Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

Update Rollup 7 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sustained Engineering team will release Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Update Rollup 7 on Thursday, October 22, 2009.

Once the release is available the links below will take you to the necessary information about Update Rollup 7.

• Microsoft Download Center: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=a4893988-7804-4e23-ab58-740441cc696e
• Microsoft Knowledge Base Article: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=971782

General Details about Update Rollup 7

• Update Rollup 7 is cumulative. You do not need to install any previous Update Rollups prior to Update Rollup 7
• The Update Rollup 7 download contains updates for the 40 supported Language Packs. Prior to installing the Update Rollup 7 Language pack you must install the original Language pack. If you have Language Packs installed, you should

1. Download the Update Rollup 7 Language Pack
2. Install the Update Rollup 7 Language Pack
3. De-provision the Language Pack
4. Re-provision the Language Pack

• Update Rollup 7 adds support for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2
• Information about how to avoid reboots when installing the CRM Outlook Client can be found in the Update Rollup 4 blog posting. If the Client is being installed via AutoUpdate a reboot will be required because the AutoUpdate code is being updated in Update Rollup 7.
• The Update Rollup 7 Client can be deployed before the server is upgraded to Update Rollup 7
• The Update Rollup 7 Client cannot be uninstalled because of schema changes made to the offline database. All other Update Rollup 7 components (Server, Language Pack, SRS, Exchange Router, etc) can be uninstalled.
• The Update Rollup 7 Client package will be a prerequisite for all future Client Update Rollups. Starting with Update Rollup 8 the client updates will block installation if the Update Rollup 7 Client is not found.
• The Update Rollup 7 Client has new prerequisites
• An internet connection is required for successful Client installation
• Client update installation will take longer than previous URs, so please be patient
• Steps to make the Update Rollup 7 Client available via AutoUpdate can be found in the Update Rollup 4 blog posting. Once published the Link and Patch IDs can be found in kb article 971782.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Data Migration Manager

The Data Migration Manager Update Rollup 7 package will not ship on October 22, 2009 with the other CRM components. That package is expected to be added to the Update Rollup 7 download page during the week of October 26.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router

Exchange 2010 support is currently scheduled for Update Rollup 8.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Mobile Express

Update Rollup 7 enables Mobile Express for the 24 additional CRM base languages.  The new Mobile Express supported base languages are German (Germany),French (France),Spanish (International),Italian (Italy),Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Chinese PRC, Chinese Hong Kong, Japanese, Swedish, Russian, Portuguese (Brazil),Portuguese (Portugal),Turkish, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Chinese Taiwan, Norwegian, Greek, Korean, Arabic and  Hebrew.

Also, this new Mobile Express release offers client-side user interface rendering into any of the 39 Language Packs available for Dynamics CRM. In addition to the languages above, extra Language Packs are available for Basque, Catalan, Croatian, Estonian, Galician, Hindi, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Serbian (Latin), Slovenian, Slovak, Thai and Ukrainian.

Please see the Getting Started: CRM Mobile Express blog for more information about CRM Mobile Express.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Microsoft Outlook

The following is a list of improvements made to the CRM Client in Update Rollup 7.

Computer performance

• Reduced sign-in time. This is especially significant for users who have a large amount of offline Microsoft Dynamics CRM data. In earlier releases, Microsoft Dynamics CRM stored many files in the roaming profile, such as metadata, logs, traces, and the offline database. To reduce sign-in time, these files are now located in a local data folder.
• Improved overall performance. In earlier releases, the hoster process and offline database continued to run, even while the computer was in online mode. This could decrease performance and reduce battery life. These processes now run only in offline mode. The desktop client no longer requires the hoster process.

Outlook performance and synchronization

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook now loads in the background. This enables users to read e-mail messages before Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is fully loaded.
• E-mail tagging now runs in the background. This improves Outlook performance, especially for users who have a large number of tracked e-mail messages in their inbox.
• CRM Address Book Provider (ABP) run-time storage of in-memory ABP XML has been moved to a Microsoft SQL Server CE in-memory representation. This helps manage CRM address book data more efficiently.
• State management logic has been improved. This enables Microsoft Dynamics CRM to handle network, authentication, sleep, and hibernation transitions more efficiently without requiring users to restart Outlook for each transition. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Laptop Client now automatically transitions to offline mode when a remote Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server cannot be contacted (as long as user has gone offline at least once in past). It automatically switches back to online mode when the connection is restored.
• Outlook synchronization now runs in the background and has significant performance improvements in terms of numbers of records synchronized per minute.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook now supports Outlook delegates.  If an Outlook user is a delegate for another Outlook user, the delegate can mark items for tracking in the primary user's inbox. The Exchange Server stores the tracking information until the primary user starts Outlook. At that time, Microsoft Dynamics CRM verifies the data and then synchronizes with Outlook.
• Manually synchronizing with Microsoft Dynamics CRM produces item-level failure details. The synchronization code now handles row-level failures in a way that does not cause the entire synchronization process to fail. Also, the synchronization progress dialog box now displays the list of specific record-level failures.
• The synchronization process is now optimized to help prevent synchronization failures from damaging the offline database.
• The synchronization process has been improved to ensure that changes made to CRM tracked records inside Outlook are propagated to CRM server even when CRM addin is not active (e.g. – via OWA or when addin is in disabled state).

Setup and configuration

• Background Intelligence Transfer Service (BITS) has been implemented to improve component download performance.
• Configuration Wizard now starts automatically when the user restarts Outlook after Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook is installed. An ability to auto-configure CRM for Outlook has been added via use of config.xml file.
• The number of Configuration Wizard screens has been reduced and the overall configuration process is simpler.
• After Update Rollup 7 is installed, updates will no longer require the user to have Administrator privileges on the client computer.
• A download button has been added for CRM Outlook client in application web UI to help users discover the right client for their deployment type. Additional flexibility has been enabled for organizations to modify the download package in a manner that enables them to package CRM configuration information specific to their organization (Please refer to KB 2004601 that will be published shortly)
• Silent unattended installations of CRM via SMS has been enabled by adding support for MIF files and removing the need for end users to be logged into the machine during laptop client deployment.

How to get support for Update Rollup 7

To get support please contact Microsoft Product Support. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;[LN];CNTACTMS

Note: In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

Cheers,

Matt Brown