Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 is released

Finally the Exchange 2007 Service Pack 2 has left the building and are downloadable by the public.

Of course it contains all bug fixes included in previous rollup’s for Exchange 2007 but it also contains some new features such as a plug-in for Windows Server Backup to natively do Exchange backup without buying any 3:rd party software. This one has been a long standing request that now is fulfilled.

Some other noticeable features included in SP2
* Enhanced Auditing
* Public Folder Quota
* Configure Diagnostic logging via GUI/Exchange Management Console
* Named properties bloat will stop since SP2 don't propagate x-headers to MAPI properties anymore. This is the same behavior as in Exchange 2010. See earlier posting about Named properties bloat part 1 and Named properties bloat part 2
* Dynamic AD schema update

Bu before even installing SP2, you must first extend Active Directory schema. Prepare your AD team for this!!

And if you’re planning on upgrading to Exchange 2010, SP2 for Exchange 2007 is a prerequisite and must be installed on every Exchange 2007 server before Exchange 2010 can be introduced into an Exchange 2007 organization. Read my other article about transition to Exchange 2010. Thinking about Exchange 2010? Understand the Prerequisites

Some more information about Exchange 2007 SP2
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/05/11/451281.aspx

Download link for Exchange server 2007 SP2. Be to careful to read the “Release notes” and “what’s new in Exchange 2007 SP2” documents on the download page before installing.

Exchange 2010 is starting to look good

Now that the RC (Release Candidate) is out in public Exchange 2010 Release Candidate info page I can only say that it’s starting to look really good. Features that before where only talked about now is in this build and also work pretty good.

From now on to RTM version, it is mostly bug checking and performance tuning.

For you that seek for the 32bit version of Exchange 2010, the answer is, there will not be any 32bit version of any kind, no demo version, no admin tools no nothing.

Sign up for download here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd185495.aspx

Here is the Exchange team info msexchangeteam blog