When I apply a retention policy to mailboxes, when is the archiving actually done to move messages? Is it a continuous process or is there a schedule? Is there a service that can be stopped or some other way to limit when messages are moved to archive? I want to controll the movement of message into the archive store at known intervals, like once every quarter. That way I can back the archive store after the archive run has finished and not have to back it up again until the next quarterly archive run. Would disabling the retention policy and then enabling it each quarter for a day or so achieve that goal? Cheers.

Hiya, The managed folder assistant is a throttled, continuous process from 2010 SP1 onwards; you don't need to schedule. If you want to disable the policy and then enable it every quarter you need to setup a work cycle to be sure it will complete on all mailboxes before you switch it off. Remember it could put some load on your infrastructure. More info SteveSteve Goodman Check out my Blog for more Exchange info or find me on Twitter

Thanks for that, What is a work cycle?

From: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee364744.aspx In Exchange 2010 SP1, the Managed Folder Assistant is a throttle-based assistant. Throttle-based assistants don't run on a schedule. Instead, they're configured to process all mailboxes on a Mailbox server within a certain period of time (known as a work cycle). Additionally, at a specified interval known as the work cycle checkpoint, the Managed Folder Assistant refreshes the list of mailboxes to be processed. During the refresh, the assistant adds newly created or moved mailboxes to the queue. It also reprioritizes existing mailboxes that haven't been processed successfully for awhile due to failures and moves them higher in the queue so they can be processed during the same work cycle. To configure work cycle, see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123958.aspx Tim Harrington - Catapult Systems - http://HowDoUC.blogspot.com