Exchange provides the ability to configure Out of Office messages. The owner of a mailbox can configure different messages to be sent to users inside the organization and outside. The user is free to enter any text he wants, in any language, but the subject of the Out of Office message i handled by the server. Typically the Out of Office message you receive when sending mail to a mailbox that has Out of Office messages enabled is Out of Office: <subject of message sent to the mailbox>.
The Out of Office phrase is used by the server because the languages attribute of the mailbox that has Out of Office messages enabled is English (en-US). But you may also see something like this, if the language of the mailbox has been changed:
I this case the phrase is Fraværende, which is the Norwegian translation for Out of Office (or close). The mailbox using Out of Office in this case has its language set to Norwegian (nb-NO). I you want to change the language settings for a mailbox, there are two ways (that I know of):
- The user can change the language from within Outlook Web Access:
- The administrator can change the language from the Exchange Management Shell (EMS):
Command for a single mailbox:
Set-Mailbox morgan –Languages nb-NO
Command for several mailboxes:
Get-Mailbox | Set-Mailbox –Languages en-US
A full list of all language codes is available here, but I do not know if Exchange 2007 support them all.
A little note about the Languages attribute. It is an array that can actually hold several values. I have seen mailboxes with two languages set here, but I am unsure of how this has come about. I am guessing that something has been set in OWA, but that some setting(s) still remain in a different language. I am not sure how this affects Out of Office messages.
Also to note is that in my lab I had to restart both the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology Service and the Microsoft Exchange Information Store services to make the change take affect. This is probably caused by the Exchange Directory cache.
On a related note, look here for ways to change the language of DSN messages. There are two settings, one for internal DSNs and one for external.
For another post about the workings of Out of Office look here.
It’s probably not good for your geek factor when you get excited about a new font in Windows, but a friend from work tipped me of about a new font in Windows 7 today; the Consolas TTF font, and now I am very excited.
This is the description of the Consolas font family from Microsoft.com:
Optimized for Microsoft ClearType
The Microsoft Consolas Font Family is a set of highly legible fonts designed for ClearType. It is intended for use in programming environments and other circumstances where a monospaced font is specified. All characters have the same width, like old typewriters, making it a good choice for personal and business correspondence. Optimizing the font specifically for ClearType allowed a design with proportions closer to normal text than traditional monospaced fonts like Courier. This allows for more comfortable reading of extended text on-screen.
Wikipedia also has an article on the Consolas font.
So far Consolas looks good on my displays. I do a lot of scripting in PowerShell so a good monospaced font is essential. Up until now I have always used Courier New, but that font is not optimized for ClearType. I will not say that I will be using Consolas from now on, but it looks good. And it also has a slash through the zero character!
Below are screenshots of cmd.exe using Courier New and Consolas:
You can read more about ClearType and Microsoft typography here.
The Consolas Font Pack can be downloaded here:
I recently upgraded to Exchange 2010 on my home network. Everything went well, but when I started the Exchange Management Console for the first time I got this error when trying to open the Server ConfigurationClient Access node:
—————————
Microsoft Exchange
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Connecting to remote server failed with the following error message : The WinRM client received an HTTP server error status (500), but the remote service did not include any other information about the cause of the failure. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
—————————
OK
—————————
After looking at the various settings for WinRM, firewall etc, I noticed that the WinRM IIS Extension was missing from my features list. I added it through Server Manager:
I could have used ServerManagerCMD.exe as well, but it has been depricated. The command would be:
servermanagercmd.exe -install WinRM-IIS-Ext
Or the PowerShell Server Manager cmdlets:
Import-Module ServerManager
Add-WindowsFeature WinRM-IIS-Ext
After the feature had been installed the error disappeared and Exchange Management Console worked without incident.
I had originally followed the steps outlined in
this article on TechNet to install the prerequisites for Exchange on Windows Server 2008 R2, but those instructions do not mention the WinRM IIS Extension.
If you import a self-signed certificate into the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities store you will not get certificate warnings for that certificate. Nice to know when you are working with servers that generate self-signed certificates.
So I thought I would put together a list of the stuff I use. Mostly as sort of a memo to myself, but if anyone finds this useful, so much the better.
| Keyboard shortcut |
Does what |
Works on |
Notes |
| Win+P |
Brings up the dual-monitor settings. |
Windows 7 |
|
| Win+X |
Launches Windows Mobility Center |
Windows Vista, Windows 7 |
|
| Win+L |
Locks computer |
Windows XP and above |
|
| F2 |
Rename file/folder |
Windows |
In Windows Explorer |
More to come…
Link to a KB article that lists a lot of shortcuts: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/126449
A PGP clone that works on Windows: GPG4Win
Display GPG info: gpg.exe –version
Importing your old PGP keys
- Open a DOS Window (run CMD.EXE)
- cd to the directory where your PGP keyrings (pubring.pkr & secring.skr) live.
- Import your PGP keys to GnuPG:
gpg –import secring.skr
gpg –import pubring.pkr
- You’ll need to go in and assign “ultimate” trust to each public/Secret keypair – this is analogous to PGP’s implied trust key setting:
Information wants to be free!
