We have just merged with a smaller company and need to transfer their mail data to us. Their employees will have new mailboxes in our Org/Forest (running Exchange 2007/2010). The merged company was running Exchange 2003 SP2. For the user mailboxes, we were just going to use Outlook to export the data to PST. But they have lots of data in mail-enabled Public Folders, which we don't really use. We tend to use Shared Mailboxes in our environment, they tended to use mail-enabled PF's to store shared departmental data. I figured our solutions were: 1. Export their PF data into PST format and then merge into a new SMB 2. Connect their Exchange 2003 server to our network and somehow transport the data across Any ideas? Does anyone know how I can perform #1? Is the only way via Outlook? Regarding #2, I have read that 2010 cannot co-exist with 2003?

So a couple of things you could do here; For the mailboxes you could certainly export to PST from outlook and then import into the new org OR you could do a Cross Forest Migration by creation trust between the two forest but you would want to bring their servers in house first. Check out the following articles http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee861103.aspx and http://www.testlabs.se/blog/2010/05/24/cross-forest-migration-in-lab/ Another option would be to use a 3rd party product like Lucid8's DigiScope http://www.lucid8.com/product/digiscope.asp which allows you to OPEN any OFFLINE Exchange Database so that you can View, Search, Export to PST, MSG & XML or Recover data directly from any offline database into any Production Exchange Server, even cross version i.e. 2003-2010. In short it based upon what you told me it would look something like this; A: Get your new mailboxes setup on the 2010 servers B: Route the email from the old org to your new 2010 server so that all new transactions flow through properly C: Take the 2003 DB's offline D: Transport the DB's to the new location E: Open the Offline Copies of the databases with DigiScope and recover the data into the new production mailboxes on the fly i.e. while people are working they will see the historical back data fill in. Regardless of the method you choose you will need to deal with the LegacyExchangeDN Here is a link that describes the issue http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Understanding-LegacyExchangeDN.html , but in short POST moving of data from one domain to another there is an MS problem where imported messages calendar items/appointments made from the old system will fail on acceptance, updates and other replies and modifications may not work right because the X500 addresses from the original Exchange server cannot resolve to the mailboxes in the new Exchange server. Here are some details about that problem and how to resolve. Basically, you need to obtain the legacyExchangeDN from the old Exchange install to be added to the new recipients as an X500 format ProxyAddress entry. It's not too bad to do, once you know what to do but it can cause a major amount of frustration for the administrator and end users Here is a simple “how to” method http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/05/21/cannot-reply-to-old-emails-or-modify-old-calendar-items-after-pst-mail-migration.aspx Here is another article that may be more helpful as well http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/exchange-e-mail-addresses-and-the-outlook-address-cache/ a Also check out this MS forum issue that discusses it in detail as well http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchange2010/thread/f99244d7-facf-4ad9-a83e-f6d3baa1ba8b/ Microsoft also makes a LegacyExchangeDN tool http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=19034 The Tool is not really needed it just makes some of the change processes a bit easier than using ADSIEdit and the above first article shows how to use this tool as well Troy Werelius www.Lucid8.com Search, Recover, & Extract Mailboxes, Folders, & Email Items from Offline EDB's and Live Exchange Servers with Lucid8's DigiScope

So a couple of things you could do here; For the mailboxes you could certainly export to PST from outlook and then import into the new org OR you could do a Cross Forest Migration by creation trust between the two forest but you would want to bring their servers in house first. Check out the following articles http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee861103.aspx and http://www.testlabs.se/blog/2010/05/24/cross-forest-migration-in-lab/ Another option would be to use a 3rd party product like Lucid8's DigiScope http://www.lucid8.com/product/digiscope.asp which allows you to OPEN any OFFLINE Exchange Database so that you can View, Search, Export to PST, MSG & XML or Recover data directly from any offline database into any Production Exchange Server, even cross version i.e. 2003-2010. In short it based upon what you told me it would look something like this; A: Get your new mailboxes setup on the 2010 servers B: Route the email from the old org to your new 2010 server so that all new transactions flow through properly C: Take the 2003 DB's offline D: Transport the DB's to the new location E: Open the Offline Copies of the databases with DigiScope and recover the data into the new production mailboxes on the fly i.e. while people are working they will see the historical back data fill in. Regardless of the method you choose you will need to deal with the LegacyExchangeDN Here is a link that describes the issue http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Understanding-LegacyExchangeDN.html , but in short POST moving of data from one domain to another there is an MS problem where imported messages calendar items/appointments made from the old system will fail on acceptance, updates and other replies and modifications may not work right because the X500 addresses from the original Exchange server cannot resolve to the mailboxes in the new Exchange server. Here are some details about that problem and how to resolve. Basically, you need to obtain the legacyExchangeDN from the old Exchange install to be added to the new recipients as an X500 format ProxyAddress entry. It's not too bad to do, once you know what to do but it can cause a major amount of frustration for the administrator and end users Here is a simple “how to” method http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2009/05/21/cannot-reply-to-old-emails-or-modify-old-calendar-items-after-pst-mail-migration.aspx Here is another article that may be more helpful as well http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/exchange-e-mail-addresses-and-the-outlook-address-cache/ a Also check out this MS forum issue that discusses it in detail as well http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchange2010/thread/f99244d7-facf-4ad9-a83e-f6d3baa1ba8b/ Microsoft also makes a LegacyExchangeDN tool http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=19034 The Tool is not really needed it just makes some of the change processes a bit easier than using ADSIEdit and the above first article shows how to use this tool as well Troy Werelius www.Lucid8.com Search, Recover, & Extract Mailboxes, Folders, & Email Items from Offline EDB's and Live Exchange Servers with Lucid8's DigiScope