The sitefoldersever value is very important in Exchange 2003, especially in coexistence environment within Exchange 2003/2007/2010.

As you may know, there is big change in Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007/2010 that the OAB, free/busy information retrieve methods are different. Depending on different

-Outlook 2003/Exchange 2003: Outlook Clients retrieve the OAB, Free/Busy Information directly from Public Folder. They check the sitefoldersever value on the AG so that they know which pubic folder they are going to access.

-Outlook 2003/Exchange 2007: The same mechanism as above.

-Outlook 2007/Exchange 2003: The same mechanism as above.

-Outlook 2007/Exchange 2007: OAB files store on a physical folder on the CAS Server (Generated from MBX server) and Free/Busy files are retrieved by EWS service.

In summary, if there is no 2003 version, including both Exchange and Outlook, you can safely ignore the sitefoldersever attribute and this will not cause issues even if they are not set correctly.

However, if you have 2003 version in your environment and the user report that his OAB or Free/Busy does not work, you need to check this value and see if it set to the correct public folder database. You can refer to the following steps to verify the sitefoldersever value. The sample is on an Exchange 2007 test machine and this also applies to Exchange 2003.

Use ADSI EDIT tool to make the site folder server of Exchange 2007 Administrative Group point to the Exchange 2007 public folder store.

a. Install Windows Support Tool which located in the windows server CD:\ Support\tools\suptools.msi on your Domain Controller server.

b. Run the Adsiedit.msc from a command prompt.

c. Expand Configuraiton->Configuraiton,DC=Domain,DC=com->CN=Services->CN=Microsoft Exchange->CN=White Construction->CN=Administrative Groups->CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)->CN=Servers->CN=exchangeserver2->CN=InformationStore->CN=Public Folder Data. Following is a screenshot in my lab environment for your reference.



d. Right click CN=Public Folder Database and click Properties. Find the attribute distinguishedName, double click it and copy its value to a notepad.

e. Back to CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT). Right click it and click Properties. Find the attribute siteFolderServer. Double click it and paste the distingushedName that we got in step d into it. Click OK to save it.



f. Click CN=First Administrative Group, right click it and select Properties. Double click the siteFolderServer attribute and paste the value of distinguishedname we got in step d into it.

g. Expand CN=Configuration,DC=Doman,DC=com->CN=Services->CN=Microsoft Exchange->CN=White Construction->CN=Address Lists Container->CN=Offline Address Lists. In the right panel, right click Default Offline Address List and click Properties.

h. Find the attribute siteFolderServer. Double click it and pasted the value of distinguishedname we got in step d into it. Click OK.