Released: Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 3
The Exchange team has announced the availability of our most recent quarterly servicing update to Exchange Server 2013. Cumulative Update 3 for Exchange Server 2013 and updated UM Language Packs are now available on the Microsoft Download Center. Cumulative Update 3 includes fixes for customer reported issues, minor product enhancements and previously released security bulletins. A complete list of customer reported issues resolved in Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 3 can be found in Knowledge Base Article KB2892464.
Note: Some article links may not be available at the time of this post's publication. Updated Exchange 2013 documentation, including Release Notes, will be available on TechNet soon.
We would like to call attention to an important fix in Exchange Server 2013 Cumulative Update 3 which impacts customers who rely upon Backup and Recovery mechanisms to protect Exchange data. Cumulative Update 3 includes a fix for an issue which may randomly prevent a backup dataset taken from Exchange Server 2013 from restoring correctly. Customers who rely on Backup and Recovery in their day-to-day operations are encouraged to deploy Cumulative Update 3 and initiate backups of their data to ensure that data contained in backups may be restored correctly. More information on this fix is available in KB2888315.
In addition to the customer reported fixes in Cumulative Update 3, the following new enhancements and improvements to existing functionality have also been added for Exchange Server 2013 customers:
- Usability improvements when adding members to new and existing groups in the Exchange Administration Console
- Online RMS available for use by non-cloud based Exchange deployments
- Improved admin audit log experience
- Windows 8.1/IE11 no longer require the use of OWA Light
More information on these topics can be found in our What’s New in Exchange Server 2013, Release Notes and product documentation available on TechNet.
Cumulative Update 3 includes Exchange related updates to Active Directory schema and configuration. For information on extending schema and configuring the active directory please review the appropriate TechNet documentation. Also, to prevent installation issues you should ensure that the Windows PowerShell Script Execution Policy is set to “Unrestricted” on the server being upgraded or installed. To verify the policy settings, run the Get-ExecutionPolicy cmdlet from PowerShell on the machine being upgraded. If the policies are NOT set to Unrestricted you should use the resolution steps in KB981474 to adjust the settings.
Our next update for Exchange Server 2013, Cumulative Update 4, will be released as Exchange Server 2013 Service Pack 1. Customers who are accustomed to deploying Cumulative Updates should consider Service Pack 1 to be equivalent to Cumulative Update 4 and deploy as normal.
Reminder: Customers in hybrid deployments where Exchange is deployed in-house and in the cloud, or who are using Exchange Online Archiving with their in-house Exchange deployment are required to maintain currency on Cumulative Update releases.
The Exchange Team
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