Recent Discussions
Exchange Server 2019 to Subscription Edition (SE) Licensing and Migration Guidance
1. Current Infrastructure Setup Component Detail Notes Product Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 Enterprise Edition Servers 3 Virtual Servers (VMware) Configured in a Database Availability Group (DAG) Version Cumulative Update (CU) 15 Licenses Server License and 1100 CALs (Standard/Enterprise) Purchased in 2019 without Software Assurance (SA). 2. Core Licensing and Compliance Queries We require definitive guidance on the following compliance and purchase requirements: Software Assurance (SA) Requirement: Is Software Assurance mandatory for our existing Exchange Server 2019 setup for ongoing compliance and full support? Please advise on the status of our current setup without SA. Standalone SA Purchase: As our Exchange Server licenses/CALs were purchased in 2019 without SA, is it possible for us to purchase standalone Software Assurance for our existing Exchange Server 2019 licenses now, or must we purchase a completely new license with SA? Client Access License (CAL) Migration: Will our existing Exchange Server 2019 Standard/Enterprise CALs be compatible and automatically migrate to the Subscription Edition (SE) requirement, or must we purchase new CALs specifically for Exchange Server SE? Please clarify if the old CALs will become obsolete. 3. Recommended Migration Path (Budgeting Focus) Based on the licensing realities, we need advice on the most financially responsible path to move to Exchange Server SE. Please guide us on which of the following scenarios is recommended: Option A: Purchase Software Assurance for our existing Exchange Server 2019 infrastructure, and then migrate to SE, utilizing the same 2019 CALs (if permissible). Option B: Forego purchasing SA for the 2019 environment and directly purchase new Exchange Server Subscription Edition (SE) licenses and corresponding new CALs (if necessary). We look forward to your detailed guidance to ensure full compliance and a smooth transition to Exchange Server SE. Thank you, Narayan Das Senior System AdministratorExchange Hybrid Configuration Wizard - Error 1603 - Connector registration failed
Did any of you encounter this error while installing hcw on an exchange server? Here is the event viewer error details: Connector registration failed: Make sure you are a Global Administrator of your Active Directory to register the Connector. Error: '"The registration request was denied. "'
Offboarding mailboxes fails with “PropTagToPropertyDefinitionConversionException.”
Hybrid M365 setup, just recently upgraded the on-prem server from Exchange 2019 to Exchange SE. After doing so, migrations from Exchange Online back to Exchange On-prem fail at 10% with the error “PropTagToPropertyDefinitionConversionException.” I opened a case with M365 exchange support, and after some time, they came back to tell me that the Exchange Online portion of the process is not at fault, and that I have to engage the on-premise support team (this seems a little nuts to me, as its all connected and all supported, but I've been in this business for 30 years now, and it's not the first time I've seen buck-passing), and/or ask this community for help. Hence, this post. That error appears exactly two places on the internet, as far as I can tell: a blog (in German) from an Exchange expert doing cross-tenant migrations, and a page at https://west.jcteams.info/bhit11/docs/EX1232513.html that seems to describe my exact issue. Neither had useful suggestions - mostly, they say this: Set-MoveRequest -Identity "<UserPrincipalName>" -SkipMoving FolderRestrictions Resume-MoveRequest -Identity "<UserPrincipalName>" That didn't actually work, but when I tried the same parameters with Set-MigrationBatch, they worked as long as I ignored the message "The SkipMoving parameter is deprecated. Use the MoveOptions parameter instead. If you have any scripts that use the SkipMoving parameter, update them to use the MoveOptions parameter." So what was a simple process is now a more cumbersome workaround. Does anyone have an idea on how to troubleshoot "PropTagToPropertyDefinitionConversionException?"
About Command Return Values
When I ran the following command in PowerShell, it used to return an `Object` type, but recently it has started returning a `System.Collections.ArrayList` type. Does anyone know why this is happening? ------------------------------------------------------------------ $dg = Get-DistributionGroup -Identity "Group Name" $dg.AcceptMessagesOnlyFromSendersOrMembers.GetType().FullName
Send admin notifications on x number of messages from an email address
Hi, We're having a problem with a repeat spam/phishing offender that recycles email addresses from a particular domain. Because the email address is new it hasn't had a chance to be picked up by blacklists, so it doesn't get picked up as spam. We can't block on content, subject or sender because it all changes so for these campaigns we're relying on user reports to give us the heads up. We also can't block the domain because we receive legitimate email from the domain also. I'd like to change this so we can hit them before users notice and possibly whilst the spam campaign is in flight but I'm unsure as to how to go about it. Is there a rule or other setting I can configure which sends notifications to specific e-mail addresses if, say 100 emails were received from any email address (or from a specific domain?) within an hour, or 5 hours? I don't see how I can configure such a rule in mailflow rules so I'm guessing this might be somewhere else. There's an element of us likely being falsely alerted to marketing campaigns, but hopefully it's configurable enough that we can limit it down to only applying this against a specific sender domain, or adding a new custom mailflow rule which will lower the likelihood of false positives. Many thanks, - Lsward
Exchange on-prem license
Hello, I have installed ExchangeServerSE x64 iso file its in trial version i want to license it. What kind of license do i need? I have the following information from the EAC: Version 15.2 (Build 2562.17) Standard Trial Edition Trial and from powershell: Edition : StandardEvaluation AdminDisplayVersion : Version 15.2 (Build 2562.17) Since i've installed the ExchangeServerSE x64 is this the correct license i should require? Exchange Server Subscription Edition (SE) license 5 × Exchange Server Standard CALs (one per user/mailbox) Environment details: Exchange version: 2019 (Version 15.2) Number of mailboxes: 5 Is this valid and the correct license? Kind regards, Filip M
Gmail to Microsoft 365 Migration Issue Open for 7+ Days – Seeking Guidance or Escalation Path
I’m facing an issue with a Gmail to Microsoft 365 migration that has been open for more than 7 days, and I’m looking for guidance or an escalation path from the community. Scenario: Migration type: Gmail to Microsoft 365 Issue started: April 22 Current status: Stuck with no clear resolution What’s happening: The support ticket has been active since April 22. However, the updates I’ve been receiving are generic responses such as “we are working on it” and “this has been prioritized.” Despite multiple follow-ups, there has been: No clear root cause identified No ETA provided No technical breakdown of the issue I also requested a callback from the assigned manager and technical lead to better understand the situation, but the communication has remained email-only with repeated status updates. What I’m looking for: Has anyone faced similar issues during Gmail → Microsoft 365 migrations? Are there known blockers or common causes that could lead to this kind of delay? What is the recommended escalation path when support is unable to provide technical clarity or ETA? Any insights, workarounds, or guidance would be highly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Cross Tenant Migration licensing
Hello, I'm planning a native cross-tenant migration for several shared mailboxes that have archives enabled. I’m looking to confirm if it is necessary to temporarily convert these to user mailboxes in the source to ensure the archive data migrates successfully. Also, what specific licenses should I assign to the target objects specifically, do I need to provide an Exchange Online Plan 2 plus the Cross-Tenant User Data Migration add-on for each shared mailbox? If anyone has handled archived shared mailboxes recently, I’d appreciate a quick confirmation on the cleanest licensing and conversion steps. Thank you in advance ! :)
Hybrid Exchange 2019 move to M365
Dear All, I am asked to move/ migrate the existing Hybrid Exchange to M365. All mailboxes are located in M365. MX Record is pointing to the third-party spam filtering company which we are not too sure either stay with them or not. My next concern is the Send and Receive connectors. has any one of you done similar task like this? any help or document/ link would be much appreciated. RegardsExchange 2016 Decommission
Hi all, I am trying to decom my 2016 environment and cannot disable (Disable-Mailbox) the final 16 mailboxes (out of thousands). Am getting the error Active directory response: 00002098: SecErr: DSID-03150A45, problem 4003 (INSUFF_ACCESS_RIGHTS), data 0. I have been troubleshooting this for HOURS now. It's not enabling inheritance on the user perms (every article suggests that). The perm exchange trusted subsystem isn't there. The users do not have any admin groups. It's nothing that I can find in the first 6 pages of googling. Sadly, of course, there is no support anymore so can't even raise a ticket. Can't uninstall Exchange with mailboxes left :( Any idea's are more than welcome, please. Thank you.Exchange Online to Deprecate Legacy TLS for POP3 and IMAP4
Microsoft will start to refuse inbound IMAP4 and POP3 client connections using legacy TLS versions (1.0 and 1.1) in July 2026. The move is consistent with other projects to remove obsolete or insecure email protocols from Exchange Online to increase the overall security of the online email service. In this article, we examine some methods to understand the POP3 and IMAP4 usage within a tenant. https://office365itpros.com/2026/04/29/legacy-tls-removal/
Permission activesync on smartphone
Hi everyone, when you grant the permissions in question to manage company email from a smartphone, do these permissions, in addition to Remote Wipe, Password Enforcement and Device Encryption (I remember these as the main ones), somehow give the Exchange administrator access to my personal data? For example, photos, any documents saved on the SD card or on the smartphone itself? Thanks in advanced!Will these commands fix our phantom meetings issue?
I opened a ticket with Microsoft Support for an issue we are facing where "phantom" meetings are appearing in at least two of our meeting room calendars. The subject of the meeting says "Private appointment" and the lock icon appears at the bottom, and when you click on any of them they disappear from the calendar, only to re-appear when you navigate away and come back. They appear in Classic Outlook, New Outlook and Outlook for the web. The support rep is telling me to run these commands on the room mailbox to "reset the room mailbox availability cache": Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity <roommailboxupn> -RemoveOldMeetingMessages $true Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity <roommailboxupn> -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept But if I run Get-CalendarProcessing, it confirms that these are the existing settings already: Get-CalendarProcessing -Identity <roommailboxupn> | fl RemoveOldMeetingMessages,AutomateProcessing RemoveOldMeetingMessages : True AutomateProcessing : AutoAccept This can't possibly do anything, right? I should ask my CSAM to open a GetHelp on this case, right? Does anyone know how to actually fix this issue?High Volume Email is Generally Available and Ready to Charge
On April 1, Microsoft announced the general availability for the High-Volume Email (HVE) solution together with details of the PAYG charges incurred to send email to internal recipients, which is all that HVE can do. Microsoft will enable HVE charging on June 1, 2026, Before then, you’ll need to create a billing policy and link it to a valid Azure subscription if you want to continue to use HVE. https://office365itpros.com/2026/04/23/hve-ga-charging/Is the Archive mailbox self-help diagnostic working for anyone?
Just curious: is the archive mailbox self-help diagnostic at https://aka.ms/PillarArchiveMailbox working for anyone? When I run it, instead of getting results about the user whose UPN I entered, I get this: The following issues were found with your archive mailbox. No account was found for [The UPN of my admin account]. Make sure you've entered the correct email address or create a new account with that name. For more information, see Add users to Office 365. I tried opening a ticket with Microsoft Support, but they refused to work on it without requiring me to do all the legwork of gathering logs and HAR traces and who knows what else, despite the fact that the support agent was able to replicate the exact same issue in his lab.User cannot rename categories even when being the owner
Hi guys, I have a user that cannot rename categories in a mailbox whilst being the owner. As you can her permission level is set on owner. And yet the rename is greyed out: User says she was able to rename just some time ago, but when she tried on 17/04/2026 she couldn't. Anyone has any ideas?Preserving permissions during EXO migration
Hi, Can you help me understand the outcome of preserving the permissions in our scenario. Exchange Server 2016 (soon Exchange SE) in a hybrid with Exchange Online. We are moving 75% of the mailboxes to Exchange Online. What ways will preserve or break the full-access or sendas permissions? I guess best way would be to migrate both the user and the shared mailbox at the same time in the same batch to keep the permission? If we migrate the user in batch 1 and shared mailbox in batch 2 will that preserve/break the full access/send as? If we migrate the shared mailbox in batch 1 and usermailbox in batch 2 will that preserve/break the full access/send as? If the permission is linked directly on the shared mailbox or via a security group is there a difference? Thanks!
Recent Blogs
- We are happy to announce public preview of writeback for cloud-managed remote mailboxes!May 15, 2026
- We wanted to tell you how to address the Exchange Server May 2026 vulnerability CVE-2026-42897.May 14, 2026
