Hi I'm learning about Disconnected mailboxes in Exchange 2007 SP2. Example - User1 AD account has User1MBX mailbox. $Service AD account has $ServiceMBX mailbox I then disable the User1MBX mailbox and want to attach it to the $Service AD account. In order to do this, I have to disable the $ServiceMBX mailbox. Now, if I was to search in Exchange Management Console for $ServiceMBX by Name/Alias/Last Name etc, would I expect to find it? That is, because $Service AD account is now mailbox attached (albeit to User1MBX), how do they all appear and where? Secondly, I understand there is a command to refresh the view of disconnected mailbox (cleanup)- any details on that? Thirdly, for a disconnected mailbox - I can't see properties such as size, item count, email address. I can only reconnect, any idea how to check properties using Powershell? Fourthly, is it possible to export the contents of a disabled/disconnected mailbox to a PST or similar, or does it have to be connected up? Finally, what's the difference between a DISABLED mailbox and a DELETED mailbox (both options when I right click a connected mailbox)

On Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:39 +0000, PaulDaniels2011 wrote: > > >Hi > >I'm learning about Disconnected mailboxes in Exchange 2007 SP2. > >Example - > >User1 AD account has User1MBX mailbox. $Service AD account has $ServiceMBX mailbox > >I then disable the User1MBX mailbox and want to attach it to the $Service AD account. In order to do this, I have to disable the $ServiceMBX mailbox. > >Now, if I was to search in Exchange Management Console for $ServiceMBX by Name/Alias/Last Name etc, would I expect to find it? That is, because $Service AD account is now mailbox attached (albeit to User1MBX), how do they all appear and where? You'd find $Service in the EMC becasue it has a mailbox. It isn't attached to the User1MBX because that mailbox is now the $Service mailbox. >Secondly, I understand there is a command to refresh the view of disconnected mailbox (cleanup)- any details on that? clean-mailboxdatabase. Not much more to say about it. >Thirdly, for a disconnected mailbox - I can't see properties such as size, item count, email address. I can only reconnect, any idea how to check properties using Powershell? use get-mailboxstatistics. >Fourthly, is it possible to export the contents of a disabled/disconnected mailbox to a PST or similar, or does it have to be connected up? To accesss the mailbox it has to belong to a user. >Finally, what's the difference between a DISABLED mailbox and a DELETED mailbox (both options when I right click a connected mailbox) You're really asking the difference between two *actions*: Disable and Remove. Disable just removes the mailbox from the user. Remove removes the user from the AD. Both leave the mailbox in a disconnected state. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

>>User1 AD account has User1MBX mailbox. $Service AD account has $ServiceMBX mailbox >> >>I then disable the User1MBX mailbox and want to attach it to the $Service AD account. In order to do this, I have to disable the $ServiceMBX mailbox. >> >>Now, if I was to search in Exchange Management Console for $ServiceMBX by Name/Alias/Last Name etc, would I expect to find it? That is, because $Service AD account is now mailbox attached (albeit to User1MBX), how do they all appear and where? >You'd find $Service in the EMC becasue it has a mailbox. It isn't >attached to the User1MBX because that mailbox is now the $Service >mailbox. To confirm, now: User1MBX attached to $Service $ServiceMBX is disconnected and User1 AD account has no mailbox associated with it. You're saying that if I search EMC [for connected mailboxes], I will see $ServiceMBX listed? On a different note, do you know if it is possible to move disconnected mailboxes to another store and is it also possible to backup and restore them?

On Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:34:24 +0000, PaulDaniels2011 wrote: >>>User1 AD account has User1MBX mailbox. $Service AD account has $ServiceMBX mailbox >>> >>>I then disable the User1MBX mailbox and want to attach it to the $Service AD account. In order to do this, I have to disable the $ServiceMBX mailbox. >>> >>>Now, if I was to search in Exchange Management Console for $ServiceMBX by Name/Alias/Last Name etc, would I expect to find it? That is, because $Service AD account is now mailbox attached (albeit to User1MBX), how do they all appear and where? >>You'd find $Service in the EMC becasue it has a mailbox. It isn't >>attached to the User1MBX because that mailbox is now the $Service >>mailbox. >To confirm, now: >User1MBX attached to $Service What *was* the 'User1MBX' is attached to $Service. That makes it the $ServiceMBX, now. >$ServiceMBX is disconnected and User1 AD account has no mailbox associated with it. That's right. >You're saying that if I search EMC [for connected mailboxes], I will see $ServiceMBX listed? No, you'll see $Service and the RecipientTypeDetails for the $Service user will be "UserMailbox". You never see mailboxes in the EMC, just the user objects that that have mailboxes. >On a different note, do you know if it is possible to move disconnected mailboxes to another store No. >and is it also possible to backup and restore them? Sure. The backup is made of the database. Whether the directory name in the mailbox matches a legacyExchangeDN in the AD is irrelevant to the backup or restore. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

Thanks. > You never see mailboxes in the EMC, just the user objects that that have mailboxes Aha! Thanks for that. Makes sense now. :) So, just to make sure, if I have a disconnected mailbox name RichMBX and I attached that to my AD account (Domain\Paul), then what I will see in the EMC is Paul. Out of interest, there must be some property that I can see (maybe via PS only) that identifies mailboxes uniquely, some sort of SID? Also, if I attached RichMBX to Paul AD account, does that mean that Paul's AD account now has an SMTP address and LegacyExchageDN that RichMBX used to have? Because, I assume, SMTP and LDN are Exchange properties, not AD. What happens if someone tries to send a mail to Paul's old mailbox that was disconnected a while back? >Sure. The backup is made of the database. Whether the directory name >in the mailbox matches a legacyExchangeDN in the AD is irrelevant to >the backup or restore. Can I restore a disconnected via an RSG in that case just as I would a 'normal' mailbox?

On Sat, 12 Feb 2011 19:38:35 +0000, PaulDaniels2011 wrote: > > >Thanks. > >> You never see mailboxes in the EMC, just the user objects that that have mailboxes > >Aha! Thanks for that. Makes sense now. :) So, just to make sure, if I have a disconnected mailbox name RichMBX and I attached that to my AD account (Domain\Paul), then what I will see in the EMC is Paul. Out of interest, there must be some property that I can see (maybe via PS only) that identifies mailboxes uniquely, some sort of SID? msExchMailboxGuid If the mailbox isn't attached to a use you can use get-mailboxstatistics to get the GUID from the database. If the mailbox is attached to a user, this script will take the GUID and return the ADS path to the user: ############################################################### # take a msExchMailboxGuid value and returns a value usable # in powershell # this assumes that the mailbox is attached to a user object # in the AD! function get-dn ($GUID) { $root = [ADSI]'LDAP://dc=compucom,dc=local' $searcher = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher($root) $searcher.filter = "(&(objectclass=user)(msExchMailboxGuid=$GUID))" $user = $searcher.findall() if ($user.count -gt 1) # only if the GUID matches more than # one mailbox -- that'd be weird! { $count = 0 foreach($i in $user) { Write-Host "$count`: $($i.path)" $count++ } $selection = Read-Host "Please select item: " return $user[$selection].path } else { return $user[0].path } } # begin script # just ignore errors $SavedEA=$Global:ErrorActionPreference $Global:ErrorActionPreference="SilentlyContinue" $RawGuid = Read-Host "Enter the mailbox GUID: " $RawGuid = $RawGUID -replace "-","" # remove any hyphens $RawGuid = $RawGuid.Substring(0,32) # just use the 1st 32 characters $RearrangedGUID = '' # arrange the parts of the GUID correctly $RearrangedGUID = $RawGuid.substring(6,2) + $RawGuid.substring(4,2) + $RawGuid.substring(2,2) + $RawGuid.substring(0,2) $RearrangedGUID += $RawGuid.substring(10,2) + $RawGuid.substring(8,2) $RearrangedGUID += $RawGuid.substring(14,2) + $RawGuid.substring(12,2) $RearrangedGUID += $RawGuid.substring(16,4) $RearrangedGUID += $RawGuid.substring(20,12) $EscapedGUID = '' # this will hold the \xx\xx\xx\... format needed for the search for ($i = $RearrangedGUID.length-32; $i -le 30; $i+=2) { $EscapedGUID = $EscapedGUID + ($RearrangedGUID.substring($i,2)) + "\" } $EscapedGUID = $EscapedGUID.trim("\") $EscapedGUID= "\" + $EscapedGUID $EscapedGUID $adspath = get-dn $EscapedGUID $adspath $Global:ErrorActionPreference=$SavedEA ######################################################### >Also, if I attached RichMBX to Paul AD account, does that mean that Paul's AD account now has an SMTP address and LegacyExchageDN that RichMBX used to have? No. When you attach a mailbox to a user the appropriate e-mail address policy will be applied to the user object. >Because, I assume, SMTP and LDN are Exchange properties, not AD. They're both properties of the user and the user object is in the AD. >What happens if someone tries to send a mail to Paul's old mailbox that was disconnected a while back? Well, they don't send mail to a mailbox, they send it to an AD user. Exchange uses the properties in the AD to locate the mailbox. Since the mailbox that *used to* be attached to Paul's user has no representation in the AD the result will be a NDR. Interesting, though, if they REPLY (using Outlook) to an old mail sent by Rich it will be delivered to Paul. Why? Because when the mailbox RichMBX was attached to the user named Paul, the legacyExchangeDN from the *mailbox* was assigned to the user "Paul". >>Sure. The backup is made of the database. Whether the directory name >>in the mailbox matches a legacyExchangeDN in the AD is irrelevant to >>the backup or restore. >Can I restore a disconnected via an RSG in that case just as I would a 'normal' mailbox? No. That wouldn't make sense since the next recovery you did would clobber the mailbox in the RSG. :-) --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP