Tin Cups and String: The Convergent Microsoft UC Blog

Nothing overly special about this command and it’s been out there in several places.  The problem is I can never find it when I need it.  Why would you need it?  Let’s say you made a change to the address normalization file and the next morning that one really important person wanted to make a phone call but the normalization file had not yet updated.  But why, you logged in and out as the user and it still didn’t update.  MOC by default picks a random time between 0 to 60 minutes for initial delay of downloading the address book.  I’m sure this is to prevent the server from being overrun with requests in the morning.  Bad thing is for a phone system, this can be problematic at times.  So the following forces an updated galcontacts.db file.

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator
   (you may have to created the Communicator key if it’s not there)
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. In the New Value #1 dialog box, type GalDownloadInitialDelay, and then press the ENTER key.
5. Right-click the GalDownloadInitialDelay registry entry, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
   • If you set the value as 0, the address book download will take effect immediately after sign-in.
   • If you do not set this registry value, the default value is random value between 0 and 60 minutes. Therefore, the delay is random a random value between 0 and 60 minutes.
   • Exit Registry Editor.

(This is a reprint of something I would once long ago and have sitting in my OneNote.  If I find the URL I will give credit to where I found it.  Might have even been TechNet.)

Now if you go and delete the galcontacts.db and .db.idx file from c:\users\<username>\appdata\microsoft\communicator\sip_<username>@domain.com\ and log out and in of communicator this will force the address book to download again.  Kinda handy in testing scenarios and when you simply don’t want to wait.  (If you are an XP user your path is c:\documents and settings\<username>\Application Data\Local Settings\Microsoft\Communicator\sip_<username>@domain.com\galcontacts.db)

<yep - found it here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972403 - the technet article is about how to prevent too much bandwidth from being used>

As Convergent Solutions has embarked upon leveraging OCS as a fully-featured, enterprise telephony solution we’ve tailored our offerings to meet the needs of clients both large and small. With tighter company purse strings, we’ve looked at many vendors to enhance the Enterprise Voice experience on the desktop that would bring a solid feature set at an affordable price. We looked to Snom Technologies to partially fill that role for end user devices; and what started out as straight forward deployments, turned into many support calls, firmware revisions and a solution that is still not fully functioning. In the spirit of full disclosure, my experience is mainly limited to the 300 model phone, which may or may not reflect across the entire product line. However, we wanted to make sure that we posted our experiences to help others in similar situations.

The first major hurdle

At the time of order (May ’09) all Snom 300s shipped without the 8.2.5 “OCS Firmware” loaded, which meant every phone had to be touched. If you do end up with “old” firmware, keep in mind that you will likely have to dedicate a large block of time to process all the upgrades and verify they completed successfully. Out of the box the phones rely on the internet for software updates, which for one or two phones isn’t an issue, but if you have a large install base you will need to setup a provisioning server. Another alternative is to manually upgrade each and every phone manually via TFTP; a laborious path that we were forced to take. The easiest, incurring a nominal upfront charge, is to have a snom distributor load the most recent OCS compatible firmware before shipping. This may at first seem unnecessary because a firmware upgrade for any device should be easy, right? Not so. I suggest that you have the devices upgraded before being sent. As a side note, as with firmware, the internet is used for NTP updates. The phones default to midnight after a reboot and if they cannot reach the internet for time OCS will not authenticate; use an internal NTP server.

The second major hurdle

Once upgraded and deployed we noticed that presence was not working properly. The phone’s default settings configuration is more suited for a traditional SIP deployment than an OCS one. The phones do not cooperate with OCS at all for presence. They will command the user’s presence regardless of the MOC client’s current status: if the phone sits idle for 15 minutes, presence is Idle; if the handset is not picked up in an hour, your presence is reported as away. The only way to “reset” your presence automatically is to make a call, or at least pickup the handset. To resolve this: turn off Machine State reporting and set the idle/away timers to zero. Be sure to keep Report Phone State on, as that will report to OCS when a user is “On a Call”.

The last straw

The largest and to date unresolved issue happens once the phones were on the desks of users for a couple of days. I began to get reports of phones losing registration, displaying NR and calls could not be placed or received. Initially the problem seemed to be an issue with AD passwords expiring and users not reconfiguring their 300’s options (the errors in the logs were “401 Unauthorized”). That was the cause of some, but many phones would randomly “fall off the grid” for no reason. The issue was intermittent and very disruptive for the users; the only way to clear the problem was to disconnect/reconnect the phone’s network connection (reboot) and wait a few minutes for it to re-register. Snom support suggested disabling Challenge Response, which did not resolve the issue, and after lengthy troubleshooting admitted that their TLS implementation was the cause. Note: while troubleshooting and testing this issue I found that many registration options (SIP Session Timer, Proposed Expiry, Subscription Expiry) were not honored. At one point support introduced us to an untested firmware version that caused phones to misdial completely.

As soon as the firmware was loaded with the test firmware certain numbers, normally long distance calls, would normalize to internal numbers. These outbound calls would end up ringing their own fax line, while others would dial the Director of IT—which certainly provided high visibility of the problem. MOC client calls were not affected at all. Once the firmware was removed from the phones they dialed normally, though the firmware had to be rolled back manually via TFTP.

Support?

Pile these issues together and the user experience deteriorates very quickly, OCS loses its “cool” factor and becomes a hurdle for a business to overcome. Snom support did not understand that these issues were deal breakers for our clients. They were very quick to suggest that the OCS Edition of their firmware was Beta, when in fact it has been released as a “stable” load since June. I had issues with Snom’s support desk: their ticketing system did not like my email address and any emails sent through it were never delivered. Even worse, it’s been over two months that our client’s NR case has been open—with no resolution in sight. It has been frustrating sitting between a valued client and a vendor, so much so that I will not suggest Snom phones as an OCS end-point until it’s proven that both the technology and the company’s support work.

Quality can be an issue when you’re trying to record custom greetings to use with Exchange 2007sp1’s limitations of 8KHz, 16-bit, Mono sound files.  Sound Recorder is often used to handle the recordings, but it doesn’t do it well.  While researching a way to handle this better I stumbled upon a freeware application called Audacity that, after a few simple configuration changes had acceptable quality for our clients.

Audacity can be found here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Once downloaded (currently a 2.1MB download) and installed set the following:

• Open Preferences under the Edit menu

• On the first page (Audio I/O) Mono should be set by default

• Click the Quality tab and set Default Sample Rate to 8000 and the Default Sample Format to 16-bit:

• Click the next tab, File Formats and set the Uncompressed Export Format to WAV (Microsoft 16bit PCM):

• Click OK and you can begin recording, you will see your settings on the Audio Track you’ve recorded:

• When you’re happy with the recording go to File\Export as WAV and save your work.  You can now upload the file to Unified Messaging and assign the greeting to your Auto Attendant.

More tweaking can be done to tune the audio track, though I had luck with just these changes.  Of course you’ll always want to record with a decent mic in a quiet room.

I recently implemented static routing on a Quintum Tenor DX via called number in a downstream gateway deployment. It’s not difficult, but there are a couple checkboxes you have to tick to get it working right. It’s a quick little trick that may come in handy at some point. (Note: I used the OCS 2007 wizard on the Tenor for the default configuration and went on from there.)

· Log into the Tenor Config Manager and click on the Advanced Explore tab

· Under VOIP Configuration select SIP Signaling Group-1 under SIP Signaling Groups

o Clear the Primary SIP server if there is one.

o Check the Direct Gateway Routing box.

· Next expand VOIP Routing and select Signaling

o Add a description if desired and fill in the IP of the SIP host

o Click Add and enter in the extension sent from the upstream provider

· Click the Advanced Tab and select Gatekeeper.

At this point you’ve made your “exception” list by pointing specified numbers at a specific IP. You can then create a “catch all” and forward all other numbers to a separate IP, or create other specific route lists.

· Select VOIP Routing then right click and Create New, name it however you’d like (it is suggested NOT to rename Static Route-1).

o Follow the above steps, but you can create wildcards with “*”.

· Be sure to select Gatekeeper on the Advanced Tab for this Route as well.

For those of you that have had to apply the numerous hotfixes to OCS 2007 R2 servers I’m sure you’ve asked the following questions:

1. What version am I running now?

2. Does this hotfix apply to this server?

Thankfully Microsoft has (inconspicuously) released an application that will answer both of those questions for you. Using the latest OCS hotfix link http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=b3b02475-150c-41fa-844a-c10a517040f4 you’ll see a new download:

Download the 53MB executable, run it as Administrator, and you’ll get the answers you need. An example of the output (mediation server) is below:

Click on “Install Updates” and “voila!” - a happily patched server.

This is a welcome addition to the OCS family and will streamline the update process. Thank you Microsoft.

Happy patching!

- Luke

Microsoft has released another round of OCS 2007 R2 hotfixes… many welcome bugfixes included!

Microsoft Ofiice Communicator 2007 R2 Client Update can be found here. Updates include:

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 latest patch release here. Updates include:

975892 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975892/ ) Error message when you send a meeting request for a conference call that is hosted in Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Enterprise Edition

975894 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975894/ ) Event ID 44031 for trusted domains is logged frequently in Office Communications Server 2007 R2

This cumulative update also includes the following previously released updates:

968955 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968955/ ) A computer that is running Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Audio/Video Conferencing Edge Server crashes when it tries to process a Relay NAT message

972714 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972714/ ) Two users unexpectedly join the same conference when they try to join separate conferences in Office Communications Server 2007 R2

972709 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972709/ ) Error message when a SIP message request is sent from a federated partner in Communications Server 2007 R2: "500: Server Internal Error"

972700 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972700/ ) When Office Communications Server 2007 R2 routes a voice mail call to an Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging server, the corresponding invitation message does not indicate that the request originates from Office Communications Server

971844 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971844/ ) No calling party name appears in Communicator 2007 R2 when a Private Branch Exchange telephone user calls a Communications Server 2007 R2 user

971845 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971845/ ) The delegate permissions feature in Office Communicator 2007 R2 is unavailable to non-unified communications users

968879 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968879/ ) You cannot forward a call between federated users in Communications Server 2007 R2

968938 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968938/ ) The Communications Server 2007 R2 - A/V Edge Authentication Server does not recognize a token request if the locale for RTCProxyService is not en-US/409

969010 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969010/ ) Communications Server 2007 R2 performance counters are missing in Performance Monitor

968910 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968910/ ) Communications Server 2007 does not detect the changes when Unified Messaging dial plans or UM servers are added

This update package fixes the following issues that were not previously documented in a Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

• The license expiration date for Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 Evaluation Edition was calculated incorrectly. This causes OCS 2007 R2 Evaluation Edition to expire on July 13, 2009. This update fixes the license expiration date calculation for the OCS 2007 R2 Evaluation Edition. By downloading this update, the expiration date will be calculated correctly, based on the installation date of the server.
• Earlier updates of OCS 2007 R2 required Microsoft Message Queuing to be installed on OCS 2007 R2 Enterprise Edition Distributed – Front End or the OCS 2007 R2 Standard Edition. This update removes that requirement.
• The RTC Media Relay driver in OCS Edge Server has also been updated this update.

UPDATE:

Communicator Phone Edition hotfixes can be downloaded here. Hotfix includes fixes for:

When you connect your IP phone through the Internet, the telephone call logs are not populated with received or dialed calls.

Happy patching!

-Luke

I was recently tasked with demoing the Agent Communications Panel, a XAML browser application that integrates OCS 2007 R2 with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. After working with Microsoft for a few weeks we concluded that the ACP is only supported in non-IFD (Internet Facing Deployment) topologies (as is now described in the release notes).

With that in mind our options were limited at the demo site – build a VPN or find another remote access solution. Given that the whole point of Unified Communications is ubiquitous access I felt the VPN solution wasn’t ideal. The RTMs of Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 bring a new option: 2-way audio via terminal services.

I set up a Windows 2008 R2 server, Windows 7 client, and configured my RDP connection as below. After loading the Communicator 2007 R2 client with most recent patches (.37) and attempting to make a PSTN call from Communicator running on the terminal server… it worked. The upload audio was mildly choppy but download/playback was clear.

I suspect that improvements in QOS and the ability to separate audio from standard RDP traffic (the audio travels over port 3389 like all RDP traffic) will improve the upstream audio performance and make enterprise deployments feasible. For now it’s a great proof of concept.

Happy RDP-ing!

-Luke

One of the few features that wasn’t available with OCS 2007 R2 RTM was the Web Scheduler application which allowed scheduling of LiveMeetings and conference calls without the full LiveMeeting client. Microsoft just released the OCS 2007 R2 Web Scheduler application… anyone with a web browser (ahem, Mac users) can schedule meetings now!

For those of you installing it be aware that it stops the WMI service (which will stop your OCS FE services too).

Screenshots of the Web Scheduler:

And after clicking send I receive the meeting invite:

Download link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=6d6848ec-e7d6-41f4-82d9-5bed3526fcbd

Happy scheduling!

-Luke

I’ve noticed a somewhat disturbing trend in corporate IT over the last few years, which I’ve taken to calling “freeze syndrome”.  All too many organizations large and small seem to be freezing what I consider to be critical/core parts of their IT infrastructure, putting off upgrades for long periods of time.  Are you a frozen organization?  Ask yourself a few questions like these:

• Still running Windows XP with no plans for Windows 7? 
• Still on Office 2000/2003 with no plans to upgrade?
• Still on Exchange 2000/2003? 
• Have you spun up SharePoint (even the free Team sites) in any form?

Please, don’t give me all the justifications for staying in place as comments.  I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and I’ve heard them all.  I get it, there are always reasons NOT to upgrade.  Most come in some form of the following “Big 4″:

1. Application compatibility - the old “it doesn’t work with X” excuse. 
2. We tried it and our users didn’t like it.
3. We don’t have time to train, and it is too different from our current systems.
4. Upgrading is too expensive.

While I can respect and appreciate the validity of these points, continuing to use outdated tools has a cost as well.  In the next year, Microsoft will ship many key products updates, with the user flagship change clearly the release of Office 2010.  While convergent is mostly a UC-focused company, I have been completely amazed by the innovation and feature improvements in the Office 2010 Technical Preview.  Please, take a few minutes to glance over the site http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/ and review the feature videos.  All the Office products have new and exciting Internet-facing and user-friendly (yes, it is ALL about the end users, people!) features.  They make it easy for teams to collaborate from wherever they are, which is something Convergent, as a growing and largely virtual national organization, can really leverage.

My personal favorite is the new Groove, now called SharePoint workspace 2010, which allows you to have all your SharePoint content sync’d constantly to your laptop.  A close second is the easy web-based sharing of PowerPoint slideshows.  I haven’t even mentioned the Outlook 2010 Conversation view showing an entire thread as one item, or how appointments now have a mini view of your calendar embedded in them so you can see what is happening around the invite time, or how in OneNote you can…ah well, you get the point.

But in order to take advantage of all this stuff, you have to get your infrastructure ready, and get your users and application partners to stay current and embrace change.  So, ramp up.  Think about how these new MS Products can add value to your organization.  Get excited.  Get your teams excited.  Get your users excited.  Start pushing your 3rd-party vendors NOW to get and stay current with MS product releases.  And be ready to go live with Office 2010 when it ships. 

 - Doug

One of the most useful features (for me) of Communicator under OCS 2007 R2 is the ability to do a joint desktop sharing session/conference call. Recently, my ability to do this with one of our key office staff just stopped working. We’d be in a voice call, add in desktop sharing, and after about 5-10 seconds of moving screens around, he would drop audio. Other audio participants were NOT impacted. We checked firewall settings, all sorts of stuff (he is running the Windows 7 beta, but so are tons of others at our Office, without issue) with no result. I could give you tons more things that didn’t help, but I’ll just say this: Check the video driver!

After reverting to the basic Windows driver, all was well, but we’re now without a bunch of video features we’d like to have on hios machine, and are digging around trying to get a “good” driver. Apparently not all video drivers work so great in Win7 as yet with MOC, and I’d bet we’ll still see some of this at release. Hope this helps someone else out there!

- Doug

A couple of event items to look for: An Info entry in the App event log for Window Manager Event ID 9010, which will immediately follow a variable event in the same log generated from Communicator.