When we like to set up the Exchange Server (on-premises) account in Outlook 2021, we have a problem, because Outlook keeps asking us for username and password, although we choose the option Remember my credentials. In some cases we can’t even set up an account, even if we choose the option Let me set up my account manually under Advanced options.

 

 

Analysis:

 

When we open the Windows Credentials under Control Panel – User Accounts – Credential Manager, we can find a generic credential, outlook.office365.com. It is our Exchange Server (on-premises) account. This is obviously wrong. Our Exchange Server account has nothing to do with Office365 and outlook.office365.com. That is why, outlook keeps asking us for a username and password. It tries to connect to Office365. Our account does not exist in Office365. Outlook setup bypasses Autodiscover and it tries to connect to Office365.

 

 

Solution:

 

We have to change settings of Outlook, that it will no longer bypasses Exchange Server Autodiscover.

Solution is very simple. If we look at the registry with Registry Editor (regedit.exe), we can find Outlook Autodiscover settings at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Autodiscover

 

We have to add DWORD (32 bit) Value with a name ExcludeExplicitO365Endpoint and Value 1.

 

 

That’s it. Exchange Server account in Outlook 2021 will work without a problem.

 

I would recommend, that we enter the registry entry, before we set up our Exchange Server account.

Solution is unfortunately connected to the specific user. If many users use the same computer, we have to add a registry entry for each of them.

 

If we wish, we can set up a real Office365 account in Outlook with the same registry entry. Everything works!

 

Enjoy!

 

Few days ago, I noticed that Exchange Server VM integration services were old and tried to update Hyper-V (Host is Windows Server 2012 R2) Integration Services of Exchange Server VM. After restart, Exchange Server VM becomes unresponsive on below screen: Getting Windows Ready. Don’t turn off your computer.

 

 

I tried to restart VM few times, but our Exchange Server VM was unusable.

 

Solution:

 

Probably the best solution is to enter Boot Menu and run VM in Safe Mode.
For this we have to boot VM from Windows Server 2012 R2 ISO and instead of Install option, we select Repair your computer.
After selecting Troubleshoot, we enter Command Prompt.

We enable Boot Menu on our Windows Server 2012 R2 OS of Exchange Server VM by entering commands:
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} timeout 15

 

After VM reboot, we can enter Boot Menu by pressing F8 and select Safe Mode option.

 

 

In Safe Mode Exchange Server VM starts without problems.

Now, we have to disable all Exchange Services on VM (by changing Startup Type of services to Manual). After this we can reboot VM in normal way and machine will start.
Then we can update Integration Services on VM. After all is updated successfully, we enable Exchange Services again (by changing Startup Type of services to Automatic) and reboot VM.

After this Exchange Server is fully functional with up to date integration services.

 

I hope that Microsoft will solve this problem in the future. Exchange Server VM becomes unresponsive is a big headache.

Sometimes we want to reject Exchange mail sender according to a certain criteria. Suppose you want to block all e-mails addressed to a particular domain. This is easily done in Exchange admin center. Create a new Exchange Server Mail flow rule, as shown below:

After selecting the sender and recipient domain, you have three options:

”Reject the message with the explanation”, where you can enter a short message why message was rejected

‘’Delete the message without notifying anyone’’

‘’Reject the message with the enhanced status code’’, where you must enter so called NDR (Non-delivery reports) code.

NDRs are system messages that report the delivery status of a message to the sender. NDRs are generated when a message cannot be delivered. If the computer can detect the reason for the failed delivery, it maps the reason onto a status code, and a corresponding error message is printed. For NDRs, most numeric error codes are reported in the form of “5.X.X” and are described as permanent failures.

More about NDRs: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232118(EXCHG.80).aspx

In Exchange on-premises server you can use PowerShell cmdlet

Get-SystemMessage to view all NDRs in your organization, or use parameter

Get-SystemMessage –Original to display just embeded ones.

Any system message can be rewritten, if you are not satisfied with the original.

Examples:

Get-SystemMessage En\Internal\5.7.1 Shows the original message for the 5.7.1 error code for english language

Set-SystemMessage En\Internal\5.7.1 -Text “Write here your custom message” Overwrites original message with custom message.

 

Setting Exchange Server Mail flow rule is easy job.