Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Release Notes

Welcome to the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Release Notes. Refer to this file for information regarding known issues about Setup, management, Office Communications Server 2007 R2 server roles, and unified communications applications.

About This Document

Setup

Response Group Service

Management

Group Chat

Enterprise Voice

Conferencing

Communicator Web Access

Audio Conferencing

Copyright

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

About this Document

This document contains important information that you should know before you deploy and use Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. For detailed information about Office Communications Server 2007 R2, refer to the documentation included with your installation media.

Back to Top

Setup

Failed Forest Prep Rolls Back Office Communication Server 2007 Forest Prep

Issue: If Office Communications Server 2007 R2 forest preparation fails in a forest previously prepared for Office Communications Server 2007, rollback may remove security groups and access control lists (ACLs) that are required for Office Communications Server 2007 components to run.

Resolution:

Running Office Communications Server 2007 forest preparation again will restore any missing security groups and ACLs.

Combined DVD Image/OCS.MSI Has Splash Screen to Abstract SetupSE and SetupEE

Issue:

The combined MSI now references setupEE and setupSE instead of setup, and deployEE and deploySE instead of deploy.

Resolution: A splash screen is located at \eval_screen (eval_screen.htm) to abstract the selections for the IT administrator if the splash screen is started instead of running the .exe files directly.

Installing Response Group Manually By Using the MSI Instead of Using Office Communications Server Setup Is Not Supported

Issue: If you install Response Group manually by using the MSI, you must manually install the Speech platform and language pack. If these components are not installed, the Response Group Service does not start and the user does not receive an error message indicating that the Response Group Service isn't started. In addition, you must manually change a WMI registry setting.

If you install Reponse Group by using Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Setup, these steps are performed automatically.

Resolution: Install Response Group by using Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Setup.

Pool Creation Fails

Issue:

You can run the Create Pool wizard or command line option on a Front End Server if the SQL client tools are available on that server. When you do so on a Front End Server with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 client tools installed and you then attempt to connect to a SQL Server 2005 back-end database, the dbsetup script terminates abnormally, and the pool creation fails.

One of the following errors is displayed:

  • An error occurred during the pool backend detection: Pool backend discovery failed.
    SQL Server 2005 Backwards Compatibility Pack must be installed on this machine for connecting to SQL Server 2005 SP1 or later.
  • An error occurred during the pool backend detection: Pool backend discovery failed. [hr=0xC3EC79FA]
    This error can happen because of network or credential problems. Ensure that the network is operating normally and that the user account you are using has sufficient rights to create a pool.

Resolution:

Choose one of the following:       

  1. Run the Create Pool task on the SQL Server back-end database.        
  2. Install the SQL Server 2005 Backward compatibility toolset on the Front End Server.

A New A-record Needs to be Created for Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to Update Office Communicator Phone Edition 2007 R2 Devices

Issue: When Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 are deployed together, Office Communicator Phone Edition 2007 R2 devices may receive image updates from Office Communications Server 2007, and therefore be downgraded.

Resolution: Create an A-record, ucupdates-r2.sip URI domain, on Office Communications Server 2007 R2. This enables Office Communicator Phone Edition 2007 R2 devices to be updated with the latest images.

Back to Top

Response Group Service

Response Group Service Must Be Restarted When Office Communications Server Certificate Is Updated

Issue: The Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Response Group Service does not pick up a new or updated certificate assignment at runtime. The service will stop functioning when performing operations requiring the new certificate.

Resolution: Restart the Response Group Service.

Certificate Limitation With Response Group Service

Issue: If the certificate assigned to the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 or to the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Web Components Server contains a SAN list, the pool FQDN must be the last entry.

Resolution:

Move the pool FQDN to the last position of the SAN list.

Response Group Service Must Be Restarted on All Front End Servers in a Pool When a New Front End Server Is Added to That Pool

Issue:

The Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Response Group Service does not update its list of trusted hosts at run time. Connections from the new Front End Server are refused by the old Front End Servers and calls are disconnected.

Resolution:

Restart the Response Group Service on all existing Front End Servers.

Incorrect Response Group Tab Is Shown When Logged in Office Communicator User Differs From Logged in Computer User

Issue:

When users sign into Office Communicator 2007 or Office Communicator 2007 R2 as a different user than they used to sign in to the desktop computer, they are unable to view the correct Response Group tab. 

Resolution:

This issue may occur because the credentials for the logged in computer user are used instead of the specified Office Communicator credentials. Internet Explorer might be configured to operate this way by default.

To resolve this issue, perform the following steps in Internet Explorer:

  1. Click Tools, Internet Options, and then Security.
  2. Select the proper zone visibility for the Response Group Tab (for example, Local intranet or Trusted sites).
  3. Under the Scripting node, verify that Active scripting is set to Enable.
  4. Under the User Authentication node, verify that Logon is set to Prompt for user name and password.

This change requires users logged into Office Communicator to re-enter their user credentials upon successful signin, but ensures that the correct Response Group tab is displayed.

If the Response Group Service Is Restarted While Agents Are Signed IntoTheir Response Group, the Agents Must Manually Sign-Out and Sign-In of Their Groups to Get Called Again

Issue: When the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Response Group Service is restarted, it does not read the sign-in state of the agents from the database. The agents still have the visual indication that they are signed-in, but the service will not send them calls.

Resolution: Agents must manually sign out of and sign in to their groups.

Back to Top

Management

QoE Location Settings Can Only be Accessed From the MMC When Administration Tools Are Installed on the Monitoring Server

Issue: The QoE Location settings (the Locations tab in the Monitoring Server properties) cannot be administered remotely from another computer.     

 

Resolution:

When you want to modify MMC settings on the Locations tab of the Monitoring Server properties page, install the Administration Tools on the Monitoring Server and launch the MMC from the Monitoring Server.

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Requires Some Windows Updates

Issue: Windows updates are required for Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

Resolution:

Install the available updates. See the following Microsoft knowledge base articles for more information for installing updates:  

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131392 (This update applies to Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista.)

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131394 (This update applies to Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Windows Server 2008.)

Updates Are Required for Interoperability During Migration to and Coexistence With Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Issue:

The following updates are required for interoperability with Office Communications Server 2007 R2:

For these Office Communications Server 2007 components:

For these Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 components:

Resolution: Apply the updates before deploying Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Pools Display Incorrectly in the Office Communications Server 2007 QoE Monitoring Server MMC Snap-in

Issue:

After installing Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition pool, the Office Communications Server 2007 QoE Monitoring Server MMC snap-in incorrectly shows the new pool as being a QoE Monitoring Server. If you try to connect through the snap-in, an error message is display.

Resolution: You can safely ignore any pools that show up as a QoE Monitoring Server in the Office Communications Server 2007 QoE Monitoring Server MMC snap-in.

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Front End Servers Should Run with a Windows Update for Tcpip.sys

Issue:

Occasionally an error occurs that causes a computer running Front End Server to restart. This is a random problem that might occur under circumstances such as a very heavy network load or low virtual memory.

Resolution:

Download and install the Windows update for knowledge base article KB950224 found at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=137295.

Service Account Activation Fails

Issue: When you try to activate a newly created service account, activation fails. Activation of the server fails if the account has not finished Active Directory Domain Services replication.

Resolution: Create the service accounts that you want to use before you run Setup. Allow enough time for replication of the Active Directory Domain Services to complete. If you created the service account during the activation process, retry activation after you have allowed time for Active Directory replication to complete.

Using Non-ASCII Characters

Issue:

Setup will fail if the destination folder name includes non-ASCII characters (including UNICODE, double-byte character set (DBCS), UTF-8, and UTF-16). In addition, Setup may succeed but the server will not start if non-ASCII characters are contained in the following:

Resolution:

Use only ASCII characters in the destination folder name, computer name, domain name, user name, user SIP URI, and service account names.

Changing the FQDN of a Server

Issue:

Changing the FQDN of a server that is part of an Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition pool deployment is not supported. There are various dependencies in the deployment, including servers not functioning correctly and homed users not being able to connect.

Resolution:

Deactivate and uninstall the Office Communications Servers, change the FQDN of these servers as desired, and then install and activate the Office Communications Servers with the new name.

Back to Top

Group Chat

Certificate Needs to Be Manually Assigned to IIS for Group Chat Server

Issue: File upload/download does not work in Group Chat.

Resolution:

With this release, Group Chat Web service defaults to SSL. The following configuration is required for SSL:

1.    On the Group Chat Server, click Start, then Run, and then inetmgr.

2.    Right-click Default Web Site, and click the Directory Security tab.

3.    Click Server Certificate, and follow the wizard to select the same certificate used by Group Chat Server.

Group Chat Web Service URL May Need To Be Updated After One or More Group Chat Servers Are Removed From Pool

Issue:

All Group Chat Servers in a pool use the same Group Chat Web Service URL for file transfer. If the Group Chat Server hosting the active Web Service is removed from the pool, a valid URL needs to be manually re-assigned to the remaining servers.

 

Resolution:

After the Group Chat Server is removed, go to another server�s server configuration tool, and perform the following steps:

  1. Click File, select Configure Server Settings, and then click the File Repository tab.
  2. Under URL used by clients for file transfer to/from the Web Service, make sure the FQDN field is filled with a valid Group Chat Server FQDN (for example, https://<FQDN of a valid Group Chat Server>/MGCWebService/MGCWebService.asmx).
  3. Click OK and then restart all Group Chat Servers in the pool to cause this change to take effect.

Back to Top

Enterprise Voice

Outside Voice Control Does Not Detect Pools Created After Startup

Issue:

Outside Voice Control accepts only connections from known pools that are discovered at service startup.  Any pools created after starting Outside Voice Control are unable to connect.

 

This problem may cause calls initiated by Communicator Mobile to fail while incoming calls function properly.

Resolution:

Restart Outside Voice Control to trigger the application to query all known pools and allow new servers to connect.

A/V Edge Service Firewall Port Range Simplification has Limitations

Issue: In Office Communications 2007 R2, the Edge Server that is running the A/V Edge service supports closing the port range on the external firewall, but with some limitations.

Resolution:

The following limitations apply:

Incoming Calls From a Non RFC 3262 Compliant PSTN Gateway To The Mediation Server Fail

Issue: Some public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateways do not correctly support Provisional Response ACKnowledgement (PRACK) as specified in RFC 3262.  If these PSTN gateways send a SIP Invite to an Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Mediation Server with a "Supported: 100rel" header, early media interactions with the Mediation Server might result in the failure of all incoming calls to the Mediation Server.

Resolution: Disable the use of PRACK by the PSTN gateway if the gateway has such a configuration option.  When PRACK is disabled, the gateway will not send an incoming invite to the Mediation Server with the "Supported: 100rel" option and the Mediation Server will not attempt to negotiate early media for the call (that is, effectively reverting to Office Communications Server 2007 behavior).  A side impact of changing this configuration option is that the gateway will not send reliable 18x messages to the Mediation Server for outgoing calls from the gateway to the Mediation Server.

Back to Top

Conferencing

Distorted Audio Transmitted by Servers with Multiple Processors, Multiple Cores, or Hyper-Threading Technology

Issue: Audio is distorted and can be unintelligible when it is transmitted by an A/V Conferencing Server that is running on a computer with multiple processors, multiple cores, or hyper-threading technology.

Resolution: Install the Windows update described in the knowledge base (KB) article 896256: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=137296.

* Key Supported as Alternative to # Key to Terminate Input for Dial-in Conferencing

Issue:

Users who try to join a dial-in conference by dialing a Conferencing Attendant conference access phone number hear an announcement that instructs users to press the # key on the telephone keypad to terminate input of the conference ID or conference passcode.

Resolution: Users can also press the * key to terminate input when joining a dial-in conference.

Back to Top

Communicator Web Access

Desktop Sharing for Communicator Web Access Users Does Not Work When Joined to Another Company's Conference

Issue:

If a user uses Communicator Web Access to join a conference hosted at a company where the user does not have an account, that user cannot share the desktop in that conference.  If the user's company is federated with the company hosting the conference, that user cannot view desktop sharing.

Resolution:

A future update is planned to address federated and external desktop sharing.  Note that Office Communicator 2007 R2 users can use desktop sharing with other Office Communicator federated users if a media relay is deployed at both federated companies.  In addition, Communicator Web Access and Office Communicator users who host conferences within their company can share and view desktops with federated companies' Office Communicator users.

Communicator Web Access Does Not Show Caller ID Information in Roster

Issue:

The Communicator Web Access client does not show the caller ID information in the conversation roster when a participant in a conference is dialed in from a regular phone (for example, from a cell phone or home phone) through the new dial-in feature introduced in Office Communications Server 2007 R2. The dialed-in contact appears in the Communicator Web Access roster as "Unidentified participant."  

Resolution:

A Communicator Web Access update is planned to add the phone information to the roster. The Leader/Presente can see the caller ID information in the Office Communicator roster.

Communicator Web Access Activation Wizard May Fail

Issue:

When attempting to activate a Communicator Web Access server, you may receive the following error message:

Setup has not detected Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in the Domain

Resolution:

Verify that you have completed all necessary prerequisites listed in the Deployment Wizard and run the wizard again.

Using Internet Explorer 6.0 with SP1 on a Computer Running Windows 2000 to Sign In to Communicator Web Access Can Cause the Browser to Stop Unexpectedly

Issue: Signing in to 2007 R2 release of Communicator Web Access by using Internet Explorer 6.0 with Service Pack 1 on a computer that is running Windows 2000 can cause the browser to stop unexpectedly. This issue occurs because Communicator Web Access uses the AlphaImageLoader filter to scale images. Refer to the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article for more details:  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=137298.

Resolution: Apply the Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 update available at  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=137297.

Stopping the Virtual Server in Communicator Web Access Manager and Performing an iisreset at the Command Line Causes IIS MMC to Be Out of Synch

Issue: Sometimes the Internet Information Services (IIS) MMC and the Communicator Web Access administrative snap-in get out of synch. One way this happens is if you stop the virtual server in the Communicator Web Access administrative snap-in, and perform an iisreset at the command line. In this case, the virtual server still shows a stopped status in the Communicator Web Access administrative snap-in and the Start option in the virtual server context menu in the Communicator Web Access administrative snap-in is disabled.

Resolution:

The workaround for this issue is as follows:

  1. Close the IIS MMC and the Communicator Web Access administrative snap-in.
  2. Open the Services MMC.
  3. Right-click the World Wide Web Publishing Service, and then click Restart.
  4. Close the Services MMC and reopen the Communicator Web Access administrative snap-in, right-click the virtual server, and then click Start.

This procedure synchronizes the IIS MMC and the Communicator Web Access administrative snap-in.

Firefox Users May Experience Automatic Sign Outs from Communicator Web Access

Issue:

A user who signs into Communicator Web Access using Firefox may be signed out automatically after a few minutes.

Resolution:

The root cause of this issue is that Firefox is configured as an "auto-detect proxy" and is trying to connect to the server. To resolve the issue, update the Firefox connection to "direct connect to server" or "Manual proxy configuration" to cause the browser to directly connect to Communicator Web Access or use a fixed proxy.

Communicator Web Access Does Not Support Hosting of Desktop Sharing on 64-bit Versions of Internet Explorer

Issue:

The Communicator Web Access plug-in is not supported on 64-bit versions of Internet Explorer.  Users are not be able to share their desktops from a 64-bit version of Internet Explorer.

Resolution:

Use the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 6.

Back to Top

Audio Conferencing

System Updates Needed on Computers Running Office Communications Server 2007 When Coexisting With Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Issue:

Some features of Audio Conferencing and voice calls may not work as expected in a topology where Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 coexist.

Resolution:

Install the system updates described in http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=137299 on all computers running Office Communications Server 2007.

Back to Top

Copyright

Information in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, is subject to change without notice. Unless otherwise noted, the companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted in examples herein are fictitious. No association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred. Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft, Active Directory, Internet Explorer, MSN, Outlook, SQL Server , Windows, Windows Live, and Windows Vista are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Back to Top