Recently I decided to produce some videos about several simple steps on OCS, following some Microsoft Workshops I have been delivering.

This resulted in ten small videos, with some how to do steps over several OCS 2007 configurations. Feel free to contact me about any issue you might have :) - nuno.velho at actualtraining.pt

I will sort them the way task should be executed on a real installation and configuration scenario.

Deploying and Configuring Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007:

Two parts:
..........

Enabling Users and Installing Office Communicator 2007:

Two parts:
..........

Configuring and Using Conferencing in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007:

Using the Management and Troubleshooting Tools in Office Communications Server 2007:

Building Voice Capabilities into Your Office Communications Server 2007 Deployment:

Two parts:
..........

Configuring the Voice Capabilities of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007:

Soon it will be available here

Configuring and Using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging:

Soon it will be available here

First Post at 2008-10-22 19:19 Update with all new videos 

Microsoft rolled out a series of 6 videos showing the key OCS R2 features and the value those bring to customers.

Check out the videos at TechNet Edge.

Week #1

"Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and the new Attendant Console" | Presenter: Jamie Stark

"What’s New in Conferencing with Office Communications Server 2007 R2" | Presenter: Renee Lo

Week #2:

"What’s New in Office Communicator, Communicator Web Access, and Devices with Office Communications Server 2007 R2" | Presenters : Huat Chye Lim and Ashima Singhal

"Group Chat and Office Communications Server 2007 R2" | Presenters: Ashima Singhal and Bob Serr

Week #3:

"What’s New in Mobility and Anywhere Access with Office Communications Server 2007 R2" | Presenter : Avi Sagiv

"What’s New in Administration and Management with Office Communications Server 2007 R2" | Presenter: Anand Lakshminarayanan

CallManager 4.x for interoperability with Exchange UM is now officially supported.

 It will helps customers by not forcing an upgrade to CCM5+ and therefore locking the customer down to Cisco’s platform for a longer period of time. 

Additionally, Cisco Unity is now not the only large platform that will support CCM4 for a voice mail in the inbox experience.

More details at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc164342.aspx

This hotfix for Office Communicator - Update for Communicator 2007: October 24, 2008 will be required for those who will have OCS 2007 and OCS 2007 R2 integration.

 This update fixes the following issues:

• 958659 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958659/) When you use telephony mode=4, you can only manually set the URI information in Communicator 2007
• 957793 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957793/) A Communicator 2007 client is unusually slow at startup
• 956734 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956734/) The presence status of Communicator 2007 changes to "Away" for all Terminal Server users when one user locks the desktop on a Windows Server 2008-based computer

Microsoft officially annouces OCS R2, please read the details at http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-14OCSR2PR.mspx.

Take a look into the OCS Reskit and read about ABSConfig.exe.

Believe me, this tool gives us a hand on publishing AD contacts phone into OCS gal (one way, of course).

I promise a guide with screenshots, on how to do it 

Recently, working on integration with a gateway, I found that it could not recognize the + (E.164 format) sent by Mediation.
Also, the "From" headers for incoming calls from certain PBXs do not comply with RFC 3966.

This little "feature" make me having lots of problems to and from communications with OCS, with incorrect phone routing.

Well there is an August 2008, patch to address this issue, look here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952785/

 It should be installed on these roles:

• Standard Edition Server
• Enterprise Edition Server – Front End
• Proxy Server
• Director Server
• Edge Server
• Forwarding Proxy

In order to config Mediation Server to strip the +, you have to install the patch and it should exist file:

MediationServerSvc.exe.config

 located at

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007\Mediation Server

with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
                 <appSettings>
                                <add key="RemovePlusFromRequestURI" value="Yes" />
                 </appSettings>
</configuration>

Is also possible to strip the + and enable TLS for, by changing the file to:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
                 <appSettings>
                                <add key="RemovePlusFromRequestURI" value="Yes" />
                                <add key="GatewayTls" value="On" />
                                <add key="GatewayFqdn" value="gateway.domain.com" />
                 </appSettings>
</configuration>

This saved me a lot of work...

This error, has been bugging me for a long time.

In the past I managed to solve it by applying the instructions on this kb: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861

However I felt it was not "fully supported" for OCS. Well I was mistake, since recently I spotted this other article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb663688.aspx, but exactly for OCS!

 Well, I'm happy!

A new update for OCS Phone Edition (aka Tanjay) is available, since July 30th. Now version is 1.0.522.101.

Download it here.

This upgrade fixes a great list of issues see this KB-article:.

SQL Server 2008 RTM Release annouced today at http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/aug08/08-06SQLServer2008PR.mspx