This problem regards a small WS'03 based private domain; 2 DC's (one is hosting Exchange 2007 Standard Edition). The Hub Transport is Internet Facing thru NAT to an ISP. The domain build aspects are sound. While pursuing remedy for (other) SMTP problems related to receiving ISP mail, i stumbled upon this problem; i.e. the Administrator mailbox is somewhat broke: The Administrator mailbox has invalid properties. I get an error prompt when i do a Properties on the account from within EMC. The prompt starts out with "The properties on 'Administrator' have invalid data. If u ..." and ends up with " ... invalid data: database". Within EMC, i've tried to edit some properties but Exchange won't save my edits. I'll get another prompt saying "Database is mandatory on UserMailbox." This situation propagates a 2160 Warning Event in the Application Log: MsExchangeADAccess, Validation, ... Some of the description reads: "...read from host.domain.local failed validation and will be excluded ..." I've tried to: Set-Mailbox domName\administrator -ApplyMandatoryProperties ... hoping to assign some critical defaults and maybe resolve the issue but I get the following results: Cannot apply mandatory properties on mailbox "Bowman\administrator" because it is hosted on a legacy Exchange server. Previously, there was an Exchange 2003 installation; not sure how the Administrator mailbox ended up being Legacy type. While searching for others with experience on this issue, i read about restoring databases and alternatively deleting and recreating the "invalid" account. However, i'm a little shy on this being that it's the administrator account. Specifically, i would dread the effort of having to restore or reinstall Exchange because i deleted the administrator mailbox, however, i wouldn't bat an eyelash in doing so if there no such repercussions. I would like to end up with an Adminstrator mailbox having valid properties that is of the standard -User Mailbox- Recipient Type and could care less about losing any Administrator mail. I'm hoping somebody can advise a terse solution (actually, any solution would be much appreciated)? Thanks, Glenn of xSyLent

Hi Are you sure that you have moved the Administrator mailbox from the old server (db) to the new server (db)? Do you know if there are any critical information in the mailbox? If not, then "disable" the mailbox, delete the mailbox and create a new mailbox for administrator usersJonas Andersson MCTS: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007/2010 | MCITP: EMA 2007/2010 | MCSE/MCSA Blog: http://www.testlabs.se/blog

Hi Jonas and thanks for the reply! Actually, this domain was spawned from an SBS'03 domain. I first added 2 WS'03StdEdR2x64 DC's, removed sbsExchange from the SBS box, and then blindly tried to install the sbsExchange'03 from the SBS distribution to one of the x64 DC's. Well, the installation hung and had to b pruned out (per kb). I then purchased/installed Exchange'07 to one of the x64 DC's. That was a while back and much work has been done to clean things up; i believe the system is pretty sound now; no errors in the event logs during boot and those logs are very terse. (-Just the 2106 app event warning regarding this issue.) Thanks for the advise, sounds like it will work, and i'm gonna go give it a whirl. I'll post the results when i'm done!Glenn of xSyLent

Thanks Jonas! That did it. The overall experience went fine; the 2160 event no longer appears in the App Event Log and the account works fine. I wanted to note, though, that once i selected and confirmed Disable, EMC deleted the account without any doing from me; it immediately vanished! Is that normal? Thanks again! Glenn of xSyLent