Exchange – A new major version of the Exchange Hybrid configuration Wizard is now available

As you know by now, you can setup Exchange in hybrid configuration to integrate your Exchange on-premises infrastructure with Exchange Online; this is done using the Hybrid Configuration Wizard (HCW) which is available for download and provide a wide range of configuration options (from lightweight to complete/classic configuration).

Well, good new, the HCW just got a major update – new version starting with version 17.xxx.

It is important to note that if you already have download and used the HCW, the current release (referenced as version 16.xx) will not automatically update to version 17.

You have to download the new version from there http://aka.ms/hybridwizard

Both version can run side-by-side, while it is highly recommended to uninstall your current installation as the version 16 will not received any further update.

As part of the improvements:

  • HCW will no longer enable Federation Trust by default for all installations. Instead, it will only enable Federation Trust if there are Exchange 2010 servers on premises. HCW will call Get-ExchangeServer and if no Exchange 2010 servers are reported, the workflow to enable Federation Trust and subsequently require domain proof will not execute. Note that organization relationships are still created
  • FIXED – When uninstalling the hybrid agent and switching to Classic in the HCW, this action would sometimes fail with a “null reference” error.
  • IMPROVED LOG – HCW 8064 error – unable to configure OAuth, and subsequently had no idea why OAuth failed to configure? In this release, OAuth configuration has been completely changed: instead of enabling OAuth at the service layer, it is now enabled via a Graph API under the context of the Tenant Admin. This in turn removes the error obfuscation we had with the service layer enablement and allows us to include a detailed error entry in the HCW log. So while you still see the HCW 8064 error in the HCW UI, you can now review the log for the specific error detail which will make it easier to troubleshoot and resolve.
  • When verifying DNS, a fallback mechanism what present that would reach out to an external site to verify domains. It has been removed and now only use the endpoint “mshybridservice.trafficmanager.net”, which is listed in our endpoints documentation.