Hi all! I'm running Exchange 2010 SP1. I want to export mail from a mailbox each month and remove the mail in question. To export, I do this (for may in this example): New-MailboxExportRequest -mailbox brevlager -filepath \\ex01\pstfiles\BrevLager_2010_05.pst -baditemlimit 10 -contentfilter {(Received -gt '2010-05-01') -and (Received -lt '2010-05-31')} After the export in done, I do this: Remove-MailboxExportRequest brevlager\MailboxExport After that, I plan to do this: Search-Mailbox -Identity brevlager -SearchQuery "received:>=2010-05-01 AND received:<=2010-05-31" -deletecontent However, after I have removed the ExportRequest I want to verify the export by opening the resulting PST from the server in my desktop Outlook 2003 (which has no problem opening or creating other PST files). In trying this, I get an error in Outlook that the file is open in another program? Eh? So.. I try to cut and paste the PST locally on the server and sure, that fails with an error that it is indeed in use. I fire up Sysinternals Process Explorer and see that "System" is having a handle open on the PST file. Procmon can not close that handle, just comes back with an error when I try that. Also, that step does not feel good to do... I need "System" to let go of the exported PST! Why does Exchange (or System) keep a lock on it after the export is done? Best regards Henrik

Hi Henrik, I test it in my lab and it works. But I only exported few mails and it finished quickly. After you run the New-MailboxExportRequest, you said "After the export in done", do you use Get-MailboxExportRequest to check the Status? And the Status is "Completed"? Suggest you just run the New-MailboxExportRequest to export the mails, after finishing(Status is "Completed"), try to open the pst file using Outlook 2003 rather than run other two cmdlets for test.Frank Wang

Hello. Yes, I check it with "get-mailboxexportrequeststatistics brevlager\mailboxexport |fl" and wait for it to reach 100% completed. Some feedback here: 1) It takes quite long time to export. A 4 Gig PST export takes almost 2 hours on a quite fast and brand new server. A 4 Gig filecopy on the same server is over in a minute or two... 2) The estimate from the statisticscommand above of how much is to be exported is waaaay wrong. It estimates around 30 Gb when it is only 4, so that % finished is quite useless. Anyway, the original problem seems to be a client issue. If I try to open the PST in Outlook 2010 (64-bit) it opens up just fine! OL 2003 can not open our 4-5 Gb PSTs after export for some reason. Smaller ones (like yours I guess, around a few megs) are ok. Oh, well. We are ok with using OL 2010, as long as we can open them at all! :) I can now not recreate the file lock I described above. Very strange? Now the files are available for transfer after export and are not locked with Process Explorer. I guess I will never know what that was all about?? /Henrik

Hi Henrik, Glad to know you can open PST file using Outlook 2010. I guess the files are locked by Outlook 2003. But if you want to know the truth, you can collect some dump information, but to have it analyzed you would need a support case. How to use ADPlus to troubleshoot "hangs" and "crashes" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286350Frank Wang