BlackBerry Professional Kills Exchange 2007 Server ?!?
My boss, the I.T. Manager, installed BlackBerry Professional software yesterday on our Exchange 2007 Server. It's a single Exch2007 box, performing all roles. He followed the directions per RIM. RIM says that it can be installed on a stand-alone server or on the Exchange server itself. So he installed it directly on the Exchange server, of course (and blew it up).The BB Pro installation broke OWA, OMA and publishing of Free/Busy time on the server. We've tracked down one of the culprits to be an earlier version of .Net.All mobile devices cannot sync ("service not available" is the error message they get), OWA prompts for authentication but then displays a 404 error), and Free/Busy time displays hash marks as if the attendee's calendar isn't available)Has anybody else come across this, and if so, what was your solution?No errors are listed in the Exchange event logs.I can't find anything on Google or the RIM website (which says the installation is "Worry Free".) Exchange 2007 has all Windows and Exchange security updates applied to it.And yes, we've already uninstalled the BlackBerry software, but Exchange is still broken.Thanks!
July 30th, 2008 11:31pm
Didyour Exchage have any type of backup system? This is one option to solve the problem...
In the futureIrecomend you installvirtual machines before to dothe deploysin the netwok
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July 31st, 2008 1:15am
Hi,
I suggest you to run Exchange Best Practices Analyzer first to see if it can fix some common issues. Http 404 error means client was able to communicate with the server but either the server could not find what was requested, or it was configured not to fulfill the request and did not reveal the reason. You can try to restore your IIS settings if you have a backup.
If it is possible, you can ask your BB vendor to see if they know what components are changed by BlackBerry Professional software.
Meanwhile, if it is a very urgent issue, you can contact our CSS with the link below.
For more information on available CSS services, please click here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;OfferProPhone#faq607
You also can send the Exchange BPA report to me. I will see if I can help you fix it.
Regards,
Elvis
August 1st, 2008 10:50am
After 3+ hours on the phone with Microsoft, most of it is fixed. In general, all virtual directories has to be recreated for the services and some repathed.Still need to work on ISA 2006 issues for allowing the Blackberry protocols through the firewall (TCP 3101), but for the most part it's fixed.
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August 1st, 2008 4:21pm
Are you positive on the BB requirements? In previous versions you could NOT install the software on the Exchange server, it required a seperate server. I guess the
newer version might be supported by RIM for co-lo w/ Exchange now, but I cringe at the thought of doing that.
August 1st, 2008 5:42pm
Fixed it all. A big gotcha is that the BB Pro installation on the server forces a 32 bit install of .Net 1.1, which the 64 bit Exchange doesn't like.I'd say the biggest caveat, however, is that when BB says you can install either directly on the Exchange box or on another box, save yourself the headache and install on a separate box! Thanks RIM Documentation for giving me a 50%-50% of farking up the installation from the get-go. It only took 2 Microsoft Support phone calls (do you already have some with a TechNet subscription, b/c ours lapsed and we had to pay twice)Despite RIM documentation, we had to open all destinations for Telnet so our server could communicate w/the BB servers (their IP list must be incomplete). I also had to manually configure a registry key on the BB server to point to a a mailstore account dll file (undocumented by RIM in the Admin Guide for Exchange installation). There is some documentation on BB.com about this for a Lotus Domino server, so I reasoned my way through it for an Exchange server. I finally cradled the device and activated it, so now it's sync'ing wirelessly for messages, contacts, calendar, etc.I only installed the BB Desktop Manager 4.3 from CD, then found they're up to 4.5 on the website. Haven't found any release notes yet as to what has been updated between 4.5 and 4.3, but now that it's working, I'm a bit hesitant to touch it. Man, what a nightmare...
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August 7th, 2008 3:15pm
Hi,
Be glad to see your issue has been fixed. Thank you for your sharing which is very helpful.
Regards,
Elvis
August 8th, 2008 5:49am
I'm in a very similar if not same situation. My guy installed BBE serveron my Exchange H/C server (we have 2 in an NLB configuration) and now the one that had the BBE on it no longer will allo connections though there are no errors being thrown on the server. Can you share what you did to fix the server? We uninstalled BBE and moved it to another server and I reall want to get this H/C server backup and running. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
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October 24th, 2008 5:36am
Look at the32 vs 64 bit versions of .Net
Look at all the virtual directories for Exchange in IIS
Look at the Telnet ports
That's all I can remember off the top of my head, besides suggesting to call BB support.
October 24th, 2008 3:04pm