Viewing the Administrator Audit Log in Exchange 2013 and Exchange Online

Instead of exporting the administrator audit log, which can take up to 24 hours to receive in an e-mail, in Exchange 2013 CU3 (and above) and Exchange Online you can now view administrator audit log entries in the EAC. To do this, go to Compliance Management -> Auditing and click View the administrator audit log.

 

Up to 1000 entries will be displayed on multiple pages. To narrow the search, you can specify a date range.

Office 365 with Internet Explorer 8

The bottom line is: Office 365 is not designed to work with Internet Explorer [IE] 8, and the user experience in Outlook Web Access [OWA] may be compromised, especially when used on Windows XP and/or with low memory machines. Office 365 will not offer code fixes to resolve problems encountered when using IE8, and new Office 365 experiences will likely not work at all.

Office 365 is no longer ending all support for IE8 on 8 April 2014, but both the user and support experience will be limited. After 8 April 2014, IE8 users:

  • Will not be deliberately prevented from connecting to the service;

  • Will not receive code fixes for bugs related to IE8. Security fixes will be released as needed;

  • May only use OWA Light (this does not apply to Office 365 Dedicated);

  • Should expect that the quality of other Office 365 user experiences will diminish over time.

While Office 365 Customer Support and Service will attempt to assist customers with IE8-related problems, the only solution to a particular problem may be to upgrade to a modern browser.

The recommended browser is, at this stage, IE9 with at least MS12-037: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer: June 12, 2012 installed. However, IE10 or later is strongly recommended. This is because, similarly to IE8, Office 365 does not offer code fixes to resolve problems encountered when using IE9, the quality of the user experience will likely diminish over time, and that some new Office 365 experiences might not work at all.

As such, to reiterate, IE10 or later is strongly recommended.

Public Folder permissions lost after Public Folder mailboxes are moved

In an Exchange 2013 organization running CU2 build 15.00.0712.022, if you move a Public Folder (PF) mailbox the permissions structure on some PFs might be lost in the following situations:

1. If you move a secondary PF mailbox using New-MoveRequest, the permissions on any PF not stored in the secondary PF mailbox would be lost from the secondary PF mailbox and replaced by the default Access Control List (ACL). The original ACLs can be restored via a full synchronization event by running the following command:

Update-PublicFolderMailbox -InvokeSynchronizer  -FullSync

2. If you move the primary PF mailbox using New-MoveRequest, the permissions on any PF not stored in that PF mailbox are lost and replaced by the default ACL which gives Author permissions to Default authenticated users.

To work around this issue, install Exchange 2013 CU2 build 15.00.712.024 or later.

Exchange 2013 in coexistence scenario might trigger all clients to download OAB

Installing the first Exchange 2013 server in an organization that already has Exchange 2007 or 2010 might trigger all clients in the organization to download a new copy of the OAB, which can result in network saturation and server performance issues.

This occurs because Exchange 2013 creates a new default OAB in the organization that supersedes the Exchange 2007/2010 OAB. Mailboxes that do not have a specific OAB assigned to them, or that are located on a mailbox database that does not have a specific OAB assigned, will download the new default OAB.

To prevent this from happening, assign an OAB to every mailbox or database before installing the first Exchange 2013 server.

Exchange Admin Center Cmdlet Logging

The Exchange 2010 Management Center included PowerShell cmdlet logging functionality, something that was removed in Exchange 2013. The good news is that this functionality has returned as part of the Exchange Admin Center in Exchange 2013 SP1 and soon to Exchange Online as well.

 

When you sign in with Admin credentials you will find the entry point for the PowerShell log view in the drop down list besides the help question mark under “Show Command Logging” (this feature is not available for non-admins):

 

The cmdlet list will display up to 500 entries and includes features such as search, export, start/stop logging, and more.