filter pack offers, then I would suggest installing the filter pack and its most recent service pack.

[#27]

Hi Team,

I'm installing Exchange 2013 SP1 on DAG environment. Do i have to update the Cluster Aware?

Godspeed!

[#28]

We are already running Exchange 2013 CU3 on win 2012 RTM in production. I would like to upgrade to Exhange 2013 SP1 and also Windows 2012 R2.
Since, in-place upgrade of Win 2012 to win 2012 R2 is not supported if Exchagne 2013 is already installed.
Do you think if we keep running win 2012RTM with Exchange 2013 Sp1 and later would there be any issues in future?

[#29]

After installed SP1. The Microsoft Exchange Transport Service is starting . it's hung , what can I do?

[#30]

KB article with the fix for Transport service issue has been published:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2938053

[#31]

@ADBL - The article you are looking for is KB2938292. A fix for this is being included in Cumulative Update 5.

[#32]

Any updates to the Transport Agents issue would be much appreciated, even an acknowledgement of the issue or an expected timeline for the fix. I understand that releasing any fix requires extensive testing, but that shouldn't prevent communication about the issue.

[#33]

@udam1 - No, you do not need to remove the security update to install SP1.

@AndyP - yes, you can do cross-forest mailbox moves natively in the product. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee633491(v=exchg.150).aspx for more information (note this isn't new to SP1).

Ross

[#34]

YYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS Exchange Server 2013 SP1..................Now everyone can start the Exchange Server 2013 SP1 project moving from Exchange Server 2010 or Exchange Server 2007...................YYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[#35]

Finally! Thanks guys, good work. Now we can retire those Exchange 2007 servers! Wanted Server 2012 R2 support. Any chance of a "Forefront Protection for Exchange 2013" ? ;) Yes, I know the product is EOL, but us on-premise folk really liked it!

[#36]

Is connection filtering (anti-spam) finally supported on CAS? Or do I have to keep the Exchg2010 server?

[#37]

Finally! Built a test.lab already for this so now off to the testing! Probably do a production install later this weekend (here I thought I was gonna be able to relax this weekend :p).

[#38]

GREAT news for the Exchange On-Premises customers worldwide :)

[#39]

Is there a list of everything that was fixed in the SP? There have been several outstanding issues that haven't been fixed and I was hoping they would be in SP1. One that stands out is the inability to forward meeting invites.

Thanks Jim

[#40]

We are starting the Exchange Server 2013 project today..........moving from Exchange Server 2010..................2000 users...............Thanks for SP1 :)

[#41]

Is anyone aware if this fixes the issues with Windows XP and public folders?

[#42]

I got 5 Enterprise clients today that want to start the Exchange Server 2013 SP1 project next week. They are moving from Exchange 2007 & Exchange 2010. Thanks for SP1 :)

[#43]

Nice to see Edge Transport again. And MAPI over HTTP looks cool. But I'd kill for Forefront Endpoint Protection for Exchange 2013. The one engine filtering is terrible. And there's no way I'm moving my SMTP traffic to the cloud.

[#44]

Has the OWA silent redirect issue been resolved in SP1?

[#45]

Time to Start the Exchange Server 2013 Project, it is the time now :)

[#46]

Okay, now you guys can start deploying it, please comment back how it went and maybe in few weeks time I will have the guts to install it as well, if it's not recalled.

Still haven't found any "issues fixed in this update" release notes. There are many bugs in CU3, especially related to Outlook 2007 so I hope this will fix at least some of them without generating new ones...

[#47]

This is exciting. Will start testing in LAB this weekend.

[#48]

Thanks all :)

[#49]

Phone been ringing crazy today, Clients want to start the Exchange Server 2013 SP1 Project :) Thanks

[#50]

I really wish they would fix the EAC being wide open to the outside world problem. Also, not everyone wants their users to have outlook access at home. A better way to block that, without breaking active sync or Lync would be awesome.

[#51]

What about the OWA app for IOS? Will that work for on prem deployments with sp1? Or some point in the future? http://blogs.office.com/2013/07/16/owa-for-iphone-and-owa-for-ipad/