Rules for Aliases in Office 365

I found out this week that it is not possible to create a rule for email sent to an alias created in Office 365.  If you wanted a rule that would file emails into a folder based on which email address it was sent to then you can't simply use an alias to do this.

What you need to do instead is:
1. Create a distribution list named as the alias (e.g. accounts@organization.biz) with the intended recipient in it
2. Make the distribution list accessible from outside the organization
3. Create the rule based on the distribution list

I hope that helps some of you.

How do you share a mailbox with another user in Office-365?

In a typical organisation with a Microsoft Exchange server you would select your mailbox in Outlook, right-click > Properties > Security, then give the user the appropriate permissions.  However in Office-365 this approach does not work, instead you have to delve into the inner working with PowerShell.

1. Click Start > All Programs > Accessories > Windows PowerShell > Windows PowerShell.
2. Run the following command:
   
   
   

   $LiveCred = Get-Credential
3. In the Windows PowerShell Credential Request window that opens, type the credentials of an account in your cloud-based organization. When you are finished, click OK.
4. Run the following command:
   
   
   

   $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $LiveCred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
   Note   The AllowRedirection parameter enables cloud-based organizations in datacenters all over the world to connect Windows PowerShell to the cloud-based service by using the same URL.
5. Run the following command:
   
   
   

   Import-PSSession $Session
   A progress indicator appears that shows the importing of commands used in the cloud-based service into the client-side session of your local computer. When this process is complete, you can run these commands.
6. To view the available mailboxes, run the following command:
   
   
   

   Get-Mailbox
7. Run the following command:
   
   
   

   Add-MailboxPermission -Identity <mailboxToShare> -User <userToAccess> -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType All
   Note  <mailboxToShare> and <userToAccess> can both be replaced by the respective user's email addresses.


8. To disconnect PowerShell run the following command:
   Remove-PSSession $Session

To now add the mailbox to Outlook.  From Outlook do the following:

1. On the Tools menu, click E-Mail Accounts.
2. Click View or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.
3. In the list, click the Exchange account type, and then click Change.
4. Click More Settings, and then click the Advanced tab.
5. Click Add, and then type the mailbox name of the person whose mailbox you want to add to your user profile.

To have The PC Support Group help you with any of your business or personal computer needs please call us on +44 (0) 845 2233116 or visit our website http://www.pcsupportgroup.com/

Computer Slow Opening Word Documents

I recently had a customer call me complaining of a slow computer.  After a few questions I discovered that it was only slow when right-clicking on files, or when opening MS Office documents (Word, Excel etc) from Windows explorer.  This particular user was part of a small network using Windows XP Professional and connected to a small business server.

Thanks to some tips from online forums I was able to get to the bottom of this.  I'd already tried:

• Reinstalling Office
• Registry cleaner (ccleaner)
• Log on as a different user
• Chkdsk
• Performance monitor
• File type associations
• Disable DDE

Nothing was having any effect, using Perfmon.exe I could see that the computer was quite simply doing nothing for about 10 seconds when trying to open a word file then all of a sudden it would kick into life.

So what was happening?

This post pointed me to the answer http://howtotroubleshoot.blogspot.com/2008/05/double-clicked-documents-slow-to-open.html

On this occasion running netstat -ano in the command shell showed me that the desktop was connected to only the server and the router until I tried to open a Word document when suddenly it sent a SYN packet to another local IP - this user's old computer.

There were no mapped drives to this computer and searching the registry for the IP address gave no results.  However when I searched the registry for the old computer's name then it came up under several keys relating to Firefox.

I uninstalled firefox but the problem didn't go away.  I did another search of the registry and this entry still came up under a firefox key so I simply deleted it.  Hey presto! Problem solved.

Don't ask me why but this is how I solved it.

For further information, or to have this problem solved for you remotely by our team of technicians, please contact The PC Support Group on +44 (0) 845 2233116, or visit our website http://www.pcsupportgroup.com/