Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Using the Exchange Server 2010 Toolbox

The Exchange Management Console includes a Toolbox with several tools that can assist administrators with the identification and resolution of common Exchange Server problems. The Toolbox can be accessed from the Exchange Management Console in the Console Tree. Included in the Toolbox are a series of tools to assist with enhancing the Configuration, Performance, and Security of the environment.

The Toolbox is extensible, meaning that additional tools can be added to it from within the Toolbox by clicking the Open Tools Website. However, this toolbox is for Microsoft provided tools only; third-party tools cannot be added. Some of the utilities are locally installed applications, some are MMC 3.0 snap-ins, and some connect to the Internet to run remotely.

Another feature of several of the tools in the Toolbox is that each time the utility is launched, a connection is made to Microsoft to determine if the utility is up to date. If it is not, the latest version is downloaded and installed, ensuring that administrators always have access to the most current version of the utility. This feature is not available for all tools in the toolbox as of yet.

Following is a list of tools available and some information about the use of each.

Exchange Best Practices Analyzer

At Microsoft, when customers need urgent assistance with problems that affect their business and end users, they refer to the issue as a "critical situation" or CritSit. In 2003, the Microsoft Exchange Server Team noticed that more than 60% of these situations were caused by a configuration error in the environment.

From this discovery, the decision was made to design and implement a utility that would gather information about an organization's Exchange Server and AD implementation and compare what was found against Microsoft recommended best practices. And thus, with the release of Exchange Server 2007, the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer (ExBPA) was born.

By default, the ExBPA uses the credentials of the currently logged-on account, so the account that you are logged on with must have read access to AD and administrator access to each of the Exchange servers viewed. If it is necessary to run the ExBPA using different credentials, that can be configured in the Advanced Login options.

There are several tests that can be run against the Exchange Server and Active Directory environments. These tests are simple to configure and run, and the reports are easy to understand. Errors and warnings are presented, arranged by severity, with descriptions of each problem and its resolution. Additionally, there are often hyperlinks included that direct you to the latest information on the error from the Microsoft website. Reports can be saved for future viewing and trending.

Details Templates Editor

The details template editor enables for the management of Exchange Server Details Templates. Details Templates are client-side graphical user interface (GUI) presentations of object properties that are accessed through Microsoft Outlook.

When a user opens an address list in Outlook, the properties of each object are presented as defined by the details template for the Exchange Server organization.

The Details Template Editor can customize the following objects:

• Users
• Groups
• Public Folders
• Mailbox Agents
• Contacts
• Search Dialogs

Using the editor, administrators can customize field sizes, can add or remove fields and tabs, and rearrange the fields, and the layout of the templates can vary by language.

To restore a template to its original (default) configuration, select it from the list and click the Restore button in the action pane.