Brian Reid – Microsoft 365 Subject Matter Expert

Brian Reid – Microsoft MVP and Microsoft Certified Master

  • Configuring Sync and Writeback Permissions in Active Directory for Azure Active Directory Sync

    [Last updated 9th November 2022 – note that Microsoft now include this functionality in their own product as written at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/hybrid/reference-connect-adsyncconfig#set-adsyncexchangehybridpermissions] [Last updated 11th November 2019 – added support for Exchange Server automapping support, which was announced during Microsoft Ignite 2019 and will be supported in the first half of calendar year 2020. This is…

  • Office 365 MDM (Mobile Device Management) From A Users Perspective

    The following list of steps and screenshots are taken during the enrolment process to add an iPhone and an Android phone to Office 365 once the free MDM solution that comes with Office 365 is enabled for the user. Step Details Image from iPhone Image from Android 1. Once your IT Administrator enables MDM for…

  • Unable To Send Exchange Quota Message

    In Exchange 2013 you can sometimes see the following event log error (MSExchange Store Driver Submission, ID 1012): The store driver failed to submit event <id> mailbox <guid> MDB <database guid> and couldn’t generate an NDR due to exception Microsoft.Exchange.MailboxTransport.StoreDriverCommon.InvalidSenderException   at Microsoft.Exchange.MailboxTransport.Shared.SubmissionItem.SubmissionItemUtils.CopySenderTo(SubmissionItemBase submissionItem, TransportMailItem message)   at Microsoft.Exchange.MailboxTransport.Submission.StoreDriverSubmission.MailItemSubmitter.GenerateNdrMailItem()   at Microsoft.Exchange.MailboxTransport.Submission.StoreDriverSubmission.MailItemSubmitter.<>c__DisplayClass1.<FailedSubmissionNdrWorker>b__0()   at Microsoft.Exchange.MailboxTransport.StoreDriverCommon.StorageExceptionHandler.RunUnderTableBasedExceptionHandler(IMessageConverter converter, StoreDriverDelegate workerFunction). And…

  • Advanced Threat Protection via PowerShell

    I discussed the newly released Advanced Threat Protection product in Office 365 on my blog, and in this article I want to outline the cmdlets that can be used to set this product up from Remote PowerShell to Office 365. To connect to Office 365 via PowerShell take a search on your favourite search engine…

  • Getting Started with Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection

    Announced a few months ago, Advanced Threat Protection became generally available on 1st June. I have been involved with trialling this product during the beta and so I thought I would note down a few thoughts on setting this up and what to expect now that it is publicly available. Advanced Threat Protection is an…

  • Using Office 365 PST Ingestion Service

    [Updated 10th Nov 2015 with tips on managing bad items in PST files]Its been in private preview for a while, and recently entered a free preview for any Office 365 subscriber to try. So I gave it a go and have the following tips and guidance. Preparing to upload PST files You can upload PST…

  • Managing Office 365 Groups With Remote PowerShell

    Announced during Microsoft Ignite 2015, there are now PowerShell administration cmdlets available for the administration of the Groups feature in Office 365. The cmdlets are all based around “UnifedGroups”, for example Get-UnifiedGroups. Create a Group Use New-UnifiedGroup to do this. An example would be New-UnifiedGroup -DisplayName “Sales” -Alias sales –EmailAddress sales@contoso.com The use of the…

  • How To Change Your Office 365 App Password

    If you are enabled for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) in Office 365 then you will need an App Password for some applications that do not support MFA. The user interface for creating a new App Password is well hidden in Office 365 (its not on the Password page for example). Post updated in 2016 to take…

  • Exchange OWA and Multi-Factor Authentication

    This article is now out of date Multi-factor authentication (MFA), that is the need to have a username, password and something else to pass authentication is possible with on-premises servers using a service from Windows Azure and the Multi-Factor Authentication Server (an on-premises piece of software). The Multi-Factor Authentication Server intercepts login request to OWA,…

  • Windows RRAS VPN and Multi Factor Authentication

    This blog post covers the steps to add Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) to Windows RRAS server. Once this is enabled, and you sign in with a user enabled for MFA in Azure Multi-Factor Authentication Server (an on-premises server) you are required to answer your phone before you can connect over the VPN. That is, you…

  • SSL and Exchange Server

    In October 2014 or thereabouts it became known that the SSL protocol (specifically SSL v3) was broken and decryption of the encrypted data was possible. This blog post sets out the steps to protect your Exchange Server organization regardless of whether you have one server or many, or whether or not you use a load…

  • The Case of the Disappearing Folders

    Here is a issue I have come across at one of my current clients – you create a folder in Outlook 2013 when in the “Mail” view (showing only mail folders – your typical default view) and the folder does not get created. For example, in the below picture the user is in the middle…

  • Group Policy Import To Fix Google Chrome v37 Issues With Exchange Server and Microsoft CRM

    A recent update to Google Chrome (37.0.2062.120) removed the ability to support modal dialog boxes. This are dialogs that require your attention and stop you going back to the previous page until you have completed the info required – these are very useful in workflow type scenarios. Google claim that as 0.004% of web sites…

  • Installing Office 365 ProPlus Click To Run via GPO Deployment

    This article is now out of data, as Office 2013 is not released any more. Please see the steps for doing this with Office 365 ProPlus can be found at http://c7solutions.com/2015/10/installing-office-2016-click-to-run-via-group-policy Office 365 ProPlus can be deployed via Group Policy, but there are a few things that you need to know and do first. These…

  • Exchange Online Free/Busy Issues with OAuth Authentication

    Update: 10 Dec 2014: It is reported that this issue is fixed in CU7 for Exchange Server 2013 OAuth authentication is a new server to server authentication model available in Exchange 2013 SP1 and later and Exchange Online (Office 365). With OAuth enabled and Exchange hybrid in place and where you have multiple endpoints of…

  • Speaking at TechEd Europe 2014

    I’m please to announce that Microsoft have asked me to speak on “Everything You Need To Know About SMTP Transport for Office 365” at TechEd Europe 2014 in Barcelona. Its going to be a busy few weeks as I go from there to the MVP Summit in Redmond, WA straight from that event. My session…

  • Office 365 ProPlus XML Config Files Are Case Sensitive

    The XML file used for the configuration of Office 365 ProPlus is case sensitive. In a client I have been working with the UpdatePath value in the install XML file was accidently specified using “Updatepath” and not “UpdatePath” (case sensitive). This resulted in the UpdateUrl in the registry (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\ClickToRun\Scenario\INSTALL\UpdateUrl) not being set correctly, and even…

  • Creating Mailboxes in Office 365 When Using DirSync

    This blog post describes the process to create a new user in Active Directory on-premises when email is held in Office 365 and DirSync is in use. With DirSync in use the editable copy of the user object is on-premises and most attributes cannot be modified in the cloud. Creating the User Open Active Directory…

  • Continuing Adventures in AD FS Claims Rules

    Updated 20th April 2017 There is an excellent article at http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2012/06/26/an-adfs-claims-rules-adventure.aspx which discusses the use of Claims Rules in AD FS to limit some of the functionality of Office 365 to specific network locations, such as being only allowed to use Outlook when on the company LAN or VPN or to selected groups of users.…

  • Intermittent Error 8004789A with AD FS and WAP 3.0 (Windows Server 2012 R2)

    This error appears when you attempt to authenticate with Office 365 using AD FS 3.0 – but only sometimes, and often it was working fine and then it starts! I’ve found this error is due to two things, though there are other reasons. The full list of issues is at http://blogs.technet.com/b/applicationproxyblog/archive/2014/05/28/understanding-and-fixing-proxy-trust-ctl-issues-with-ad-fs-2012-r2-and-web-application-proxy.aspx. I found that this…

  • Exchange Web Services (EWS) and 501 Error

    As is common with a lot that I write in this blog, it is based on noting down the answers to stuff I could not find online. For this issue, I did find something online by Michael Van “Hybrid”, but finding it was the challenge. So rather than detailing the issue and the reason (you…