A few hours ago, Microsoft (finally) released Cumulative Update 1 (CU1) for Exchange 2013 RTM. Many of us have been waiting for this update as it was the last prerequisite standing in the way of upgrading to Exchange 2013 when you already had Exchange running prior.
I’m pretty sure that over the course of the next few weeks, we will be seeing lots of interesting new information coming out. For now, we’ll have to settle with Microsoft’s promise to publish the release notes + updated documentation anytime soon. As Bharat Suneja already mentioned, it’s scheduled to be release on the 3rd of April:
Where to get it?
First things, first. The newer bits are available from the following link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38176
Yes, you’re not dreaming. It’s 1.3GB. How is that possible? Simple. Cumulative Updates are quite different from Update Rollups. They are entire new builds of the product that don’t require a prior version to be installed. Hence the size. For more information on this new “update strategy”, have a look here.
What’s new?
The CU is “huge”. And I don’t mean that literally (although it’s literally huge as well). Next to a lot of fixes (that should’ve made it in RTM to be honest), will definitely make your life running Exchange 2013 a lot easier.
Next to that, there are some things that have changed and have been added. To name a few:
- Changes in some High-Availability features (http://blogs.technet.com/b/scottschnoll/archive/2013/04/02/high-availability-changes-in-exchange-server-2013-cumulative-update-1.aspx)
- There’s a schema and other AD updates in CU1. Run Setup.exe /PrepareSchema, /PrepareAD and PrepareDomain (or /PrepareAllDomains) before installing.
- If you are upgrading from a previous version of Exchange, mind the default OAB. Exchange 2013 will create a new OAB and if you didn’t configure your mailbox database to point to a specific OAB, all your clients might end up downloading the new OAB… Could cause some issues if you’ve got a lot of clients or clients connecting of a link with limited bandwidth. Check this article for more info!
- There’s a limited support for Public Folders in OWA now. Basically, OWA will allow access to “favorite” Public Folders. However, still no access to the entire tree…
- You can now configure Groups to manager Groups again. In RTM only a user could be configured to be “manager” of e.g. a Distribution Group.
- As the EHLO-blog already mentioned a while back, the Address Book Policy Routing Agent has been added.
- Mailbox sizes are reported more accurately (not really a CU1 feature). Why should you care? 1. It’s more accurate, 2. mailbox sizes are likely to grow when moving to Exchange 2013 > keep an eye on your configured quota’s!
- Some overall HA improvements
- http://www.expta.com/2013/04/the-last-missing-piece-exchange-2013.html
- http://www.expta.com/2013/04/exchange-2013-rtm-cu1-stops-transport.html
- http://windowsitpro.com/blog/exchange-2013-cu1-software-rtm-could-have-been
- http://eightwone.com/2013/04/02/exchange-2013-cu1/
- http://blogs.technet.com/b/scottschnoll/archive/2013/04/02/high-availability-changes-in-exchange-server-2013-cumulative-update-1.aspx
- http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150489(v=exchg.150).aspx (Official Announcement)
How can I deploy Exchange 2013 RTM CU1?
Deploying Exchange 2013 RTM CU1 doesn’t require you to have Exchange 2013 RTM installed. In fact, the download (about 1.3GB in size) contains a full build which you can use to run the install from.
How to deploy Exchange 2013 didn’t change over RTM. Preferably using the command line:
Setup.exe /mode:install /roles:<roles> /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms
If you *are* upgrading, than you should run the following command:
Setup.exe /mode:upgrade
Note as a CU is a build-to-build upgrade, changes you made to web.config files will be overwritten. This means that if you had integrated Lync with Exchange prior to the upgrade, you’ll have to make the changes to the web.config file again!
What are other saying?
As always, many peers from the Exchange community have been busy with providing as much as information that is already available. Make sure to check them out!
You must log in to post a comment.