Hello.. We are currently migrating the mailboxes and public folder from exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2007. For few public folders the users are receiveing the conflict messages. The messages says... "a folder design conflict has occured in "PF Name". The design of this folder has been simultaneously modified on two or more folder replicas. Only the set of changes made last have been saved." Appreciate some inputs in resolving this issue.

This message is sent to users that are Owners of the Public Folder to inform them about simulatneously edit of a message. Users that did the edit will also get a message with some buttons to select which message to save and which to delete Thats life when with public folders and replication

Thanks for the reply and providing this information. Is there a way to avoid this. (except i uncheck the folder contact option) For me to understand better the simulatneous editcan be in Exchange 2007 enviornment on any server which has a replica of that public folder or in Exchange 5.5 enviornment.

Yes, generally, the issue may be caused by modifying same item, and the conflict report is an expected behavior. Please view Replica Section in the article: MS Exchange Public Folder Architecture .conflicts caused by simultaneous editing of the same item in two different replicas http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/exchangeserver55/plan/expubarc.mspx?mfr=true Workaround on Exchange 2007: To adjust the behavior of public folder conflict messages, edit the PR_RESOLVE_METHOD: 0X3FE70003 property on the desired public folder or folders using PFDAVAdmin. You can choose disable the conflict message being generated or last writer win Notes: PFDavAdmin must be run on a PC that has.NET Framework 1.1 installed, running Windows 2000/XP/2003. It must also be a member of the forest in which the target Exchange server resides. The user running the tool must be logged into Windows as an Exchange Administrator Steps: 1. Launch PFDAVAdmin and connect to any of the Exchange servers 2. Expand Public Folders and navigate to the folder you want to disable conflict message notification 3. Right click on the folder and select "Property Editor" 4. In property list, select PR_RESOLVE_METHOD: 0X3FE70003 5. Select "Set" and type the desired value into the box besides it Possible values are (choose 2): a) 0: RESOLVE_METHOD_DEFAULT b) 1: RESOLVE_METHOD_LAST_WRITER_WINS c) 2: RESOLVE_METHOD_NO_CONFLICT_NOTIFICATION Notes: For the meanings of these values, please review the MORE INFORMATION Section of KB 265733 6. Check "Perform this action on all subfolders of the selected folder and click "Execute" 7. Wait for public folder replication and verify result ======================= But conflict message may also caused by other malfunctions, you can try to do some basic troubleshooting on public folder 1. Search for more related error or information log in the application log 2. Go to EMS: Get-PublicFolderStatistics, check affected folders item count, is it properly? also check the folder from EMCs public folder tool Additional Information: Public Folder Replication Troubleshooting http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/01/10/447843.aspx Download PFDavAdmin http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=635BE792-D8AD-49E3-ADA4-E2422C0AB424&displaylang=en Learn more about PFDavAdmin http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb508858(EXCHG.65).aspx KB 265733: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/265733/en-us

Hi, Salika, did you give a try? Does the suggestion work?

Hi James, Thanks for all your input. I have not tried your suggestion yet. As soon as i will trylet u know. Thanks again

That's OK

Hi, Salika, I assume your issue has been answered, and I'd like to change the status to "Marked as answer", please feel free to post here if you have any update

James, I need todecommission afewremote Exchange 2003 serers that contain replicas of Public Folders. All the mailboxes have been moved off and PF replicated to another server. A week later, I removed theold server from the replica listandExchange generated over 500 Public Folder conflicts emails to the folder owners stating there werePF conflicts and that the most recent change will be saved. PF referral was turned off on the remote connectors so I knew the new server had the most recent update.I can see some PF's being out of synch but not that many. Nothing was lost butI don't wantthe users gettingPF conflict messageswhenI decommission thenext server. I have not found much info on a way around this other than your PR_RESOLVE_METHOD: 0X3FE70003 exampleusing PFDAVAdmin. It wasn't stated in your blog but I assume I mustto set the RESOLVE_METHOD_NO_CONFLICT_NOTIFICATION flag onall servers containing the PF replicas, not just the one being removed? Example: SVR1 replicated to SVR2. Set flag 2 on both SVR1 and SVR2 to eliminate the PF conflict emails while removing the old server from the replica list? Last, from your example above, when I select "Perform this action on all subfolders of the selected folder" I get a pop-up saying "Changing certain properties may have undesirable affects that may be difficult or impossible to correct. Are you sure you want to proceed?" I don't think setting this flag will have an undesirable affect but I'm click YES when I've not done this before. Maybe there's a better way to handle removing a server from a replica list w/o generating a ton of PF conflict messages?