So first of all I’m not a SQL expert. Secondly I don’t recommend performing this on a production system. Third, this actually won’t happen on a production system as long as you’re performing backups – and your backup solution supports MSSQL – and I hope if it *is* a production system that you are actually backing it up.

Open the SQL Management Studio
Connect using the windows authentication piece, OR your SA password

Run the following in the query window
DBCC sqlperf(logspace)

This will show you the name of the database and associated size of log files.

Assuming that the INSERTNAMEHERE database is the one eating through the space
USE INSERTNAMEHERE;
GO
ALTER DATABASE INSERTNAMEHERE
SET RECOVERY SIMPLE;
GO
DBCC SHRINKFILE (INSERTNAMEHERE, 1);
GO
ALTER DATABASE INSERTNAMEHERE
SET RECOVERY FULL;
GO

You can then run the logspace again and verify
DBCC sqlperf(logspace)

This all worked nicely on my development system that doesn’t require/have backups in place.

I was tasked with deleting a service account users old mail. Our CRM Mailbox user had 29.5GB of old mail floating around that needed to be purged. Adding access to the account was a no-no (and would probably crash out Outlook for a while) due to company policies. Powershell to the rescue?

I should probably mention that this is on Exchange 2010 in a DAG (2 servers) with SP3 hotfix 4 applied. Yes, I also know hotfix 5 is available.

I attempted to run the following script:
Search-Mailbox -Identity SOMEUSERNAME -SearchQuery '(Received:01/01/2012..12/31/2012)' -Deletecontent -Force

And I was told that the “search-mailbox” command was not found. Great. Verified that I was using the Exchange Management Powershell instead of just Windows PS. True story.

After a lot of searching I realized that our former Exchange Admin wasn’t very good at PowerShell. The Admin Tasks Management Powershell add-in was not available.

Check Available PowerShell Snap-ins
Get-PSSnapin
Notice Exchange Server Admin Tasks is not available.

Verify that the plugin is available
Get-PSSnapin -registered

Add the snap-in
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010

I ended up closing the powershell window and then re-opening it. My search mailbox and delete content commands now work!

Other commands I did:
Added my user to the Discovery Management role in the ECP (https://yourmailserver.tld/ecp)
Created two new groups to allow the import and export of mailboxes, and then the exchange support and diagnostics:
New-RoleGroup -Name "Exchange Mailbox Import Export" -Roles "Mailbox Import Export" -Members "domain\username" -DisplayName "Exchange Mailbox Import Export" -Description "This group handles permissions to the import and export commands in powershell."
New-RoleGroup -Name "Exchange Support and Diagnostics" -Roles "Support Diagnostics" -Members "domain\username" -DisplayName "Exchange Support Diagnostics" -Description "This group handles permissions to the support diagnostics cmdlets in exchange."

Windows 8, well now 8.1, has a lot of changes to it. Took me a while to get used to it – on dual monitors or with a touch screen it’s pretty decent.

Anyway, I couldn’t find my startup folder easily. Windows 7/Vista you could hit start, then type in “startup” and away you go. Before that you could explore all users by right-clicking on start and then drill down to find your startup folder.

BTW, I know that the startup folder resides in the c:\users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\ directory, but who wants to type out all that?

Win + R, “shell:startup”, enter