Forwarding mail to a mail contact.
Here is the scenario. The sales team decided they wanted a 3rd party CRM and Staffing software that requires their email to be forwarded from our domain to theirs so that it could be tracked and attached to customers / contract employee's along with resumes, etc. The user then uses the 3rd party software(web based) to send email as their company email address. Despite several complications and reasons it shouldnt be done that way (believe me, this wasn't by choice, it is something we just have to deal with.) we have it working for the most part. Now my problem. There have been a few cases where the person that was told to use the 3rd party applications now no longer has to use them. We removed the mail contact from exchange and took the forwarding rule out of their mailboxes. Both in the GUI and via powershell their mail contact address's no longer exist, however the mail is still forwarding out to their 3rd party address. To better explain it, the users email address is user@domain.com. We were forwarding their email to user@3rdpartydomain.com which was the mail contact. We have removed EVERYTHING we can find related to the forward yet the emails are still going to the 3rd party. How is this possible? Where else could there be a rule to do so? We have tested with the users computer off, changed their passwords, etc. The user never provided the 3rd party with their domain password so they shouldnt be able to pull from webmail, pop3, imap, etc. PLEASE HELP this is rather urgent.
February 9th, 2010 9:02pm

Was there an alternate recipient set up on their mailbox, and have you tried running Outlook with the /cleanrules switch?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 9th, 2010 9:18pm

Might also check for any forwarding being done via transport rules.
February 9th, 2010 9:19pm

So let’s start off here. What version of Exchange are you running? At the ORG level you can turn off forwarding so no one is able to forward (there are some workarounds to this rule but, we should be able to start there). If you want to look to see if the rule is still in place you can use MFCMAPi. How to delete corrupted and hidden rules from a single mailbox in Outlook 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/924297 If the application added an add-in you can remove the add-in Enable or disable add-ins in Office programs http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100341271033.aspxChris cbfive.com
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 9th, 2010 9:32pm

If it's urgent, and you've got Exchange 2007 or 2010, you can create a DL of the affected users, and use a hub transport rule to drop any email from them headed for that CRM domain until you can figure out what's doing the forwarding.
February 9th, 2010 10:06pm

There are no rules in his outlook forwarding messages, we did everything from the Exchange Management Console. We're running Exch. 2007 enterprise sp2 with SCC clustered mailbox servers, and a single hubtransport/CAS server. under his mailbox, delivery options, forward to is unchecked and the textbox is empty/grayed out. There are no transport rules that are set for his mail to be forwarded. He is using Outlook 2007 sp2 and full of updates. I set up the servers from the minute the hardware walked in the door so i know the system (or so i thought) inside and out. Im at a loss for where it could be hidden in AD or EMC. Are there any commands that would possibly show a hidden forward from within Exchange server itself?
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 9th, 2010 10:09pm

Does it forward even when he is not running Outlook? If so, then it's server side. If it stops forwarding when he shuts down Outlook, then you're looking for an client-side rule.
February 9th, 2010 10:15pm

His computer can be completely turned off and it still forwards yet the mail contact and the transport rules have been deleted from EMC since yesterday. get-mailcontact doesnt return the contact that was used to forward his mail. get-transportrule also came up without him listed. EDIT: looks like re-adding everything and removing it again from EMC took care of the problem....
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 9th, 2010 10:25pm

I believe there is a know bug with setting up a transport rule, and then deleting users or groups the rule referenced before deleting the rule.
February 9th, 2010 10:31pm

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics