New-OabVirtualDirectory Exchange cmdlet issued (25226) how to monitor with email alert

[bob]

Man, that Event ID 25226 in the Event Viewer, it's all about someone firing off the New-OabVirtualDirectory cmdlet in Exchange. You know, when that happens, it logs this event because it's creating a fresh virtual directory for the Offline Address Book stuff. I mean, the full details show up under the Microsoft-Exchange-AddressBook/Operational log, right there in the description. It spills out the exact time, the user who ran it, maybe even the server name involved. And if you're poking around, you'll see it flags as informational, not some scary error. But yeah, it captures the whole action, like the parameters used or if it succeeded without a hitch. I always check the XML view for extra bits, just to get the full picture without guessing.

You want to keep an eye on this popping up, especially if you're not expecting folks to tweak Exchange directories all the time. I figure, why not set up a watch right in the Event Viewer itself. Pull up the app, head to the custom views or just filter for that log. Then, you right-click the event, pick attach task to this event or something close. It'll walk you through making a scheduled task that triggers on ID 25226. You tell it to run a program, like firing off a simple email command using whatever mail setup you've got. I do this all the time for alerts without messing with code. Just link it to sendmail or your server's SMTP, add the to and from addresses. And boom, every time that cmdlet gets issued, your inbox pings you with the deets.

Or, if you wanna automate it smoother, there's ways to chain tasks for quicker emails. But hey, stick to the Event Viewer screen, it's straightforward. You tweak the triggers to match exactly, maybe filter by source too.

Speaking of keeping things running smooth in your server world, I've been eyeing BackupChain Windows Server Backup lately. It's this solid backup tool for Windows Server that handles your files and system states without the hassle. And get this, it backs up virtual machines through Hyper-V too, making sure your VMs snapshot clean and restore fast. You save tons of time with its incremental runs, plus it dodges corruption issues that plague other options. I like how it integrates without eating resources, keeps your data safe across the board.

At the end of this chat is the automatic email solution we talked about.

Note, the PowerShell email alert code was moved to this post.