MSP to MSI - Office Communicator

Today I needed to help a client update Office Communicator 2007 R2 in preparation for their Lync migration. They had deployed Office Communicator via Group Policy using an MSI, I wanted to create an MSI that encompassed the latest Office Communicator MSP. These are the steps I performed:

I firstly Downloaded the latest communicator client update from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ocs/ee695846 At the time of writing this, the latest update was January 2012: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=21547

I created a working directory with both the MSI and MSP.

I then performed an admin install of my MSI using the command:


msiexec /a "PATH TO COMMUNICATOR.MSI" TARGETDIR="create a new folder called Admin within your working directory"

For me the command was:

msiexec /a "C:\Documents and Settings\username\Desktop\OCS2007r2\communicator.msi" TARGETDIR="C:\Documents and Settings\username\Desktop\OCS2007r2\admin"

This creates an admin install of communicator to my working directory, you can see the files it created.

What are Lync Response Groups

A customer asked me a question today, in simple terms what is a response group? It’s a queue of agents which you can connect to either by calling a DID, or selecting the response group in your contacts list.

It’s essentially skills based routing.

I’ve configured one a response group for (4Logic Support Desk). This is configured as a hunt group, which means I can present the it with a DID and people will be able to contact a support agent. I have also added myself as an agent in the 4Logic Support Desk.

When I sign into Lync, it informs me that I have been added to the Line Hunt. There are two modes of participation in a Response Group, formal or informal. Formal is where I can choose to be signed into the Response Group and informal is where I have no choice. I have configured 4Logic Support Desk as formal participation.

To sign into this group I click settings > tools > response group settings:

This opens a website which allows me to sign into the response group:

I can now receive calls for the 4Logic Support Desk and call out as the 4Logic Support Desk.

Microsoft Lync and Exchange 2010 OWA integration.

I had to setup OWA integration for Microsoft Lync and came into a few errors. I used this post by Microsoft as a base: http://blogs.technet.com/b/ilvancri/archive/2010/09/22/configuring-exchange-2010-sp1-and-lync-rc-to-enable-owa-as-lync-endpoint.aspx

But here is a step by step guide of how I set it up in my enviroment.

Step 1: Deploy Lync components to the exchange CAS server.

OCS Web services

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=CA107AB1-63C8-4C6A-816D-17961393D2B8&displaylang=en

Hot Fix for Web services.
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=797

UC Managed API 2.0 Hotfix
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=1F565A42-71D2-4FBD-8AE0-4B179E8F02AB

When running Exchange2010 Sp1 on a Windows 2008 R2, include the following UCMAREDIST Update, available here
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=19178

Step 2: Configure Exchange 2010 Client Access Servers

From exchange management shell run and take note of the Thumbprint: 
Get-ExchangeCertificate | where {$_.Services -ilike "*IIS*"} | fl