Microsoft released several updates for Exchange Server this week. The RU8 for Exchange Server 2010 has a serious connection issue with Microsoft Outlook. Microsoft writes in The Exchange Team Blog:
“An issue has been identified in the Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 8. The update has been recalled and is no longer available on the download center pending a new RU8 release. Customers should not proceed with deployments of this update until the new RU8 version is made available. Customers who have already started deployment of RU8 should rollback this update.
The issue impacts the ability of Outlook to connect to Exchange, thus we are taking the action to recall the RU8 to resolve this problem. We will deliver a revised RU8 package as soon as the issue can be isolated, corrected, and validated. We will publish further updates to this blog post regarding RU8.
This issue only impacts the Exchange Server 2010 SP3 RU8 update, the other updates remain valid and customers can continue with deployment of these packages.”
Our products ExSBR and PeopleSync are not affected. But as your users will get problems in Outlook, we strongly recommend to wait for the updated RU8. If you have rolled out RU8 already, it might be even a good idea to roll back to the previous release. As Windows Update has installed RU8 on many systems automatically, you might want to check your system status.
Update 2014-12-11:
Microsoft responded very quickly with a fixed new release of the RU8 package:
“Exchange Server 2010 SP3 Update Rollup 8 has been re-released to the Microsoft download center resolving a regression discovered in the initial release. The update RU8 package corrects the issue which impacted users connecting to Exchange from Outlook. The issue was insulated to the MAPI RPC layer and was able to be isolated to quickly deliver the updated RU8 package. The updated RU8 package is version number 14.03.0224.002 if you need to confirm you have the updated package. The updates for Exchange Server 2013 and 2007 were not impacted by this regression and have not been updated.”
The new version of Exchange 2010 SP3 RU8 should be safe to install now. Nevertheless it is always recommended to test any update in a lab before rollout in production. If you need ExSBR in your non-production lab, you are allowed to run the software with up to the same number of servers in the lab as in production. This scenario is covered by your ExSBR license.
