Todd's Blog

Changing “Add a Contact Not in My Organization” from MSN Messenger to Skype

posted on May 30, 2013

If you have Lync setup with Skype, then you may want to look at changing Messenger to Skype. Its a pretty easy fix. As you can see in my screenshot above, my Add External Contact shows Messenger.

To clean this up, we are going to use PowerShell. PowerShell is your friend in Lync 2013 and Windows Server 2012.
From Lync Managment Console, run Get-CsPublicProvider

You should see something like below.

Identity : Messenger
Name : Messenger
ProxyFqdn : federation.messenger.msn.com
IconUrl : https://images.edge.messenger.live.com/Messenger_16x16.png
NameDecorationDomain : msn.com
VerificationLevel : UseSourceVerification
Enabled : True

Identity : Yahoo
Name : Yahoo
ProxyFqdn : lcsap.msg.yahoo.com
IconUrl : https://sec.yimg.com/i/us/nt/b/purpley.1.0.png
NameDecorationDomain :
VerificationLevel : UseSourceVerification
Enabled : True

Identity : AIM
Name : AIM
ProxyFqdn : sip.oscar.aol.com
IconUrl : https://components.premiumservices.aol.com/images/aim.png
NameDecorationDomain :
VerificationLevel : AlwaysUnverifiable
Enabled : True
Look for the one with ProxyFQDN being federation.messenger.msn.com.

Next remove it. For me the command is Remove-CsPublicProvider -identity Messenger
I have seen others use Remove-CsPublicProvider -identity MSN. It all depends on the identity of the service.

Next you need to add the Skype service back in. The command for that is New-CsPublicProvider -ProxyFQDN federation.messenger.msn.com -VerificationLevel UseSourceVerification -Enabled $true -Identity Skype -IconUrl https://images.edge.messenger.live.com/Messenger_16x16.png

Log out of Lync, give it a minute or two then log back in and you will see the new logo.

Bi-directional Communication with Lync and Skype

posted on May 29, 2013

Microsoft has announced today the Skype to Lync and vice versa connectivity has been launched. Great news. and the full details can be found at the Lync Blog

If you are wondering where to start then let me help you out.

Before you get started you will need an Edge server in your deployment and you will need a Microsoft Agreement number (Volume Licensing). You probably have some sort of Microsoft Agreement number but the Edge isn’t always setup in all deployments. If you don’t have one, got do that first. Don’t know how? Check out Iain Smith’s blog and his post titled Complete Lync 2013 Installation Guide including – Edge Server installation PART 5 of 6. That will help you deploy the Lync Edge role.

One word of advice, if you use an internal CA to sign the internal cert, ensure your server is able to reach the internal CRL, you may have to add a hosts file for that. I remember having routing issues with our Edge Server trying to contact the internal CRL.

So now you have completed these steps. Next thing you need to do is set up PIC connectivity with Microsoft. Check out the TechNet article titled Configuring SIP Federation, XMPP Federation and Public Instant Messaging which will get you started down that road.

Once you have the PIC connectivity established and your edge is working correctly, you should be able to message between Lync and Skype.

Setting SPNs and the User Rights Needed

posted on April 10, 2013

One of my co-workers just came over and asked me what are the minimum amount of rights we need to let someone create SPNs (Service Principal Names)?

Good question. Off to TechNet I went looking for the answer. Typically to set SPNs you must be a member of Domain Admins or Enterprise Admins. Alternatively you can set permissions so delegated Admins can set SPNs. The wording from TechNet sounds like this:

If you need to allow delegated administrators to configure service principal names (SPNs), you must ensure that their user accounts have the Validated write to service principal name permission.

The full article can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731241(v=ws.10).aspx.