I have a client site running Exchange 2013 on Server 2012 with most PCs using Office 2010 with a few using Office 2013.

One customer last week said he was getting a popup in Outlook at least once a day stating "The Microsoft Exchange administrator has made a change that requires you quit and restart Outlook." No one has been making changes to Exchange so there must be some glitch in the system that is now causing the popup to appear.

His only recourse then was to follow the message and restart Outlook. He said he was the only one in the office (about 12) who was getting it.

I checked out Exchange and I found that it was at CU3 level. I installed CU9 and now he said that he only gets the popup when he opens Outlook but he can click through it and doesn't have to restart it. He also said that now some others are saying they are getting that popup when opening Outlook also.

I was certain this was an Exchange issue at first and I'm still certain of that. However I can't find any concise help. I've found several suggestion as to what to do and I don't want to chasing around after suggestions hoping one of them will work. Does anyone have any clear idea of what would cause this and how to fix it?

Hi Jonathan -

I would like to see what authentication settings you have configured.  Exchange 2013 by default uses NTLM authentication and so Outlook should have the same configured in Outlook Anywhere settings.  Please check both of these to verify.

Is this a Single Exchange Server environment or multiple?  If multiple are they behind a load balancer?

What happens if you create a new Outlook profile for the user (preserve the old just to keep the issue around)?  Does this clear up the issue for the user?

Was 2013 a new deployment or a migration from a previous version?

Thanks,

Jason

Hi,

Have you done a migration in your environment?

Please run Get-OutlookAnywhere | fl Identity,*auth* to check your OA authentication.

I suggest you can try to recreate a new profile for the problematic user to test.

I have found the below article for your reference:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/vytas/archive/2014/11/12/your-administrator-has-made-a-change-and-requires-you-to-restart-outlook.aspx

Regards,

David             

Hi Jonathan -

I would like to see what authentication settings you have configured.  Exchange 2013 by default uses NTLM authentication and so Outlook should have the same configured in Outlook Anywhere settings.  Please check both of these to verify.

Is this a Single Exchange Server environment or multiple?  If multiple are they behind a load balancer?

What happens if you create a new Outlook profile for the user (preserve the old just to keep the issue around)?  Does this clear up the issue for the user?

Was 2013 a new deployment or a migration from a previous version?

Thanks,

Hi,

Have you done a migration in your environment?

Please run Get-OutlookAnywhere | fl Identity,*auth* to check your OA authentication.

I suggest you can try to recreate a new profile for the problematic user to test.

I have found the below article for your reference:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/vytas/archive/2014/11/12/your-administrator-has-made-a-change-and-requires-you-to-restart-outlook.aspx

Regards,

David             

I ran that command and here's the result.

Identity                           : MAIL\Rpc (Default Web Site)
ExternalClientAuthenticationMethod : Basic
InternalClientAuthenticationMethod : Basic
IISAuthenticationMethods           : {Basic}

As I mentioned to Jason, I created a new Outlook profile for my company's domain account on their RDS server and then opened and closed Outlook a few times and didn't get the popup so I'm scheduling time with the user who originally reported the problem to create a new profile in his Outlook.

I looked at the article from the link you provided and I don't think that applies in this case as no changes have been made since everything was migrated to the current Exchange 2013 server over a year ago. The user has been getting this popup only a short time so I don't thing the migration from over a year ago would have waited to start causing the popup that long.

David,

I've created new Outlook profiles for 3 users and that has not stopped the popups. Any other suggestions?

Hi Jonathan -

What happens if you create a new Outlook profile for the user (preserve the old just to keep the issue around)?  Does this clear up the issue for the user?

Thanks,

Hi,

You said they were migrated from SBS 2003? Was the migration done correctly? Were public folders migrated cleanly? Below is for 2007, but it should apply for 2003 too:

https://exchangemaster.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/legacy-public-folder-remnants-in-exchange-2013-cause-the-microsoft-exchange-administrator-has-made-a-change-prompt/

• Edited by in2jars 11 hours 6 minutes ago hyperlink

Hi,

You said they were migrated from SBS 2003? Was the migration done correctly? Were public folders migrated cleanly? Below is for 2007, but it should apply for 2003 too:

https://exchangemaster.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/legacy-public-folder-remnants-in-exchange-2013-cause-the-microsoft-exchange-administrator-has-made-a-change-prompt/

The migration was done almost a year and a half ago and this popup problem just started within the last few weeks so I don't think there's any connection as I can't see a problem like that not appearing for over a year after the migration.

As for the migration it went well. There were no public folders so that was not an issue. The migration went from SBS2003 to Exchange 2010 then to Exchange 2013 all in the space of a couple of weeks.

It might be worth running:

Get-MailboxDatabase | fl name,publicfolderdatabase

just to be certain.

It might be worth running:

Get-MailboxDatabase | fl name,publicfolderdatabase

just to be certain.

I ran that and got the following:

Name                 : Mailbox Database 1282379070
PublicFolderDatabase : DomainName.local/Configuration/Deleted Objects/Public Folder Database 0067538780
                       DEL:9df3acaa-797d-4b9d-b0e7-efeae0fd8d05

I guess that means there's a public folder (I'm not an Exchange admin) but I do know that this customer has never used public folders, only their individual mailboxes.

Right, so this seems to be pretty common during migrations. Basically public folders are not decommissioned 100% properly. When Exchange 2013 is installed, it will associate its mailbox database with an existing public folder database, if that public folder database is then deleted, it will reference the deleted database (what you are seeing now).

Here's a good posting on how to fix from someone else who went through it. Notice they too did not see and issue for almost a year after they decommissioned their legacy Exchange Server:

http://jaapwesselius.com/2014/08/05/the-microsoft-exchange-administrator-has-made-a-change/

• Edited by in2jars 10 hours 15 minutes ago
• Proposed as answer by David Wang_Microsoft contingent staff 6 hours 22 minutes ago

Hi,

You said they were migrated from SBS 2003? Was the migration done correctly? Were public folders migrated cleanly? Below is for 2007, but it should apply for 2003 too:

https://exchangemaster.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/legacy-public-folder-remnants-in-exchange-2013-cause-the-microsoft-exchange-administrator-has-made-a-change-prompt/

• Edited by in2jars Tuesday, August 04, 2015 8:19 PM hyperlink

Hi,

You said they were migrated from SBS 2003? Was the migration done correctly? Were public folders migrated cleanly? Below is for 2007, but it should apply for 2003 too:

https://exchangemaster.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/legacy-public-folder-remnants-in-exchange-2013-cause-the-microsoft-exchange-administrator-has-made-a-change-prompt/

• Edited by in2jars Tuesday, August 04, 2015 8:19 PM hyperlink

Right, so this seems to be pretty common during migrations. Basically public folders are not decommissioned 100% properly. When Exchange 2013 is installed, it will associate its mailbox database with an existing public folder database, if that public folder database is then deleted, it will reference the deleted database (what you are seeing now).

Here's a good posting on how to fix from someone else who went through it. Notice they too did not see and issue for almost a year after they decommissioned their legacy Exchange Server:

http://jaapwesselius.com/2014/08/05/the-microsoft-exchange-administrator-has-made-a-change/

• Edited by in2jars Tuesday, August 04, 2015 9:10 PM
• Proposed as answer by David Wang_Microsoft contingent staff Wednesday, August 05, 2015 1:04 AM

Right, so this seems to be pretty common during migrations. Basically public folders are not decommissioned 100% properly. When Exchange 2013 is installed, it will associate its mailbox database with an existing public folder database, if that public folder database is then deleted, it will reference the deleted database (what you are seeing now).

Here's a good posting on how to fix from someone else who went through it. Notice they too did not see and issue for almost a year after they decommissioned their legacy Exchange Server:

http://jaapwesselius.com/2014/08/05/the-microsoft-exchange-administrator-has-made-a-change/

• Edited by in2jars Tuesday, August 04, 2015 9:10 PM
• Proposed as answer by David Wang_Microsoft contingent staff Wednesday, August 05, 2015 1:04 AM
• Marked as answer by SmallBizAdmin 15 hours 39 minutes ago

Right, so this seems to be pretty common during migrations. Basically public folders are not decommissioned 100% properly. When Exchange 2013 is installed, it will associate its mailbox database with an existing public folder database, if that public folder database is then deleted, it will reference the deleted database (what you are seeing now).

Here's a good posting on how to fix from someone else who went through it. Notice they too did not see and issue for almost a year after they decommissioned their legacy Exchange Server:

http://jaapwesselius.com/2014/08/05/the-microsoft-exchange-administrator-has-made-a-change/

That does sound like just what I'm looking for after reading through that article. However the author assumes one knows how to get to that database in ADSI Edit. I've used ADSI Edit a few times but I always had specific directions of how to tell it what to connect to and how to navigate to the item I wanted to edit.

I've tried looking up articles but haven't found any yet that gives good enough directions to someone who has had limited exposure to ADSI Edit. So if you can provide some sort of guidance that would be most helpful.

Right, so this seems to be pretty common during migrations. Basically public folders are not decommissioned 100% properly. When Exchange 2013 is installed, it will associate its mailbox database with an existing public folder database, if that public folder database is then deleted, it will reference the deleted database (what you are seeing now).

Here's a good posting on how to fix from someone else who went through it. Notice they too did not see and issue for almost a year after they decommissioned their legacy Exchange Server:

http://jaapwesselius.com/2014/08/05/the-microsoft-exchange-administrator-has-made-a-change/

That did it! I followed the instructions in that linked article (once I figured out how to get to the correct spot in ADSI Edit) and the customers no longer are getting that popup.

I wish I could vote more than once to thank you!