Released: March 2016 Quarterly Exchange Updates
Published Mar 15 2016 08:05 AM 273K Views

The Exchange team is happy to announce our spring quarterly updates for Exchange Server are now available on the Microsoft Download Center. Exchange Server 2016 receives its first Cumulative Update, and Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 12 is also released. Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010 Update Rollups provide an updated OWA S/MIME control signed with a SHA-2 certificate. More information and highlights of all these releases can be found below.

Updated OWA S/MIME control

All of the packages released today include an update to the OWA S/MIME control. The control itself has not changed, but has now been signed with a SHA-2 compliant certificate. All of the updates released will install the updated control onto the Exchange Server. Users who have installed the control into their browser will need to re-install this onto devices where the previous version was installed. Installing the control is straight forward and can be done quickly using OWA Options, Exchange Control Panel or Exchange Admin Center depending upon the release of Exchange you are using.

New distribution package for Exchange Server 2016 updates

With the introduction of Cumulative Updates for Exchange Server 2016, we are making a change to the update package type for this product version. Previous versions of Exchange used self-extracting packages to deliver service packs and cumulative updates. We have heard requests to release these updates as .ISO’s. With the capability to mount .ISO’s directly in Windows Server 2012 and later, we think it makes sense to ship Cumulative Updates as .ISO’s. At this time, we are not planning to do this for Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Updates but could be persuaded to do so if enough people ask for it. One down side to this approach is that the package is much larger. However, copying a single .ISO vs. the ever growing number of files and folders over the network is much more efficient and faster. We hope you like this change.

Change to Mailbox Anchoring for Remote PowerShell

We heard your feedback on the changes to load balancing Remote PowerShell introduced into Exchange Server 2013 and 2016. As announced by Ross here, we have reverted this behavior in the Cumulative Updates being released today.

Additional languages for Outlook on the Web

Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 1 adds support for 17 additional languages in Outlook on the Web. These languages will appear automatically in the language selection drop down after a server is updated to Cumulative Update 1.

.Net 4.6.1 Support

We know that many of you have been asking about .Net 4.6.1 and Exchange. Rest assured we are working closely with the .Net Framework team to resolve issues preventing us from supporting .Net 4.6.1 with Exchange Server. While we are not there yet, we hope to be very soon. Support for .Net 4.6.1 is planned for future Cumulative Updates for Exchange Server 2013 and 2016.

Slow installations on Windows Server 2012 R2

For customers who are running Exchange on Windows Server 2012 R2, we want to make certain you are aware of a condition which can substantially increase the amount of time it takes to install Exchange Updates on this OS. Working with the .Net team, we have discovered that systems which have applied Windows Update KB3097966 can take 50% more time to install Exchange. The .Net team is working on a resolution to this and will include a fix in a future product update. In the meantime, customers who have deployed this Windows update can take a one-time action on their server before installing Exchange or a Cumulative Update to bring installation time back to normal. This procedure needs to be done once on every Exchange server running Windows Server 2012 R2. The command to execute is:

“%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\ngen.exe update”

Errors and warnings encountered running this command can be safely ignored provided the final exit status code of 0 is reported in the output.

Support for Standalone Hybrid Configuration Wizard in Exchange Server 2010

Customers using Exchange Server 2010 in Hybrid mode with Office 365 will notice a new link in the EMC to use the Updated Standalone Hybrid Configuration Wizard. We encourage all customers to use this updated version of the Hybrid Configuration Wizard.

Release Details

KB articles which contain greater depth on what each release includes are available as follows:

Note: Documentation may not be fully available at the time this post was published.

Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 1 does include updates to Active Directory Schema. These updates will apply automatically during setup if the permissions and AD requirements are met during installation. If the Exchange Administrator lacks permissions to update Active Directory Schema, a Schema Admin should execute SETUP /PrepareSchema before installing Cumulative Update 1 on your first server. The Exchange Administrator should also execute SETUP /PrepareAD to ensure RBAC roles are updated correctly.

Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 12 does not include updates to Active Directory or additional RBAC changes. However, depending on the version you are upgrading from, it may be required. PrepareAD will run automatically during the first server upgrade if Setup detects this is required and the logged on user has sufficient permission, otherwise, setup will require you to re-run setup with sufficient permissions.

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 TechNet 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 KB981474 to adjust the settings.

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 most current (e.g., CU12) or the prior (e.g., CU11) Cumulative Update release.

For the latest information on Exchange Server and product announcements please see What's New in Exchange Server 2016 and Exchange Server 2016 Release Notes. You can also find updated information on Exchange Server 2013 in What’s New in Exchange Server 2013, Release Notes and product documentation available on TechNet.

The Exchange Team

40 Comments
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FYI everyone: Regarding: "Errors and warnings encountered running this command can be safely ignored provided the final exit status code of 0 is reported in the output." - This is the type of error you might expect:

https://mikecrowley.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/BenignError.png

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Speaking of errors, sorry the above link is case sensitive...

https://mikecrowley.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/benignerror.png

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Can we expect Office Web Add-Ins with command buttons in the Ribbon to show up in OWA as well?


Currently Add-In command buttons are only shown in Outlook 2016.


Talking about this:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/mt267546.aspx

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FYI - “%windir%Microsoft.NETFramework64v4.0.30319ngen.exe update” resulted in the error of: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

When I removed the quotes, it worked for me.

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Hi,

i like the .iso way - thanks for that change!

Please do this for Exchange 2013 Update too.

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Thanks team!


Personally I never had any issues with the self-extracting archives and I think it's much easier to copy a 1.6 GB archive over to a bunch of servers than a 6.1 GB ISO file. So please don't change this for Exchange 2013. :)

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Unpack .exe - takes several minutes and 2 extra mouse clicks. Exchange team, are you thinking that Exchange admins are retarded and cannot do it? Download extra 5 Gigabytes can take much time on narrow bandwith connection. It's a shame do it as "new feature"
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Supporting Jetze Mellema. Three time bigger ISO-Image is no progress.
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I'm also don't like idea about ISO files.

Cause usually i copy SFX on EX server and unpack it locally.

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Personally I prefer the ISO to the EXE but I do see the benefit of the smaller size of the EXE. Two possible options are to provide links for both and the downloader can decide what they want or provide an option in the EXE to extract to an ISO file instead

of a folder.

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+1 for the traditional EXE approach
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It took 4 hours on each server to update from Ex2016 RTM to Ex2016 CU1. Usually 1-2 hours (Ex2013 CU installations on same hardware upgrades).

%windir%Microsoft.NETFramework64v4.0.30319ngen.exe update - was started before upgrade.

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Hi,


I would appreciate clarification on if it is mandatory or not to run PrepareAD on Exchange 2013. The information states “should be executed”, but it also says “…may add additional RBAC definitions”. What if it doesn’t need to add RBAC definitions? Is it still

mandatory to run PrepareAD if you are upgrading from Exchange 2013 CU11?


Executing PrepareAD in large organizations with separate Active Directory and Exchange teams is a very time consuming task. So you do not want to go through the process of doing a PrepareAD if it’s not really needed.

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Does Microsoft plan on ever releasing another Help (.chm) file for Exchange 2013 and 2016 ? The last one was released a very long time ago and the page has now mysteriously disappeared. (

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35395 ). Is it really that difficult to make these available for those of us who like to use them ?

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Don´t like the monster-ISO´s. Please use engineering Power in your team to debug exch-code better than building 6.1GB-Size ISO-Files...
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Will there be an Dutch language pack for Exchange 2016 UM?
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Hi,


after updating a Exchange 2016 Server HA environment with 2 Exchange Servers and 2 databases (every with 2 copies), on E2016 CU1, all conent index states are currupt and a repair did not work. Any failover failed also. After creating new mailbox databses these

databases have also the same error, The content indes state is : Unknown!?


Is that maybe a bug of E2016 CU1?

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... by the way, new single copy databases have the same issue! Not only DAG databases!
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have the exact same issue.
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@Eddy1968: I have no issues with search index after upgrade. Try to stop Exchange search services, remove index folder, after services restart it will be re-indexed, it is standard procedure with broken indexes.

There was many performance counters errors after upgrade in my environment, but fixed as usual by re-creating them.

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@Jan J L - There are no RBAC or prepareAD related changes in E2013 CU12. However, you may be required to execute /PrepareAD depending on what you are upgrading from - the last time we required /PrepareAD (enforced in setup code) was in E2013 CU10.


Ross

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I appreciate the one-ISO-per-CU-approach very much. For any serious organization - especially those running on-prem Exchange anyway, means having a significant amount of users and thus emails and traffic daily - both, download and internal network distribution

(LAN/WAN) even across multiple locations in multiple countries around the globe, of just *a few gigabytes around 4 times a year* can't be any issue, at all. Seriously, stop whining here and focus on resolving those network connection issues (even if its your

"home lab").

The majority of IT staff dislikes dealing with multiple sources for a reason: over time growing variations for a number of applications (not only Exchange) - exe files for some patches, msi files for other updates, yet again other files for full installations

- this is much more annoying and a mess, not only for customers but also for the software vendor (downloads, documentation, support..).


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InfoWorkerMultiMailboxSearchPerformanceCounters.xml is still broken in Exchange 2016 CU1, sadly. Lines 160,164,168,172,176,180,184,188,192,212 still feature a leading space character in front of "Searches", thus causing trouble.

This issue started around February 2014, means as far as I remember it was introduced with Exchange 2013 CU2 and is possibly still present in the latest Exchange 2013 CU, too. So for anyone who hasn't already set this to be autopatched:

a) download the fixed file here http://tinyurl.com/zse3yxd or fix the lines yourself

b) replace (consider a backup first): C:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerV15SetupPerfInfoWorkerMultiMailboxSearchPerformanceCounters.xml

c) run: New-PerfCounters -DefinitionFileName "C:Program FilesMicrosoftExchange ServerV15SetupPerfInfoWorkerMultiMailboxSearchPerformanceCounters.xml"

@MSFT/Ross - Isn't this an easy fix for the next CU?! It's about time. :)

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Please provide download links for .exe & .iso so customer can choose :)
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@Alexander Schories - Thanks for reporting the issue, Alexander.
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Does Microsoft plan on ever releasing another Help (.chm) file for Exchange 2013 and 2016 ? The last one was released a very long time ago and the page has now mysteriously disappeared. (

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35395 ). Is it really that difficult to make these available for those of us who like to use them ?

Not applicable
I have a question about Exchange counter in Ex2016CU1.

After upgrade from RTM to CU1 there were a lot of performance counters errors in applications log.

As usual, I tried to fix it by script:


Add-PsSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.Setup

$files = Get-ChildItem $exinstallsetupperf*.xml

Write-Host "Registering the perfmon counters"

Write-Host

$count = 0;

foreach ($i in $files)

{

$count++

$f = $i.directory, "", $i.name -join ""

Write-Host $count $f -BackgroundColor red

New-PerfCounters -DefinitionFileName $f

}


After that counters were recreated, but they don't work anymore. My monitoring system (Zabbix) says "NO DATA" on all parameters of Exchange servers. I checked manually in perfmon, when I choose any Exchange counter, "Instances of selected object" are empty,

I cannot add counter at all.

Is it known issue of CU1?

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I absolutely agree with Renat. After installing CU1 and the subsequent use of

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2870416 you cant select anymore any instances. I have tested this on multiple environments. @Microsoft: How can we fix this issue and in general, what can we

do with Exchange 2010 CU1 against these annoying 106 events?

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Interesting, when you execute the

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2870416

again and restart the server all instances working again. But there are still many Event ID 106...


Another issue: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3135688 does not preserve the web.config settings from my point of view. On the contrary, the whole "appsettings" section is shortened to a few

standard lines. Practical all other keys are no longer exists (see also new file size if previously larger than 20KB).) Has this seen someone?

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I re-applied https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2870416 several times on several servers. After reboot counters still don't working...
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About the 106...


We have an Exchange 2010 SP3 RU 11 environment. Have never had 2013 or 2016 RTM installed in the environment. After the release of Exchange 2016 CU1 we installed it (directly, not an upgrade from RTM) on 17 new servers. These brand new CU1 servers also exhibit

106 events

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We have found a problem similar than the problem described here


https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3058609


A user has in their Outlook or OWA contact list an entry named for example 'personal' which correspond with an external SMTP address.In the system also exist a Distribution List (dynamic in this case but the problem appears also with static one) named 'personal'

too.


When this user sets an inbox rule which apply to all arriving messages and sets the action 'Redirect the messages to' and choose from their contact list 'personal' as destination, Exchange set the mailbox RedirectTo parameter referenced to the DL and not to

the contact's SMTP address.


Our system is Exchange 2013 CU12 in multi tenant scenery


We think that is a bug, very similar to the bug described in KB3058609 which claims to be solved in CU10


Anyone knows a solution for it? How can we report it to Microsoft? Is there a published workaround or patch?


It is a very grave problem which affects to our customers, sending messages to wrong directions between different customer's organizations.


Thanks in advance for your helping responses.


(and sorry my english)

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@ Jon Asla:


The best way to bring such an issue under Microsoft's attention is to open a support case. If the issue is caused by a bug you won't get billed. More importantly, the issue ends up in the database and will become visible for the product team.


I realize this is a but cumbersome if you don't have a support contract or this is the first time you need to purchase support incidents. I wish there was a more easy way to report issues without paying $350 euro upfront to be able to speak to a support engineer.

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Hello,

Im testing a new enviroment with Exchange 2016. We also have the error 106 with perf counter. I run the script and work correctly, but when i restart the server, the 106 error come back again with thousands of events every hour...

Server have 12 GB of RAM and its using all the RAM.

We have the latest updates of Exchange and we are runnig it in Server 2012.

¿ Any advice to help ?

Many thanks, regards.

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Following install of CU1 Outlook 2016 only returns 25 items when searching and Outlook in cached mode.

Major bug in this release.

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hello

Just to notice you that there is a bad HTTP link in the text about "Change to Mailbox Anchoring for Remote PowerShell": the bad link refers initial mailbox anchoring announcement instead the Ross Smith's post about the reverted behavior.

I think that the good link should be : https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2016/03/01/remote-powershell-proxying-behavior-in-exchange-2013-cu12-and-exchange-2016/

could you fix this typo in the post ? thank you.

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Installing Exch2016 in lab, had errors with prepareAD UNTIL we combined FSMO & GC roles on DC. Is this a requirement or just our lab environment? Is it recommended for Exch2016 to have all DC's as GC's including FSMO role holder?
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Applying this EX2016 CU1 broke search in Outlook.

Before applying, searching for a term in Outlook showed results, after applying zero hits.

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Installing CU1 on an Exchange 2016 with a second ActiveSync virtual directory added fails. Installation fails at step 16 of 18 with error The following error was generated when "$error.Clear();

$fe = get-ActiveSyncVirtualDirectory -server $RoleFqdnOrName -DomainController $RoleDomainController -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue;

if ($fe -eq $null)

{

new-ActiveSyncVirtualDirectory -DomainController $RoleDomainController -Role ClientAccess;

}

else

{

update-ActiveSyncVirtualDirectory $fe -DomainController $RoleDomainController -InstallIsapiFilter $true

}

" was run: "System.Management.Automation.ParameterBindingException: Cannot convert 'System.Object[]' to the type 'Microsoft.Exchange.Configuration.Tasks.VirtualDirectoryIdParameter' required by parameter 'Identity'. Specified method is not supported. ---> System.NotSupportedException: Specified method is not supported.

at System.Management.Automation.ParameterBinderBase.CoerceTypeAsNeeded(CommandParameterInternal argument, String parameterName, Type toType, ParameterCollectionTypeInformation collectionTypeInfo, Object currentValue)

--- End of inner exception stack trace ---

Only after removing the second ActiveSync virtual directory, the CU1 would install. This is not good since we should be able too add a second EAS virtual directory.

Not applicable
run automatically during the first server upgrade that good thank
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