Microsoft Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity Provisioning Guide v3.0

Microsoft released v3.0 of the OCS PIC Provisioning Guide.
You can get it here

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway, January 2010

Microsoft released Office Communications Server 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway, v3.5.6907.89

Se description in KB979311 and download from here

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Workload Architecture Poster v1.0

This poster of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 describes the traffic flow of protocols and ports used in each workload. Communications Server 2007 R2 supports the following workloads: IM and Presence, Conferencing, Application Sharing, and Enterprise Voice. These filtered views can assist you in architecting your deployment of Communications Server 2007 R2. The different server roles are described along with server certificate requirements. Firewall and DNS configuration requirements are also described.
Get it here

Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 Client Update: January 2010

Microsoft has released v8.0.6362.149 of the Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 client
See info about the Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 Client update here and download from here
See info about Microsoft Live Meeting Conferencing Add-in for Outlook update here and download from here

BETA Exam 71-404 OCS 2007 R2 – UC Voice Specialization, Will Be Available January 25, 2010

Beginning January 25th partners will be able take the Beta version of the new OCS 2007 Release 2 UC Voice Specialization exam for FREE at Prometric sites around the world. By participating in this BETA exam, you have the opportunity to provide feedback to the Microsoft Certification program about the exam content which is integral to development of its Released 74-404 version.

Exam 74-404 (Beta Exam 71-404) is designed to validate the skills and experience of technical professional to design, deploy, and administer Microsoft Voice solutions in production based on Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 (OCS 2007 R2) and including interoperability with OCS 2007, Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging, Microsoft® Windows Server Active Directory, gateways and Private Branch Exchanges (PBX’s).

It is highly recommended that candidates for Exam 74-404 have experience with OCS 2007 R2 and have completed the Unified Communications Voice Ignite v 2.0 (R2) Workshop. A preparation guide for the exam will be available soon. Click here for more details.

Registration for BETA Exam 71-404 will begin this Friday, January 22, 2010 at Prometric sites. The code to register for the Beta exam for FREE is: OCR2J. Candidates should plan for up to four hours to take the Beta exam and provide feedback on every question (versus the typical two hours to take Released version exams.) The exam will be available in English only. For questions about the exam, email James Seymour (jseymour@microsoft.com) at Microsoft Learning.


Candidates who take the BETA exam will be scored pass or fail, after Microsoft completes the analysis of the BETA exam and poor questions and answers have been eliminated. A technical professional who passes the Beta exam will not need to take the Released version; the passing credit will be added to their transcript. The Partner UC Competency criteria will be updated to include Exam 74-404 OCS 2007 R2, UC Voice Specialization.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, PreCallDiagnostic Resource Kit Tool v3.5.6907.90

The PreCallDiagTool is an application that reports expected audio quality as it relates to the network effect. The tool should be installed on any desktop or laptop PC that suffers from inconsistent network connection quality. The PreCallDiagTool can provide a quick check of the current network conditions and also preserve a history of quality data to let users profile their network performance over time or other conditions. The tool is particularly useful for home/mobile users and users using WIFI access points.
You can download from here: x32 and x64

Additional Windows Live Messenger PIC/Federation IP Addresses, February 2, 2010

In an effort to provide enhanced capacity and service reliance, Windows Live Messenger will soon be adding an additional IP address used for PIC/Federation traffic. Some organizations have chosen to restrict this type of traffic to specific IP addresses, as referenced in Microsoft KB897567. With this in mind we want to give you advanced notice of our intended change if you have configured your enterprise network in this manner.

Please ensure your enterprise firewall configuration is updated with the full list of Windows Live Messenger addresses below on or before Friday, February 2, 2010. Windows Live Messenger will NOT enable the additional IP addresses until on or after February 2, 2010 (Pacific Time) to ensure your services will not be disrupted by this change.

IP address for Windows Live Messenger PIC/Federation:
64.4.9.181
64.4.9.245
64.4.50.110 <= New IP address
65.54.52.53
65.54.52.245
65.54.227.249

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Client Group Policy Documentation v2.0

Microsoft released v2.0 of the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Client Group Policy Documentation, you can get it here

Exchange Server 2010 Deployment Assistant

Running Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 and want to deploy Exchange 2010?
Check the Exchange Server 2010 Deployment Assistant

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2, Phone Edition, January 2010

Microsoft released Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2, Phone Edition v6907.82
Se description in KB978737 and download from here

Updates for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, January 2010

Microsoft released a update for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 v6907.83
Se description in KB977345 and download from here (Note the Cumulative Server Update Installer)

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2, January 2010

Microsoft released Office Communicator 2007 R2, v3.5.6907.83
Se description in KB976135 and download from here