A look at the Microsoft Office 365 Hybrid Configuration Wizard

In case you missed it, Microsoft recently announced the Microsoft Office 365 Hybrid Configuration Wizard (HCW). The HCW has come a long way since it was first introduced in Exchange 2010 SP2, prior to that configuring a hybrid deployment required ~50 manual steps. This is the third version of the HCW and one of the most notable changes is that it is a standalone application which decouples it from the Exchange update cycle. The HCW will download the latest version every time it is run which will ensure that the latest version is always used.

The new HCW is available for use with Exchange 2013 CU8 or higher, however you will need to have Exchange 2013 CU10 installed if you would like see the new HCW landing page (pictured below) which is accessible via the “Hybrid” menu item in your on-premises Exchange Admin Center:

cap1

Those using Exchange 2013 CU8 or CU9 can download the new HCW here.

The wizard itself with take you through a series of configuration pages very similar to the pervious version, however there are improvements to error handling and a number of changes under the covers that greatly improve performance and efficiency.

cap2

cap12

cap13

It is worth noting that the log file location has changed from “%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Logging\Update-HybridConfiguration”  to “%AppData%\Microsoft\Exchange Hybrid Configuration”

The Exchange Team has a detailed post about all the great new features in the Microsoft Office 365 Configuration Wizard, I'd encourage you to check it out here.