Il avait était promis y a quelques temps, il est enfin disponible!

Bonne lecture : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=9ccaac38-2da8-4a76-8193-96f4bbf04678

Il se pourrait que Microsoft est découvert pourquoi Office Communication Server 2007 R2 ne fonctionnent pas sur leur nouveau système d'exploitation Windows Serveur 2008 R2 :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975858/

Envisagez le scénario suivant :

• Une application ou un service appelle la fonction InitializeSecurityContext avec l'indicateur ISC_REQ_EXTENDED_ERROR sur un ordinateur qui exécute Windows Server 2008 R2 ou Windows 7.
• L'application ou le service s'appuie sur l'attribut retourné indicateur ISC_RET_EXTENDED_ERROR.

Dans ce scénario, l'application ou le service peut rencontrer une défaillance de fonction ou une exception.

Par exemple, une négociation TLS (Transport Layer Security) échoue lorsque Microsoft Office Communicator Server 2007 R2 est installé sur un ordinateur qui exécute Windows Server 2008 R2. Ce problème entraîne certaines fonctions de fonctionner dans Office Communicator Server 2007 R2.

Cela avance finalement :).

I now have complete feature parity with a 64-bit OS (Windows 7) running 64-bit Office 2010 with LiveMeeting and Office Communicator, that I had with 32-bit Office 2007 not too long ago.

You can read about the changes for LiveMeeting here and the changes for the Conferencing Add-in here.

You can download the updated LiveMeeting client here and the updated Conferencing Add-in here.

For the add-in, you will have to choose 32-bit or 64-bit which depends on which flavor (32-bit or 64-bit) of Office you are using. The only 64-bit version of Office to date is the Office 2010 Technical Preview/Beta. Any version before that is 32-bit.

Anyone running a 32-bit OS is going to use 32-bit Office and will want the 32-bit version.

You can certainly run 32-bit Office on a 64-bit OS, and in this case, you would want the 32-bit Conferencing Add-in. One reason I can think of is if you want to keep using Xobni until a new version of that application comes out, or you have other 32-bit Office plugins that you use.

I am using 64-bit Office primarily for a relatively strange reason. Sure, running native applications is a good thing, but I am mainly interested in applications not "mucking around" with my Office configuration by adding in things covertly.

The biggest offender I can rattle off the top of my head is the plugin that iTunes installs into Outlook without asking. It has a notorious history of causing problems with delaying Outlook to shut down. I'm not picking on Apple, I just wish it was an optional component of iTunes.

Plus, I'm just a fan of 64-bit applications in general.

Note: One limitation of using Live Meeting on a 64-bit OS still remains - uploading Office documents other than PowerPoint to LiveMeeting and having LiveMeeting dynamically convert/scale the documents to each client's workspace. I generally don't use this feature so it is a non-issue for me.

The technical reason - a 64-bit Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) print driver does not exist.

Lors de l'installation d'un front-end OCS R2, si la mise a jour de sécurité KB974571 est déja installé sur le serveur, l'erreur suivant lors de la phase d'activation du serveur est affichée :

Failure
[0xC3EC78D8] Failed to read the Office Communications Server version information. This can happen if the computer clock is not set to correct date and time.

Pas de panique, un fix est disponible pour résoudre ce problème :

Lors de l'installation d'OCS 2007 R1 ou R2 Enterprise Edition, lors de la phase de validation du service de partage d'application ou de Conférence Web, l'erreur suivant revient souvent : 

Received a failure HTTP response.: Unauthorized
[0xC3FC200D] One or more errors were detected

Ce n'est pas un problème critique, mais si vous souhaitez le résoudre, il faut suivre la procédure suivante :

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0
4. Right-click MSV1_0, point to New, and then click Multi-String Value.
5. Type BackConnectionHostNames, and then press ENTER.
6. Right-click BackConnectionHostNames, and then click Modify.
7. In the Value data box, type the FQDN of your enterprise pool, and then click OK.
8. Close Registry Editor, and then restart the IISAdmin service.

Resolution found over at Technet http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd441168(office.13).aspx

Voici quelques codes d'erreurs pouvant arriver pendant la phase de validation des services :

Failure[0xC3EC796C] One or more errors occurred during execution of the wizard; the wizard was unable to complete successfully. Please check the log file for more information
http://blogs.lanlogic.net/blogs/tom/archive/2007/08/24/ocs-activation-error.aspx

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Failure[0xC3EC78B4] Office Communications Server Archiving Service is not installed on the server.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=52627734-b354-4f74-a6ed-e298259cda19&DisplayLang=en

------------------------------------------------------------------

Failure[0x800706BA] The RPC server is unavailable.
If you solved this problem correctly Failure[0xC3EC78B4] Office Communications Server Archiving Service is not installed on the server.This won't occur.
Else try this way Change your Remote Procedure call service log on to Local System account.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Warning[0x03EC78E3] No DNS record is found for the pool FQDN. Please register the pool FQDN with DNS before deploying Office Communications Server in the pool.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Error: Service : Office Communications Server Archiving and CDREventLog Error: The Office Communications Server Archiving and CDR service terminated with service-specific error 3222142979 (0xC00E0003). Failure[0xC3EC79E6] Service failed to start as requested.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

J'ai eu de nouveau ce problème lors de partage de fichiers ou d'utilisation du tableau blanc lors d'un déploiement chez un client d'un front-end OCS R2.

Pour résoudre ce point, il faut aller dans IIS7:

Dans "Basic Settings" dans le répertoire virtuel /Etc/Place/null/Filetree, les crédentiels dans "Connect As" doivent être  "RTCGuestAccessUser".
Vérifiez aussi les permissions du partage réseau contenant les documents de la réunion et que les groupes suivant sont présent et possedent les droits adéquates :
- RTCComponentUniversalServices (Modify)
- RTCUniversalGuestAccessGroup (Read).

Enjoy.

Pour information, les contacts récents de communicator sont stockés dans la base de registre sur ce lien là:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\<sip-uri of user>\GroupStateCacheU\~~

Voici un excellent article sur les problèmes de localisation avec OCS 2007 R2 :


For all of you European OCS 2007 R2 users, there’s a small “hidden feature” in the release of the OCS 2007 R2 Edge server.

During our migrations from OCS 2007 R1 to the all new R2 RTM release, we noticed some strange A/V Edge Authentication server errors. Users would see a “limited calling” error in Communicator, the Mediation server would complain there was no valid A/V Authentication service, and the front-end A/V Validation would simply fail without any helpful notification. After some in-house troubleshooting, it was time to call in the troops. Together with Microsoft, we validated the Edge configuration, did some tracing, and couldn’t find anything wrong with the edge server. One of the problems that kept coming up was a vague “Version Mismatch” error in the snooper logs. One of our troops at Microsoft took a closer look and noted that the edge server was complaining about a version 2,0 instead of a 2.0. Yes, you read that correctly, a comma instead of a period. We never thought of the fact that we installed the servers with Dutch localization, and apparently, Microsoft didn’t either.

One of the main differences when using a European localization, is the change in number notation. Where the US locale uses a notation like $ 1,000,000.00 , us Europeans will use € 1.000.000,00 . This caused the Edge server to be unable to recognize any version numbers coming in. This bug has been reported to Microsoft, and is in the process of being fixed.

In the meantime, you can work around this issue in the following manner;

    * On the Edge server, add the Edge Service account to local administrators and logoff.
    * Logon using the Edge Service account
    * Go to control panel, Regional and Language options.
    * Change the format to English (US).
    * Remove the Service Account from the local administrators and reboot.

You can verify this workaround by rerunning the validation wizard on your front-end. It will show the A/V authentication service pass with flying colors!

Microsoft a publié une documentation mise à jour :

Version: 1.4

Date Published: 12/14/2009

Language: English

Download Size: 16 KB - 173.1 MB

Une mise à jour pour la version Iphone a été publiée. Cette mise à jour régle certaines problématiques concernant son installation :

Features:

• Support for OCS CWA 2007 and 2007 R2 servers that are published behind an ISA Server using Single-Sign On (SSO) authentication. If you have deployed CWA using ISA SSO, the connection will now be seamless.
• Support for Enterprise certificates. If your OCS CWA is configured with an internal certificate, the user is warned about the untrusted certificate and can choose to “accept” the certificate in order to proceed. This is the same behavior that is available in all major web browsers today. This will greatly improve the out of box experience for users at companies that have used an internal CA to issue their CWA certificate (or certain Public CA’s that have proved to be problematic for the iPhone platform).
• Support for Distribution Groups (This feature is available only if your company has deployed OCS 2007 R2).
• Robust connection status information and error messages

Fixes:

• Improved speed and responsiveness.
• Support for passwords with certain special characters.
• Fix for intermittent app crashes when signed in to multiple OCS endpoints.

Une mise à jour du kb a était publié récemment :

Version: 6907.56

Knowledge Base (KB) Articles: KB968802

Date Published: 11/3/2009

Language: English

Download Size: 378 KB - 106.9 MB*

This hotfix download for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 is described in the Knowledge Base article 968802.

La partie intéressante de cette mise a jour est le systême de mise à jour Cumulative Server qui évite d'exécuter manuellement l'installation d'une mise a jour. Le programme d'installation mise à jour cumulative de serveur s'applique à toutes les mises à jour pour le rôle de serveur approprié dans un seul clic.

Le fonctionnement est très simple :

1. Télécharger le programme d'installation Server mise à jour cumulative :
   
   Download the ServerUpdateInstaller.exe package now.


2. Exécuter le programme d'installation de mise à jour Cumulative Server à l'aide de l'interface utilisateur ou à l'aide d'une ligne de commande.
   
   
3. Appliquer la mise à jour pour Office Communications Server 2007 R2 précédent - fin de la base de données si elle est appliquée. Pour obtenir cette mise à jour, reportez-vous au site Web de Microsoft à l'adresse suivante :
   969834  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969834/ ) Mise à jour pour entreprise Edition une base de données principale

Le blog de Damien Caro apporte quelques réponses bien utile sur certains point concernant la virtualisation et office Communicator. La virtualisation du client Communicator est supporté mais uniquement dans le cas d'une virtualisation par AppV  au niveau du poste client. L'état des lieux est clairement décrit dans cet article de la base de connaissance : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951152/en-us :

Office Communicator 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 R2 support all native functions. This includes text chats, presence functions, desktop sharing (Office Communicator 2007 R2 only), Remote Call Control (RCC), audio, and video when you use them in Client-Side Application Virtualization mode (Microsoft Application Virtualization for Desktops 4.5).

Concernant l'autre mode de virtualisation, la virtualisation de présentation, (Terminal Server) apporte une couche d'abstraction supplémentaire au niveau du réseau qui perturbe les algorithmes de détection des modifications des conditions réseau (bande passante, latence, …) rendant l'expérience utilisateur potentiellement très mauvaise. La voix et la vidéo avec Office Communicator ne sont donc pas prêtes d'être supportés en environnement de type terminal serveur.

Enfin la réponse concernant le support d'Office Communication Server 2007 R2 sur un système d'exploitation Windows Server 2008 R2 et pourtant ce n'était pas faute d'avoir essayé.

Voila l'information officielle :http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/supported-applications.aspx

On retient donc :

“Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and later versions will be supported beginning Q1 2010”

Qui s'applique aux versions :

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

• Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation

File Name: OCS2007R2_with_Hyper-V.docx

Un document qui apporte sa pierre à l'édifice concernant Office Communications Server 2007 R2 et la virtualisation. Cette solution est certifié Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP)
La virtualisation sera supporté pour les fonctionnalités suivantes :

• Presence
• IM (including conferencing, remote access, federation, and Public IM Connectivity)
• Group Chat

Le document décrit une series de résultats de configurations sous environnement Hyper-V.

Microsoft a developpé le  "Web Service Provider" pour OCS 2007 R2 et Exchange 2010 Outlook Web App.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Web Service Provider permet aux administrateurs d'implémenter les fonctionnalités de messagerie instantannée et de présence pour les utilisateurs de  Microsoft Office Outlook®-Live.

Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=ca107ab1-63c8-4c6a-816d-17961393d2b8

Les informations de présence de Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 peuvent ne pas appara^tre dans outlook 2003 (SP2) ou 2007. Cela arrive souvent quand l'URI SIP de l'utilsateur est différente de l'adresse email primaire de l'utilisateur ou quand l'utilisateur a de nombreuses adresses e-mail.

Rick Varvel a publié sur son blog un merveilleux guide permettant de mettre à jour les devices OCPE (Tanjay) en utilisant le service de mise à jour des devices d'office Communication Server 2007 R2 de manière tres détaillée, si je l'aurais eu avant, je me serais moins embêté :)

voici le lien de téléchargement : OCPE Upgrade Process 199_522_6907 for R2 (v1.5).docx

Voila un problème de plus rencontré avec sa résolution, cela peut en aider plus d'un :

Problem :

Internal clients are able to download content of handouts that are shared and for some meetings external clients are able to download and view handouts but other times they are not and receive the error "Content failed to download due to a problem with the Conference Center Configuration. Contact your administrator."

Environment :

There are two or more Office Communications Server Standard or Enterprise Edition Pools in the organization.

Cause :

There is just one Reverse Proxy with just one web publishing rule for the web components (Address Book Server, Group Expansion, and Meeting content) and both OCS Pools are configured with the same ExternalWebFQDN.  The meeting is created on Pool01 where the internal user is homed but the Reverse Proxy web publishing rule points to Pool02 and the meeting content does not exist on Pool02 therefore the external client received the error.

Resolution :

Each  Pool ExternalWebFQDN must be distinct and a separate web publishing rule would be needed for each Pools ExternalWebFQDN.

Allez, encore une petite couche sur ce problème de mise a jour!

Update #1 - Until this issue can be resolved, I am only suggesting that you either hold off on deploying this update, or test very throughly to make sure that this won't cause an outage in your environment.  Security updates are VERY important, and once this issue is resolved, you should deploy this update to all of your LCS/OCS servers. 

Currently an issue is being observed after applying KB974571 (MS09-056: Vulnerabilities in CryptoAPI could allow spoofing) to LCS/OCS servers, that is causing them to believe that they are running an evaluation version of LCS/OCS and that it has expired.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974571/

If you apply the patch, the LCS/OCS services fail to start and you see these errors in the event log:

Event Type:        Error
Event Source:    Live Communications Server
Event Category:                (1000)
Event ID:              12290
Date:                     10/13/2009
Time:                     8:28:57 PM
User:                     N/A
Computer:         
Description:
The evaluation period for Microsoft Office Live Communication Server 2005 has expired. Obtain the released version of this product and upgrade to the non-evaluation version by running setup.exe

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type:        Error
Event Source:    Live Communications Server
Event Category:                (1000)
Event ID:              16417
Date:                     10/13/2009
Time:                     8:28:57 PM
User:                     N/A
Computer:         
Description:
Unable to initialize the protocol stack. The service has to stop.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type:        Error
Event Source:    Live Communications Server
Event Category:                (1000)
Event ID:              12299
Date:                     10/13/2009
Time:                     8:28:57 PM
User:                     N/A
Computer:         
Description:
The service is shutting down due to an internal error.

Error Code: 0xC3ED0804.
Resolution:
Check the previous event log entries and resolve them. Restart the server. If the problem persists contact product support.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Uninstalling the patch is the only way to currently fix this issue.

The issue is currently being escalated, but until a fix can be found, delaying the install of KB974571 is recommended.

Matinée qui commence mal, suite aux mises a jours d'hier soir, le service dur rôle d'access sur le Edge ne veut plus démarrer! l'erreur :

La raison et la résolution :

Security updates are important. And as we’re currently an evaluation setup for OCS 2007 R2, i’ve decided to install todays batch of security updates on these lesser important machines first. And after a reboot, OCS 2007 R2 was broken.

A quick view into the event log revealed that OCS 2007 R2’s evaluation license has expired. Now, this seemed very strange as i’ve installed from volume license media. I’ve the checked the media again, but they weren’t evaluation media.

Here’s the message in all it’s glory:

Event source: OCS Server
Event id: 12290
Event text: The evaluation period for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 has expired. Please upgrade from the evaluation version to the full released version of the product.

Maybe i really did use other media to install it? I doubted myself, because that’s usually the most reasonable approach to take. The error is usually behind the keyboard.

Luckily, Microsoft has published documentation on how to upgrade an evaluation version to a full version. Unfortunately, this didn’t work, because as it appears i was running a Volume license version of OCS.

EVALTOFULL parameter cannot be used with currently installed license type Volume

At this point, i was pretty sure that this wasn’t my fault. There has been an issue with the OCS 2007 R2 Evaluation Media expiring at the wrong point in time, but apparently this has been sorted out and did never affect the full versions of OCS 2007 R2.

So i was bummed. A quick view using process monitor revealed that the licensing information was most likely to be stored here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RtcSrv\InstallInfo\ValidationData

I created a backup of that part of the registry, and then renamed the key. I got a file not found error, and created a new key of the same type and wrote binary data of the same length into it. This yielded the following error:

The service is shutting down due to an internal error.

Error Code: 80093102 (ASN1 unexpected end of data.)

At that point, i was pretty sure what might’ve caused this – the MS Crypto API security update KB974571.

I removed the update, rebooted the machine, and OCS 2007 R2 was up and running again, without any issues.

I’ve already opened a case with Microsoft to get this sorted out.

La version pour Windows Mobile s'avère bcp plus compléte et riche en fonctionnalités, surtout à partir de la version 6.5 avec le "call via work" qui peut etre tres pratique pour économiser son forfait.

On y retrouve les fonctionnalités d'im et de gestion de presence, la gestion de ces contacts, de ces messages vocaux, la possibilité d'émettre des appels depuis ocs, l'application s'integre tout en transparence sur le bureau de l'utilisateur, joindre une conférence téléphonique...

J'ai eu l'occasion de tester un peu la partie déploiement de Como R2 sur des Nokia E51.

A priori rien de compliquer, encore faut-il savoir que la version de Como pour nokia ne se connecte pas par le Edge mais par le cwa. Avec cette information, la connexion se fait tout seul.

Les fonctions disponibles sont la messagerie instantanée et la gestion de présénce, il s'agit en fait d'une version améliorer du cwa dans un client java.

La documentation Microsoft précise que le client Messenger mac peut se connecter a distance sans vpn de manière sécurisé si présence d’un Edge bien entendu.

A l’image d’Entourage avec Outlook web Access, l’utilisateur sous linux, macintosh ou Windows pourra utiliser Communicator web Access depuis l’extérieur pour bénéficier des services Office Communication Server 2007 R2 (pas de vidéo en cwa).

Par contre, je reprécise qu’il n’existe pas de clients lourds live meeting 2007 pour macintosh à ce jour.