Exchange 2010 why?

[anything I don't mind]

Does anyone else hate exchange 2010 as much as me?

I thought new versions of software was meant to be an improvement? I am yet to see one improvement with the software. It seems to me like they just added 5 steps to ever simple function and then took most of the functionality out of the gui and put it in to the command shell, which is beyond atrocious.

For a simple function like how to see the size of mailboxes you have to use a command like this

(Get-MailboxDatabase) | Select-Object Name,@{Name="Number of users";Expression={(Get-Mailbox -Database $_.name).Count}}

Who thought of this ? Before it would just display in a column in the gui.

Do you think they did this to add extra learning curve to it, so that it makes the training and usage of the software more difficult, in order to make the administration of it more scarce and ultimately sell more over priced training courses. Or was it just the usual lazy programming from microsoft, instead of making a solid software they ware more focussed on creating a fullscreen windows 2012, which also looks atrocious.

Don't get me wrong, i have no problem with CLI, ive been using linux for 15 years. But when there is software that has functionality in a gui, i don't expect the next version to move all the functions in to the CLI just for the fun of it. Don't come with that, its more powerful that its now in the CLI, non sense. It takes up more of time, it requires me to learn things that i didn't need to know. waste of time =! more powerful.

I would hate to see how bad 2013 is and wonder if its soon will be all CLI based because some lazy programmers at m$ can't be bothered putting the functions in to the gui. So while im playing with my fullscreen blocks i can load the exchange gui and type a programming code to just see basic functions.

I laughed when something that was a basic feature in 2003 required me to write a script and then add it to a windows scheduler because M$ coulnd't be bothered creating an ACL For the exchange databases. Now they have changed it for no good reason and you have to use asdi edit or windows scheduler to change top level exchange permissions.

 

[Yaayuh!]

It's clear in Exchange 2010 that Microsoft want people to use Power Shell more. I too get annoyed at such functions that should be in the GUI. Like exporting a mailbox to PST, why not right-click -> export?

 

[anything I don't mind]

It used to be that I could get by without advanced exchange training. I could complete basic functions with 2003 without any exchange training or realy looking in to it. Ive got all other areas of knowledge that i need to know so i don't specialize in exchange. But with 2010, there is no way i can casually just pick it up or perform basic functions without advanced training. If google was not there, then it would be useless. I would require a command line reference 100s of pages long. Thanks to google and some people who specialize in exchange have already gone through the trouble of learning hwo to do basic functions with long commands. But if that was not there, then i would never manage.

It is forces me to spend time reading so many blogs and so many technet articles that ive told my line manager that i want to outsource all the exchange work, i just don't have the time to learn it (and don't realy want to learn it).

 

[Webzta]

The harder they make it the more inclined people are to move into the cloud.

 

[K.C. Leblanc]

Exchange 2010 was the product that made me realise I was sick of IT.

Too many features completely buried for no good reason. Seriously there's no straightforward way to monitor your user's mailbox usage. What's that about?

I think people might be right about the cloud thing. Most customers take a if it ain't broke then don't fix it attitude. Software makers are moving to subscription based services because otherwise their revenues would dry up due to companies sticking with older software.

 

[oldbag]

Less GUI = less work for devs. But once you create some small scripts to do things it's faster.

 

[anything I don't mind]

I work in legal sector and cloud is out of question for emails. Too many legal considerations when putting data like that in to the cloud. They can do colocation at datacenter but they have to retain ownership of the hardware. Legally they can't have their data on servers with other people data and all sorts of other issues. The law society put out a press release a while back detailing all the possible considerations with cloud based solutions and it was a few pages long.

The cloud is a buzz word though, people use it from full on managed solutions to sticking your server in a rented rack. I prefer to use the real terms. Hosted and managed exchange solutions is not going to work for everyone.

If this continues then i am going to start looking in to open source alternatives, problem then is that all the other solutions are all invested in to exchange support. most of the software we use and support requires exchange.

So now i have two exchange servers, with one at the DR site. Basically i want to see the size of the DR databases because i want to see if replication is workign. Ive run the commands on the exchange to verify replication is working, but i want to double check the size of the databases.

I found this command which was quite short and new to 2010.

Get-MailboxDatabase -Status | select ServerName,Name,DatabaseSize

But it only shows non DR databases, even if i run it on the DR exchange server

 

[oldbag]

You can't just compare the physical files?

 

[anything I don't mind]

Less GUI = less work for devs. But once you create some small scripts to do things it's faster.

devs? since when are exchange administrators classed as developers? since 2010? lol

Yea if i could dedicated all my time to exchange, then ic ould make scripts for basic functions, but when you got a million other things to do and all i want to do is see the size of a database and 3 hours later and 100 google searches later,

 

[oldbag]

http://www.trainsignal.com/blog/get-mailboxreport-powershell-script

This? Took me 5 seconds.

 

[anything I don't mind]

You can't just compare the physical files?

ok. I an do that, but what about white space?

They are the same size. good.

Now I need to see the size of individual mailboxes... back to google.

Ok found some commands like this:

Get-MailboxStatistics -database “Mailbox Database” | Select DisplayName, LastLoggedOnUserAccount, ItemCount, TotalItemSize, LastLogonTime, LastLogoffTime | Format-Table

But what i need is the size of the mailboxes that are still on the 2003 server. As its a mixed environment.

 

[oldbag]

http://blogs.technet.com/b/gary/arc...for-both-exchange-2003-and-exchange-2007.aspx maybe

 

[Yamahahahahaha]

But what i need is the size of the mailboxes that are still on the 2003 server. As its a mixed environment.

There are tons of resources for this on Google.

Exchange 2010 makes managing thousands of mailboxes really easy, and a complete chore for anything under about 250 (in my opinion). I use it and look after it every day. I have a bank of powershell scripts to automate large parts of it, as well as creating nice prompt-driven powershell scripts (yes, you can do that!).

Powershell is a harmonising framework in the same way that the GUI was / is. The difference is, I can collate thousands of mailboxes and get accurate statistics on each individual one with a few powershell commands. Try doing that in 2003. Powershell is built for scale, automation and reliability. There's less need for someone who knows how to find the option buried in a submenu of some obscure window.

The problem is I hate coding and I dislike scripting. I like seeing it work at the end, but I like working with the technology, not the code. I've learned Powershell out of necessity, but I certainly don't enjoy it.

 

[oldbag]

There are tons of resources for this on Google.

Exchange 2010 makes managing thousands of mailboxes really easy, and a complete chore for anything under about 250 (in my opinion). I use it and look after it every day. I have a bank of powershell scripts to automate large parts of it, as well as creating nice prompt-driven powershell scripts (yes, you can do that!).

Powershell is a harmonising framework in the same way that the GUI was / is. The difference is, I can collate thousands of mailboxes and get accurate statistics on each individual one with a few powershell commands. Try doing that in 2003. Powershell is built for scale, automation and reliability. There's less need for someone who knows how to find the option buried in a submenu of some obscure window.

The problem is I hate coding and I dislike scripting. I like seeing it work at the end, but I like working with the technology, not the code. I've learned Powershell out of necessity, but I certainly don't enjoy it.

It could be worse, you could be using vbscript, batch files, ugh.

 

[oldbag]

There are tons of resources for this on Google.

Exchange 2010 makes managing thousands of mailboxes really easy, and a complete chore for anything under about 250 (in my opinion). I use it and look after it every day. I have a bank of powershell scripts to automate large parts of it, as well as creating nice prompt-driven powershell scripts (yes, you can do that!).

Powershell is a harmonising framework in the same way that the GUI was / is. The difference is, I can collate thousands of mailboxes and get accurate statistics on each individual one with a few powershell commands. Try doing that in 2003. Powershell is built for scale, automation and reliability. There's less need for someone who knows how to find the option buried in a submenu of some obscure window.

The problem is I hate coding and I dislike scripting. I like seeing it work at the end, but I like working with the technology, not the code. I've learned Powershell out of necessity, but I certainly don't enjoy it.

It could be worse, you could be using vbscript, or batch files, ugh.

 

[DRZ]

I think when you're used to dealing with small-time IT, things that are built for the enterprise seem daunting or complicated for the sake of it.

You'll find that if you're running an Exchange environment for many thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of users then there is just no way at all to do that effectively with a GUI. Scripting is an essential part of running things when you get beyond a certain scale with a great many technologies.

Exchange 2010 was a revelation compared to 2003 (lets skip 2007) for those very reasons. It makes highly available email actually achievable, it makes modern enterprise scale email very very easy to manage and it is fast.

Don't wish it was easier, wish you were better.

 

[GhostlyPea]

I think when you're used to dealing with small-time IT, things that are built for the enterprise seem daunting or complicated for the sake of it.

You'll find that if you're running an Exchange environment for many thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of users then there is just no way at all to do that effectively with a GUI. Scripting is an essential part of running things when you get beyond a certain scale with a great many technologies.

Exchange 2010 was a revelation compared to 2003 (lets skip 2007) for those very reasons. It makes highly available email actually achievable, it makes modern enterprise scale email very very easy to manage and it is fast.

Don't wish it was easier, wish you were better.

Pretty much this. Nail, head etc.

- GP

 

[Knubje]

life's hard having to use powershell...

 

[HungryHippos]

Does anyone else hate exchange 2010 as much as me?

I thought new versions of software was meant to be an improvement? I am yet to see one improvement with the software. It seems to me like they just added 5 steps to ever simple function and then took most of the functionality out of the gui and put it in to the command shell, which is beyond atrocious.

For a simple function like how to see the size of mailboxes you have to use a command like this

(Get-MailboxDatabase) | Select-Object Name,@{Name="Number of users";Expression={(Get-Mailbox -Database $_.name).Count}}

Who thought of this ? Before it would just display in a column in the gui.

Do you think they did this to add extra learning curve to it, so that it makes the training and usage of the software more difficult, in order to make the administration of it more scarce and ultimately sell more over priced training courses. Or was it just the usual lazy programming from microsoft, instead of making a solid software they ware more focussed on creating a fullscreen windows 2012, which also looks atrocious.

Don't get me wrong, i have no problem with CLI, ive been using linux for 15 years. But when there is software that has functionality in a gui, i don't expect the next version to move all the functions in to the CLI just for the fun of it. Don't come with that, its more powerful that its now in the CLI, non sense. It takes up more of time, it requires me to learn things that i didn't need to know. waste of time =! more powerful.

I would hate to see how bad 2013 is and wonder if its soon will be all CLI based because some lazy programmers at m$ can't be bothered putting the functions in to the gui. So while im playing with my fullscreen blocks i can load the exchange gui and type a programming code to just see basic functions.

I laughed when something that was a basic feature in 2003 required me to write a script and then add it to a windows scheduler because M$ coulnd't be bothered creating an ACL For the exchange databases. Now they have changed it for no good reason and you have to use asdi edit or windows scheduler to change top level exchange permissions.

Sometimes you have to think outside the box with PowerShell, but I enjoy it, it challenges my intellect to come up with new ways to do things.

For example you can run the following instead of what you wrote to get you user counts per DB:

Get-Mailbox | Group -Property "Database" | Sort Name | Select Count, Name

 

[moss]

I prefer Exchange 2010 over 2003, I actually like the Powershell integration too.
I've used it on a domain with about 1000 mailboxes and currently use it on another with around 10000 mailboxes.
I find most day-to-day tasks are a doddle and even migration from 2003 wasn't particularly tricky.
Powershell is great for checking/modifying permissions and other bulk tasks.