Support Announcement:
Released: December 2019 Quarterly Exchange Updates
Release Date: December 17, 2019
Summary
Today Microsoft is announcing the availability of quarterly servicing cumulative updates for Exchange Server 2016 and 2019. These updates include fixes for customer reported issues as well as all previously released security updates.
Setup Now Requires .NET Framework 4.8
As previously announced .NET 4.8 is now required and enforced by setup with the updates released today.
Calculator Updates
Cumulative Update 4 includes a significant update to the Exchange 2019 sizing calculator. After the initial re-work and optimization for Exchange 2019 previously delivered, we’ve updated some formulas based upon new Big Funnel performance data gathered from the O365 service and real-world customer experiences. Version 10.3 of the calculator includes improvements to calculations and default settings which allow for better and smoother utilization of disk resources. We’ve received feedback from customers that they’d like more information on constraints which impact system design, specifically disk resources. Included in this update, is an indication on the Input worksheet will provide information as to whether the design is constrained by IOPs throughput or disk capacity.
We’ve added additional explanatory messages when the calculator detects a setting conflict, made additional improvements in input performance and improved support for using manual/override configurations. The Volume Design sheet had a complete re-work to improve the presentation and accuracy of the information being displayed to support these changes. All-in-all, this version of the calculator provides the best possible experience to plan your Exchange 2019 deployment and replaces all previous releases.
Address Book Policy Changes
When organizations deploy Address Book Policies to users they can sometimes hit an issue when a locally logged in user without a mailbox tries to open a mailbox linked to another user account using Outlook. This conflict results in ABP’s being inconsistently applied. The updates released today contain a change detailed in KB4532747 which resolves this issue and ensures the ABP’s assigned to the mailbox being opened are always used.
Release Details
The KB articles that describe the fixes in each release and product downloads are available as follows:
• Exchange Server 2019 Cumulative Update 4 (KB4522149), VLSC Download
• Exchange Server 2016 Cumulative Update 15 (KB4522150), Download
Additional Information
Microsoft recommends all customers test the deployment of any update in their lab environment to determine the proper installation process for your production environment. For information on extending the schema and configuring Active Directory, please review the appropriate documentation. Also, to prevent installation issues you should ensure that the Windows PowerShell Script Execution Policy is set to “Unrestricted” on the server being upgraded or installed.
To verify the policy settings, run the Get-ExecutionPolicy cmdlet from PowerShell on the machine being upgraded. If the policies are NOT set to Unrestricted you should use the resolution steps in KB981474 to adjust the settings.
Reminder: Customers in hybrid deployments where Exchange is deployed on-premises and in the cloud, or who are using Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) with their on-premises Exchange deployment are required to deploy the currently supported cumulative update for the product version in use, e.g., 2013 Cumulative Update 23; 2016 Cumulative Update 15 or 14; 2019 Cumulative Update 4 or 3.
For the latest information on Exchange Server and product announcements please see What’s New in Exchange Server and Exchange Server Release Notes.
Note: Documentation may not be fully available at the time this post is published. Article Link
