Office 2013/ 365 on 2012R2 server

Hi,

I'm looking at installing Office 2013 (Volume License version) on a couple of 2012R2 RDS boxes. I'm using the Office Deployment Toolkit.

Can someone please advise if in the Outlook Profile section, we have to enter the Office 365 server name? If so, what is it? We entered the one obtained from a desktop install of Office 365 but that didn't work.

Additionally, has anyone seen any issues with running this in cached mode (given that the office 365 server is in the cloud)? I'd like to store the outlook profile in a centralized location so as to reduce the footprint on the RDS boxes and to avoid having to download email when logging in from different RDS servers.

Thanks very much,

HA

April 28th, 2015 9:56am

Hi HA,

Are you referring to Office Customization Tool here? I don't see any "Outlook profile section" in Office Deployment Tool.

As far as I know, you don't have to configure this while deploying Office 2013 in a Remote Desktop Service environment. Outlook profile will be created when the user access Outlook through a remote desktop to use their mail account.

Cached Exchange Mode is supported in a RDS environment. However, in this mode, Outlook stores a local copy of each Exchange mailbox and address book on disk for each client access, which will cost additional storage space and disk I/O for multiple client access.

So, unless you are connecting over a high latency connection to an Exchange server that is located remotely, for better scalability, we recommend that you use Online Mode with RDS for large deployments. With Online Mode, no data is stored locally.

Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
April 29th, 2015 3:43am

Hi Ethan,

Many thanks for your reply. I did mean Office Customization Tool. We're using this to deploy Office 2013 to the RDS servers. I will leave the Exchange server field empty. 

The reason I want to use cached mode is due to the customer's line and the number of users that will connect to Office 365 (20/20 Meg up /down on the line, 350 users but the same line is used for offsite backups, etc. as well). I am therefore proposing storing the Outlook profiles on a central fileserver so that not only is user's mail cached but it is also accessible from whichever RDS box they connect. 

Thanks,

Kind Regards,

HA

April 29th, 2015 10:03am

I am therefore proposing storing the Outlook profiles on a central fileserver so that not only is user's mail cached but it is also accessible from whichever RDS box they connect. 

Hi,

I am not sure how exactly you will do this, but please note that you should not place the ost-file on a network share. This is unsupported and it would defeat the purpose of enabling Cached Exchange Mode.

The ost-file should reside on an internal drive.

Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
April 30th, 2015 3:14am

I am therefore proposing storing the Outlook profiles on a central fileserver so that not only is user's mail cached but it is also accessible from whichever RDS box they connect. 

Hi,

Thanks for the clarification.

I am not sure how exactly you will do this, what kind of a central fileserver it is. Below article discussed the limits of using networked Outlook data file, which might be helpful for you. Pleach check the "Recommendations" setion in it:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/297019

Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

April 30th, 2015 7:12am

I am therefore proposing storing the Outlook profiles on a central fileserver so that not only is user's mail cached but it is also accessible from whichever RDS box they connect. 

Hi,

Thanks for the clarification.

I am not sure how exactly you will do this, what kind of a central fileserver it is. You will have some limits to using personal folders (.pst) files over LAN and WAN links.

Below article discussed the limits of using networked Outlook data file, which might be helpful for you. Pleach check the "Recommendations" setion in it:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/297019

Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
April 30th, 2015 7:12am

Hi,

Just checking in to see if above information was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.

Thanks,

Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

May 3rd, 2015 10:04pm

Hi Ethan,

Thanks for your reply and apologies for not replying sooner.

I was planning to use GPO or OCT as in the example here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179175.aspx

The idea is to only store the OST files on a 2012 R2 VM which has its vhdx's placed on a SAN.

There won't be any psts attached to the profiles. If ths was a smaller client, I could use locally cached files. However, there are at least 2 RDS boxes at the moment and around 350 users and that will take up a lot of space on each RDS box if I cache them locally.

Is using OSTs ok/ supported?

Thanks,

HA

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 3rd, 2015 11:02pm

Hi,

We will perform some research on this scenario, and will keep you updated.

Thanks,

Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

May 5th, 2015 6:02am

Hi,

Using networked .pst or .ost files with Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2013 on a Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) (at least Windows Server 2008 R2) is supported.

Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2010 functionality is supported when networked .pst or .ost files are used under the following conditions:

  • A high bandwidth/low latency network connection is used.
  • There is single client access per file (one Outlook client per .pst or .ost).
  • Either Windows Server 2008 R2 or later Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH), or Windows Server 2008 R2 or later Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is used to run Outlook remotely.

Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
May 6th, 2015 4:58am

Hi Ethan,

Thanks very much. I will proceed with placing the ost files on a network location as the setup meets all the criteria you mentioned above.

Kind Regards,

HA

May 8th, 2015 7:04am

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics