Hcw.exe free download

Agent installation and the configuration of a hybrid environment through HCW is supported on either a domain-joined computer that's configured as an agent server or on an Exchange Server or server that has the mailbox role. Separate agents are needed for each tenant that's configured by using Modern Hybrid.

Admins can choose any mode for an Exchange Hybrid tenant regardless of how other tenants are configured. Make sure to use separate computers for an HCW configuration when you set up Hybrid for the tenants.

The Hybrid Domains window lists the accepted domains that are available to add to an online tenant. If more than one domain is available, select the check box for each domain that you want to configure for Autodiscover.

Use the PowerShell cmdlet to create remote users by using the RemoteRoutingAddress attribute, or set the RemoteRoutingAddress attribute after you create the remote mailbox. For example, see the following cmdlet:. Don't enable the remote archive property for on-premises users in ECP. Instead, run the following PowerShell cmdlet:. Set-AuthServer -domain "". See this page information about how to set the Azure AD topology that has a tenant.

To make this configuration, see this Exchange Team Blog article. OCT is used to break mailflow. HCW is a standalone and stateless application that collects configuration information. It applies the necessary changes to make the topology into the desired state. This telemetry tells us what we need to focus on and allows us to see any failure trends, but in the end we were limited to the information gathered from folks that ran the HCW troubleshooter.

Because we want to be as helpful as possible, we now by default upload the HCW logs to the service when you run the new wizard. Gathering this data will allow us to serve you better by limiting the amount of time it takes for someone in support to find out more about your environment and it allows us to see any trending issues and failure points that we need to address. Even with the limited amount of logs we have collected from the troubleshooter, we have been able to identify the following issues and are addressing them in the new HCW.

I think you will see why the log collection is so important to the hybrid team. Usually the TXT proof string get messed up in one of two ways: Incorrect string entered: when creating the DNS record to provide domain ownership we often see that the incorrect value was provided. This is in large part due to the way the HCW copied the value. Domain name lockouts: The point of providing this TXT string to the external DNS is so the service can validate that you own the domain and federation certificate.

After a few failed attempts to validate a domain we lock you out from federating that domain for a few hours. The purpose of this lockout is to prevent a denial of service attack. Often this issue occurs because someone put the wrong value in DNS see the first bullet , someone created the record and did not wait for replication of the record, or someone created the record in internal not external DNS. Solution: To resolve this we created a new external endpoint in the service that will perform the DNS lookup for the TXT record and only try to federate the domain if the record is correct or if that new service endpoint cannot be found.

The logic for this is as follows: First we try to hit the new external service endpoint and see if the TXT record is resolvable externally and is correct in DNS. If so, we move forward with federating the domain. If the record is either wrong or not resolvable, we inform you that you need to verify the record and wait for replication. If the new external TXT validation service is not reachable, we will warn you that we could not verify the TXT record but allow you to continue anyway.

The HCW looks to ensure this certificate is installed on every server that you designated to be part of the Send and Receive Connector Configuration, as shown on the pages in Figure 4. Figure 4: Send and Receive Connector In order for the certificate to properly display you need to ensure that the following has been completed on all of the servers designated in the wizard pages shown in figure 4: The Certificate must be a third party trusted certificate. The proper names must be on the certificate such as mail.

The SMTP service must be assigned to the certificate on each of the sending and receiving servers. The certificates must have a private key. These requirements are nothing new, but if you have a large environment, getting all of this correct on a large number of servers can be a tough task. If even one server was missing any of the requirements, we would fail to show you the certificate. In previous versions of the HCW you were left with a blank screen see figure 5 which offered no direction or solution.

Figure 5: Blank certificate The Microsoft Office Exchange Hybrid Configuration Wizard experience will not remove the certificate requirements, but it will help you solve the issue.

The HCW will now show you a list of certificates that meet the requirements, and it will show you the servers that do not have a proper certificate installed see figure 6. This will allow you to either remove those servers from the HCW receive and send connector pages, or you can properly install the certificate on those servers. Figure 6: Better certificate error A more efficient Hybrid experience One of the things we tried to do with the HCW is ensure that we are performing the various configurations in the most efficient way possible this is our on-going green effort.

In the HCW logs collected from the troubleshooter, we could see that this cmdlet was often taking an extremely long time to complete. What we do now, is enable the Migration endpoint on the servers in your environment so that you can start moving mailboxes when the HCW is complete without having to enable the endpoint.

In a larger often geographically dispersed environment this cmdlet could take over eight hours to run. In many cases you would end up getting the following error: ERROR: Updating hybrid configuration failed with error 'Subtask Configure execution failed: Configuring organization relationship settings. This may indicate invalid parameters in your Hybrid Configuration settings. Unable to access the configuration system on the remote server. This changes things so the HCW reads the MRS settings using a local directory call instead of waiting for a response from every server in the environment.

This change along with a few others in this area, makes the process take around 15 minutes instead of 8 hours your deployment times will vary in these large environments. This is just one example of the type of cleanups we did in the HCW to improve the reliability and speed of the configuration tasks.

The output of this cmdlet is needed in order to create the Organization Relationships so you can do things like free busy sharing. When looking at the issue there are certain things the wizard cannot directly address. However, a good portion of you have had things configured correctly and still we failed to complete the Get-FederationInformation cmdlet. One of the things this cmdlet does is use DNS settings from the server you are connected to in order to resolve the Autodiscover endpoint and retrieve the federation information.

Many customers do not have a DNS record created for Autodiscover internally since there is often no need for this. The internal Outlook client will use the Service Connection Point to find the Autodiscover endpoint so there is no need for this from an outlook standpoint, however the Get-FederationInformation cmdlet does not use the Service Connection Point.

To remain in a supported hybrid configuration, you need to make sure you're running the latest available released CU for your Exchange version. Cumulative updates are released on a quarterly cadence.

If you're unable to upgrade to the latest available CU, the previous CU is also supported. For role-specific requirements and prerequisites, see Prerequisites for hybrid deployment. You can configure a hybrid deployment with Exchange in your organization.

However, to do so you need to deploy at least one server running Exchange that meets the requirements above. The Office Hybrid Configuration wizard has been updated to support Exchange This new wizard comes with the following advantages: An updated user experience that simplifies the hybrid configuration process The error handling experience allows for simple remediation of issues, meaning you can actually read and understand the error Fixes for HCW can happen quickly and are no longer tied to the on-premises product release cycle Inefficient code that caused the HCW to take hours to run has been completely reworked and now you should be in and out in minutes Many more enhancements explained in our previous blog post.

The following is a short video that walks you through the new Office Hybrid Configuration wizard experience for Exchange In order to run the new Office Hybrid Configuration wizard, you need to change one behavior.

To do this follow these steps:. On the Left side of the Exchange Admin Center select the Hybrid node, then select the Configure button to download the wizard. The new Office Hybrid Configuration wizard, which was released a few months back for Exchange and , has allowed us to really understand the Hybrid Configuration experience. We can see if there was a failure or slow experience, what the issue was, and we collect and act on any feedback that is provided. All of this telemetry allows us on the engineering side to prioritize and address the issues that need to be addressed quickly.

Since we have included Exchange support in this wizard, now all hybrid customers will see these benefits. To find out more about the benefits of running the new HCW you can review our previous blog were we introduced the Office Hybrid Configuration wizard. All you need is Exchange service pack 3, we do not check for the existence of any rollups. However, newer rollups will have plenty of code and security fixes, so while not required for HCW to complete I would make sure you try to stay current.

To see the list of the latest updates for each version of Exchange go here. Yes, the new wizard will run even if the old wizard completed or partially completed in your environment. If there is no reason for you to update your old configuration you do not need to run the wizard now, but the next time you have an update to make you should use this new experience. No, this is the same wizard.