We're finalizing our move of mailboxes from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007. I'm preparing to sit down with our Help Desk staff to go over the new way of creating mailboxes for new users and I'm trying to get an idea of how the rest of the world is going about this. I'd like toinform our staff as to the best, most efficient way to get there from here. Do you create new users and their mailboxes from within the Exchange Management Console? Do you create the user in AD first, then the mailbox afterwards? Do you use Powershell instead?Orange County District Attorney

Sandy,It really depends, for bulk creation of users Powershell will be your best solution. If its helpdesk creating users as they need too then EMC would be a better solution as its GUI based for them. I personally create them both ways but EMC will create the user account and mailbox in one fail swoop. This was not the case in Exchange 2003 so its a little bit of learning curve for the helpdesk.MVP Exchange Server

John, Thanks for the input. The more I read, the more I realize there are several ways to do this and they all have their advantages. Today I learned that we can't change the Firstname / Lastname display name setting within EMC, like we used to do in Exchange 2003. Our AD is setup for Lastname, Firstname so we'll need to educate our Help Desk folks to make sure they reverse the display name when creating users / contacts. Orange County District Attorney

Sandy,Yes, its a learning curve. Powershell will let you do everything with a mailbox account and EMC can be somewhat limited. I would suggest picking up some reading content on Powershell or go over to Microsoft Technet which has plenty of examples and info. That is what I use. Using the command line seems like going back in time but actually it can save your staff immense time with scripts, etc. once they learn how to use it.MVP Exchange Server

Thanks. I'll dig in.Orange County District Attorney

Since Exchange 2007 splits up AD and Mailbox configuration, I now create the user account on my domain controller. Then, go to exchange management console->recipient configuration and create a new mailbox and attach it to the user. I know you already know how to create a mailbox but I felt I should explain exactly what I do anyway.

Thanks Dave, for your input. Your way was the method I may settle on for our organization. I originally thought we'd document a methodology that had us creating the user account in EMC and then returning to AD to fill in the Group assignments, however I think creating the user account first has the best flow for us also. Orange County District Attorney