Tag Archive for 'ocs 2007 r2'

The OCS 2007 R2 Communicator hyperlink mystery

Published on Dec 8, 2009 in Microsoft, Solution Writeups and Tech. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I don’t think this problem/solution is much different in older versions.

Problem: when you send a link from Communicator client to another, the link isn’t clickable, has a _ (underbar) in front of it, or both.  Results may be different on different computers. It’ll look like this

_http://www.google.com

Solution:  Two things are happening here that are not related.  The first is the OCS Server (and Edge Server) have the URL Filter enabled, which are adding the _ underbar to all links.  Also called “Intelligent IM Filter”.  You need to tone that filter down or disable all together to your liking.  If users are coming in through an Edge Server, they will follow the Filter settings of the Edge Server they are using, which seams to supersede the Front End Server (my guess is the most restrictive wins).  So be sure to set it on both servers separately.  Results were instant in new IM’s.

The other issue is the lack of a clickable hyperlink.  If you disable the URL Filters above, the underbar goes away but links are still not blue and underlined.  To fix this you need to apply a GPO or set a local registry setting to allow Communicator to make hyperlinks clickable:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator\
new DWORD EnableURL=1

After that exit and restart Communicator.

In both of these cases they are secure by default, which is great; but even years after this features release over several versions their use and configuration are still a mystery to most starting out.

OCS 2007 R2 + Microsoft Update breaking boxes

Published on May 27, 2009 in Microsoft and Tech. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Update 6/22/09: KB972041 is out with a hotfix that resolves this issue.  I guess you install it before, or in lieu of KB967831.

OK so this blog post explains it well but it has gotten worse since that post a month ago.  Here’s an update and shorter version of what’s going on:

There’s a optional monitoring feature of OCS that many small shops likely won’t install. That’s fine, cus it’s optional right?  Well turns out it’s now required (actually just part of it, the MSMQ service) for a hotfix to successfully install.  That hotfix is now on Microsoft Update and is likely already on your box, WSUS, SCCM, SMS, etc: (KB967831).  The patch is not smart enough to either:

  1. Do pre-check’s and prevent install unless you have MSMQ
  2. Roll back it’s changes to leave you in a running state
  3. Or ignore the fact that you don’t have something optional installed in the first place and just keep patching

So it leaves you a nice broke server to repair in the morning.  Front-End and Edge Services service stopped, with cryptic misleading Event Log messages.  So multiple boxes are down.  Crazy thing is this happens in a “default install” scenario as if no one full tested the patch or something.  I would give a pass for a hotfix, but a MU patch… fail!

Quick fix: install MSMQ (even though you don’t need it unless you setup RtcQmaAgent for OCS Monitoring) via this script (win2003 servers), then re-run the update either via MU or downloading and running it manually.