OCS R2 Launch

http://www.ocsr2launch.com/

see The Interventionistst :)
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=OCSR2Launch&view=videos

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Attendant Deployment Guide

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Attendant Deployment Guide
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8ca31b00-96f3-42d7-9863-c44673f9c720&displaylang=en&tm

OCS R2 Information and Documents.

New OCS R2 information

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Quick Reference for Dial-in Conferencing
Getting Started with the Microsoft Office Live Meeting Client for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2
Meeting Client for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Testing and Troubleshooting Guide
Microsoft Office Live Meeting Quick Reference for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2
Deploying the Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 Client with Office Communications Server 2007 R2
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat What’s New Guide
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Quick Reference Card
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Getting Started Guide
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Planning and Deployment Guide
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Client Group Policy Settings
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Testing and Troubleshooting Guide
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Release Notes

source http://www.microsoftpost.com/

Microsoft Forefront Security for Office Communications Server Beta 3 incl R2 support

Microsoft Forefront Security for Office Communications Server: System Requirements
Updated: June 1, 2008

Forefront Security for Office Communications Server Beta 3
You will need the following minimum system configuration to run the Forefront Security for Office Communications Server Beta 3 software.
Component
Requirement
Processor
Dual-processor, 2.6 gigahertz (GHz)
Operating System
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Microsoft Windows Server 2008
Memory
1 gigabyte (GB) of available memory (2 GB recommended)
Hard Disk
2 gigabytes (GB) of available disk space
Microsoft Office Communications Server
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition or Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/evalcenter/cc509001.aspx

Rumor: Interact April 13-16, 2009

Just got secound hand information, not confirmed that Interact 2009 event is on April 13-16, 2009 San Diego.

Can't wait to see the agenda, hope there is a lot of R2 but also Wave 14 ;)

OCS Master alpha rotation - week 1

Follow Jens Trier Rasmussens Master Exam.

So this is Saturday afternoon and we are all still plucking away in the lab. It has been quite a challenging experience until now, but also very rewarding. 12 hour+ days with a mixture of presentations, discussions and lab work.

more here: http://blogs.technet.com/jenstr/archive/2009/01/17/ocs-master-alpha-rotation-week-1.aspx

Part 2 of a LAB setup guide from Elan Shudnow’s Blog

Welcome to Part 2 of this article series. In Part 1, we started off by discussing the goal of this lab. That goal is how to deploy a single Enterprise Edition OCS 2007 R2 Server which is connected to an x64 SQL Server 2008 Back-End Server. We first discussed what the lab setup is going to be using Hyper-V, and then proceeded to the configuration of our Enterprise Certificate Authority.

http://www.shudnow.net/2009/01/08/office-communications-server-2007-r2-enterprise-deployment-part-2/

part 1

Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 R2 Beta

I have a LAB setup on a single laptop on that I use Hyper-v and just released is Hyper-v R2.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E464E255-CDD5-44B2-84E6-3233EAE3F356&displaylang=en

Get the Windows Server 2008 R2 Reviewers Guide

WinHlp32.exe for Windows Server 2008

WinHlp32.exe is required to display 32-bit Help files that have the “.hlp” file name extension. To view .hlp files on Windows Server 2008, you need to install this application.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0468fefd-b54f-4c57-8340-c6dd2ec20c0a&DisplayLang=en

Create Contact lists for all users with deparment as LDAP filter

I the real life when you have done all the OCS Infrastructure and integration, even run the first little Pilot and every thing is like it should be, you are ready to install Communicator to all the users in the company.

Remember the first thing that your users will see is this Communicator opens with no contacts at all, this is okay if it’s a former MSN users, they will quickly add contact, but what if it’s “New to IM” user, and they are still out there ;)
Do you think they will find this “Communicator” the most fantastic software in the world, with it’s white big empty area?
When a new employe is hired, it’s the same.

What you need is a tool/script from the OCS Reskit called LCSAddContacts.wsf this script is for creating contact lists for your users.

I have created this little powershell script that will create files for LCSAddContacts.wsf based on a LDAP filter with Department as the key attribute.

**************

$currentdir = [System.IO.Path]::GetTemppath()
$datetime = Get-Date
$datetime = $datetime.ToString() -replace":","-"
$workdir = "$($currentdir)$($datetime)\"

if (!(Test-Path -path "$($workdir)"))
{New-Item "$($workdir)\" -type directory}

$strCategory = "person"
$objDomain = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry
$objSearcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher
$objSearcher.SearchRoot = $objDomain
$objSearcher.Filter = ("(&(objectCategory=$strCategory)(Department=*)(msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress=*))")

$colProplist = "department","msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress"
foreach ($i in $colPropList){$objSearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add($i)}

$colResults = $objSearcher.FindAll()
foreach ($objResult in $colResults)
{
$objtest = $objResult.Properties
$department = $objtest.department -replace",",""
$copyPath = "$($workdir)\$($department).txt"
if (!(Test-Path $copyPath)) {Write-output "c:\windows\system32\cscript LCSAddContacts.wsf /usersfile:""$($department).txt"" /contactsfile:""$($department).txt"" /contactsgroup:'My department' >>Contact-logfil.log" out-File "$($workdir)_CMD-$($datetime).txt" -append -encoding "ASCII"}
Write-output "$($objtest['msrtcsip-primaryuseraddress'])" out-File "$($workdir)\$($department).txt" -append -encoding "ASCII"
}

Write-output "notepad Contact-logfil.log" out-File "$($workdir)_CMD-$($datetime).txt" -append -encoding "ASCII"
$ShellExp = new-object -comObject Shell.Application
$ShellExp.open("$workdir")

***********************

It is a harmless powershell script, it will create files for you to review and dosen't do anything against your Activ Directory og OCS system, only reads from AD and write txt files to the disk.

When the script is finish there will be X numbers of files with department names as “filenames” and one command file called “_CMD-<Date-time>.txt, when you have reviewed this _CMD file and renamed it to .cmd there is no way back………if you execute it.
Take a look at it and test it in your lab first …………. then it’s on your own responsibility to use it in your production!
Or create your own :)
Remember to copy LCSAddContacts.wsf to the same folder as the .txt and CMD file

I am actualy not in favor of centrale controled contact lists, because they are meant as to be dynamic, and there is diffrent needs from user to user, but as a “one time shot” when you have enabled all your users or for newly hired user, I think it could be a good idee to create contact lists.
Or if you have some general contacts like IT support.

Please remember to create only lists with max 20-30 uses in, because the default MAX number of contacts on the server-side is 150. and if you have more than 30 contact in one single lists I think it’s to many, and again it diffrent needs from users to users.

In R2 this script will also work, and the Mobile Communicator R2 will first get the presence status on your contacts when you expand your Contact groups, it's taking some time to expand this gruops and if you have more that 30 contact it's taking even longer.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Planning workbook (released)

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Planning Workbook can you now get here: http://communicationsserverteam.com/files/9/ocs_2007_r2_planning_workbook/entry346.aspx

This Planning Workbook is intended to document the recommended roll-out of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in an enterprise-level lab or production environment. This document’s purpose is to provide enterprise customers and deployment partners a method to begin planning for their Office Communications Server 2007 R2 deployment. This document does not replace communications with Microsoft Consulting Services or a Microsoft UC deployment partner. This is a living document that will be continually updated throughout the product lifecycle.

part 1 of a LAB setup guide from Elan Shudnow’s Blog

Elan has posted part 1 of 5 Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Enterprise Deployment like a step by step guide for a LAB setup

TechNet Webcast: Communications Server 2007 R2 Deployment and Administration (Level 100)

Attend this webcast to learn about Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and its architecture. We discuss changes from Communications Server 2007, supported deployment topologies, recommended configurations, planning process, capacity planning, and deployment best practices. We also cover in detail the migration process from Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 to Communications Server 2007 R2.
Registre here

update for Communicator Mobile 2007

Communicator Mobile 2007 crashes when you try to sign in to Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=960492#appliesto

Interact 2009

Interact 2009 is it comming or ?
https://www.interact09.com/INTERACT09/Content/Sessions.aspx

On this site this remark are on every session :)
(This session was offered at INTERACT2008; INTERACT2009 sessions are being planned now)

I hope this Interact will be a bit more technical and we will get a lot of information on not only R2, but also wave 14.

Cisco Unified Communications System Release 7.0

Cisco Techupdate incl information on OCS integration.
http://www.cisco.com/web/DK/assets/docs/presentations/TectUpdate081023.pdf

Office Communicator 2007 controlling the call forwarding settings

Microsoft has a FIX http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960424 to prevent Office Communicator 2007 from controlling the call forwarding settings in Remote Call Control (CSTA)


I think this is a half solution to that problem, the best solution is that communicator checks/read the forward setting from the PBX via CSTA.
The problem is right now will Communicator overrule forward setting on the phone.

<GetForwarding xmlns="http://www.ecma-international.org/standards/ecma-323/csta/ed3"> sip:tom1@domain.com
</GetForwarding>
source:
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-TR/TR-087.pdf


Microsoft KB960424
You cannot prevent Office Communicator 2007 from controlling the call forwarding settings. In some scenarios, Office Communicator 2007 will overwrite the Private Branch Exchange (PBX) forwarding settings. This causes you to lose some important calls.


To resolve this problem, install the update that is described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 957465. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
957465 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957465/ ) Description of the Communicator 2007 hotfix rollup package: December 19, 2008 This update provides a new policy. This policy disables the call forwarding settings from Office Communicator for a Remote Call Control user. Office Communicator no longer controls forwarding settings on the PBX after this policy is applied. To do this, follow these steps:
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator\


• On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.


• Type DisableRCCForwarding, and then press ENTER.


• Right-click DisableRCCForwarding, and then click Modify.


• In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.


• Exit Registry Editor.