Published at December 18, 2013 · 1 min read
Just a quick heads up, if you are running Lync for Mac 14.0.7 and you unplug a USB Audio Device (i.e. Plantronics headset, etc), Lync will crash. Found this at a client and had a few co-workers confirm. Hopefully Microsoft will get that fixed quickly but I’m guessing we will have to wait until 14.0.8 in three months. UPDATE: It has been confirmed as a bug and should be fixed when 14....
#Lync, DHCP Option 43 and a lesson learned
Published at December 13, 2013 · 2 min read
I’ve deployed a lot of Lync Phone Edition devices. Thing is, I’ve done so mainly in smaller environments where we used either a Standard Edition Front-end server or an Enterprise “pool” that consisted of a single server. Why is this important you ask? Well, let’s go to one of the best articles on DHCP Option 43: http://blog.schertz.name/2012/05/understanding-dhcp-option-43/ In Jeff’s article, he has this paragraph in the middle of it: If multiple Lync servers are deployed in the environment then the _SipServer _parameter may need to be defined as a Lync Pool FQDN (in the case of an Enterprise Edition deployment)....
Published at December 12, 2013 · 2 min read
Lately, I have found myself in situations where I don’t have full domain admin rights while working on Lync. This isn’t a bad thing but one area that I consistently run into issues with is the Lync Management Shell. If you are on a Lync Front-end and you don’t have Administrator rights, the local Lync Management Shell doesn’t actually do Role Based Access Control (RBAC). Therefore, I’ll try to execute a command (say, set-csuser, grant-csdialplan, etc) and get a permission denied....
#Lync 2013 and Display Photo from Website
Published at December 3, 2013 · 1 min read
This was a feature that was removed in the Lync 2013 client that many people had used in Lync 2010. Well, with the November 2013 Update, it’s back! One thing though, you have to enable it via policy (source: http://masteringlync.com/2013/11/11/lync-client-cu3-november-update-show-a-picture-from-a-website/): $PolicyEntry=New-CsClientPolicyEntry -Name EnablePresencePhotoOptions -Value true $currentClientPolicy=Get-CsClientPolicy -Identity Global $currentClientPolicy.PolicyEntry.Add($PolicyEntry) Set-CsClientPolicy -Instance $currentClientPolicy Before you run this, here is what you will see: After you run the code snippet: I know many people have been clamoring for this since the release of Lync 2013....
Published at December 3, 2013 · 1 min read
I had the opportunity to be a technical reviewer for Hyper-V Replica Essentials by Vangel Krtevski (published by Packt Publishing). If you haven’t worked with Hyper-V Replica yet, this book is a great place to start and covers what it is, how to set it up and how to use it. The book gives you everything you need in one place to be successful when using Hyper-V Replica. You can get the book from Packt here: http://bit....
Published at November 27, 2013 · 1 min read
Ran into an issue at a client where Mac clients couldn’t download the GAL. Upon investigation, it turns out that all of the affected machines were running Mavericks. Flipping the client policy to WebSearchOnly allowed the clients to search the GAL again. I have been able to reproduce the issue with the help of some co-workers and determined that if affects Lync 2013 and Lync 2010 users. Hopefully this will be fixed in a future update....
August/September COUCUG Meeting Content
Published at November 11, 2013 · 1 min read
This has been posted for a bit but I forgot to blog it. If you are interested in SIP Tracing or Lync as a PBX, you’ll want to go grab these slide decks. Mike Stacy did an awesome job explaining SIP messages and I did the Lync as a PBX discussion. You can download them directly here: https://skydrive.live.com/?mkt=en-US#cid=5C11935A4B9961BF&id=5C11935A4B9961BF%21107 Or you can go to www.coucug.org and access all of the past presentations there....
Change User Account for #Lync Monitoring Reports
Published at November 6, 2013 · 1 min read
My previous employer has posted a blog post that I wrote for them awhile back. It was written about how to change the user or the password for the Lync Monitoring Server reports. You can check it out here: http://pei.com/2013/11/change-user-account-for-lync-archivemonitoring-reports/...
DHCP Option 002 (Time-offset) for #Lync and #Polycom Phones
Published at November 1, 2013 · 2 min read
*** Update 11/27/2014 - It was asked in the comments if this applies to the Lync Phone Edition devices (LPE). LPE is created/maintained by Microsoft but various companies manufacture the devices, including Polycom. The Polycom LPE’s are the CX series phones. This article does not apply to the LPE devices. It only applies to the Polycom phones that run Polycom’s own software such as the VVX line of phones....
Polycom VVX 5.0.1 update via #Lync Management Console
Published at October 23, 2013 · 2 min read
Happened to see that the 5.0.1 update for the Polycom VVX phones hit there website today and wanted to test the new way to deliver updates to the devices. You can go here for the update: http://support.polycom.com/PolycomService/support/us/support/voice/business_media_phones/vvx500.html Download the CAB files: Unzip the files and you will find that they even included a PowerShell script to import the update. Run the import script and you should see a whole lot of devices show up in Device Updates:...
Denver Area #COUCUG Meeting on Sept 26th - #Lync as a PBX
Published at September 18, 2013 · 1 min read
Come join us as we discuss Lync as a PBX and how to read SIP messages with Snooper. The meeting is being held at the Polycom offices in Westminster (120th and I25). Get more details and RSVP at www.coucug.org....
Published at August 13, 2013 · 1 min read
The next meeting will be held on August 29th from 4-6pm at the Microsoft offices in the Denver Tech Center. We are going to talk about the voice portion of the Lync solution. We’ll hit on topics such as SIP and Lync as a PBX replacement. Microsoft Offices 7595 Technology Way Ste 400 Denver, CO You can RSVP at: http://www.meetup.com/Colorado-Unified-Communicatons-User-Group/events/128810922/ In addition, you can have an impact on the future of the user group by filling out a quick survey: http://www....
Review - Getting Started with Microsoft Lync 2013
Published at August 8, 2013 · 3 min read
*** DISCLAIMER - I was approached by Packt Publishing to review this book. I was given access to the book for free. All opinions are mine. Like a few other bloggers, I was asked to read through “Getting Started with Microsoft Lync Server” by Fabrizio Volpe. I had never read a Packt Publishing book before so I may have had poor understanding of how the book was constructed. It seems Packt Publishing books tend to be shorter and a bit more to the point than a traditional book, so be aware, this is not a massive tome like other computer books out there....
Lync, CenturyLink, AudioCodes and a Diversion Header
Published at July 26, 2013 · 5 min read
While working on a project, I ran into an issue with SimRing and Call Forwarding. If a user set their Lync account to either SimRing or Call Forward to their mobile and another internal user called them via Lync, the call would forward just fine but if an external party called, the call would ring the Lync end-point (if set to SimRing) or just go straight to voice mail (Call forward)....
Using SoundeXchange to convert MP3 to WAV for #Lync and #MSExchange
Published at May 7, 2013 · 2 min read
When working with Lync and Exchange I regularly find myself needing to convert MP3 files to WAV files for the specific need of UM. Typically, this involves finding the right bit rate, etc. After finding a command line tool (SoundeXchange) to do this, I naturally wanted it even easier so I created a function in PowerShell to do just that. In order to run this script, you do need a few pre-reqs....
Cross-post: How to Change #Lync License from Evaluation to Licensed
Published at March 8, 2013 · 1 min read
If you install Lync via the evaluation bits, you might run into this error and need to change your version over to licensed. http://pei.com/2013/03/how-to-change-lync-license-from-evaluation-to-licensed/...
#Lync Server 2013 CU1 Database update error
Published at March 1, 2013 · 1 min read
Being that I love being on the bleeding edge, the first night that CU1 was out, I went to install it. The update package installed fine and I rebooted the server. Then when I went to run the database updates, I got the following error: Install-CsDatabase : Command execution failed: Cannot find any suitable disks for database files. You must manually specify database paths. At line:1 char:1 + Install-CsDatabase -ConfiguredDatabases -SqlServerFqdn server....
Lync Server 2013 and the #Lync 2010 Client (Cross-post)
Published at February 25, 2013 · 1 min read
The latest published article I wrote for my employer: http://pei.com/2013/02/lync-server-2013-and-the-lync-2010-client-2/ It is important to note that you should upgrade your Lync 2010 clients to the September 2012 update prior to moving the users over to the 2013 server. Thanks!...
Published at February 15, 2013 · 1 min read
Exchange 2010 SP3 is here. Woo-hoo! Oh wait, there’s some gotcha’s. What do you need to know? First, it doesn’t give you the ability to migrate from 2010 to 2013, yet. It does support co-existence with Exchange 2013 CU1 (Cumulative Update). You can test migrations with RTM in a lab setting but this is unsupported in production. Second, once you move a mailbox database to an Exchange 2010 server with SP3 installed, you can no longer move it back to a pre-SP3 server....
#AudioCodes Mediant 800 SBA and #Lync 2013
Published at February 15, 2013 · 2 min read
A week or so ago, I was in the middle of deploying an AudioCodes Mediant 800 at a remote site. The device had the Lync SBA installed as well. We were trying to get the SBA to work with our Lync 2013 deployment. This is just to document the issues we ran into. ***NOTE: The gateway must be updated to version 6.6 prior to upgrading the SBA. First, an SBA that is based on Lync 2010 cannot be an SBA for a Lync 2013 Front-end....
Colorado UC User Group 1/31 #lync #msexchange
Published at January 29, 2013 · 1 min read
Come join us for the Colorado UC User Group this Thursday (1⁄31) from 4-6pm at the Microsoft offices in the Denver Tech Center. Find out more and RSVP at www.coucug.org....
Lync 2013: What's new in Persistent Chat (Cross-post)
Published at January 22, 2013 · 1 min read
One of the reasons I don’t post very often here anymore is because I write blog posts for my employer (PEI). Here is a Lync 2013 post I did on Persistent Chat: Lync 2013: What’s New in Persistent Chat I’m trying to post up new articles here but figure I can point folks back to some good articles over there as well. Thanks!...
Published at January 16, 2013 · 1 min read
This isn’t a major change, merely just a “if you aren’t paying attention it might just slide past you” type of thing. In Lync 2013, the option for Refer Support has changed from a Check-box to a Drop-down menu. Here is what it looks like in Lync Server 2010: And here is what it looks like in Lync Server 2013: Not really such a big deal but if you are just comparing check boxes between the two system, it can easily be over-looked....