In "Demystifying Exchange 2003 Mailbox Moves," September 2004, InstantDoc ID 43146, I discuss moving mailboxes and the impact of crossadministrative group moves on distribution lists (DLs). These moves are the specialty of Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1), but other important considerations exist. You also need to learn how to deal with Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 Messaging API (MAPI) profiles and how Exchange 2003 handles custom recipients and DLs that are homed in an Exchange Server 5.5 site that you want to decommission. Let's take a look at these other important aspects of crossadministrative group mailbox moves.
MAPI Profiles
Outlook MAPI profiles provide important configuration information that lets Outlook connect to specific Exchange servers and access user mailboxes. MAPI profile information is bound to a specific Exchange server in a particular site or administrative group. If the Exchange organization is in mixed mode when you move a mailbox from one Exchange server to another and if both servers reside in the same site or administrative group, Exchange automatically updates the MAPI profile. First, the Outlook client connects to the old Exchange server, which updates the MAPI profile to permanently redirect the Outlook client to the new target server. If your Exchange organization is in mixed mode and you move a mailbox from an Exchange server in one site or administrative group to an Exchange server in another site or administrative group, this MAPI profile redirection doesn't work. However, if your Exchange 2003 organization is in native mode, you can move mailboxes across administrative groups without a problem.
Nevertheless, when your organization is in mixed mode and you need to perform a cross-site mailbox move, you still need to update the MAPI profile to reflect the target server in the new site. To do so, you must either manually create a target MAPI user profile or, more typically, use the command-line Exchange Profile Redirector (ExProfre--aka Exchange Profile Update) tool to update the existing profile. ExProfre modifies the existing default profile only; you can't use it to create new MAPI profiles. But you can use ExProfre if you've performed an interorganization mailbox move and want to update existing profiles rather than create new profiles.
Using the ExProfre Tool
ExProfre is supported only on Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000 version 5.0.2195 and later. The tool is supported on all Outlook releases earlier than and including Outlook 2003. You can download ExProfre at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/downloads/2003.asp.
You can use ExProfre to update users' Outlook MAPI profiles. Although typical Outlook functionality might seem to be available without running the tool, if you don't use ExProfre you'll end up with an unsupported configuration, and certain features, such as Calendar, task delegation, and public folder access, might not operate correctly.
Running ExProfre against a MAPI profile is a straightforward process that you need to execute on the client computer on which the MAPI profile resides. So if you're moving a large number of users from an Exchange 5.5 server in one site to an Exchange 2003 SP1 server in another administrative group, you need to update the MAPI profiles for each user you move. When you're dealing with large numbers of users, you might want to execute ExProfre from a logon script or implement it by using Group Policy Objects (GPOs). Make sure that Outlook isn't running when you execute ExProfre.
ExProfre performs several actions. First, it backs up the original MAPI profile and appends the exprofre value to the end of the profile name (e.g., McCorry becomes McCorry.exprofre). Backing up the existing MAPI profile is an important safety measure because if ExProfre fails, you can revert back to the old profile. Next, ExProfre requires that you specify a target Global Catalog (GC) server. Then ExProfre checks the Active Directory (AD) user object for the user who's associated with the MAPI profile; it should find an X.500 mail alias that shows that the mailbox has been moved to the new administrative group. The AD user object also contains important information that defines the new Exchange 2003 SP1 server: namely, the new legacyExchangeDN value and the new Exchange server name from the homeMDB attribute.
By default, ExProfre deletes the AD user object's associated current Offline Address Book (OAB), Outlook Favorites, and Outlook Nicknames files. (ExProfre adds .exprofre extensions to the latter two files.) When you use ExProfre to update a MAPI profile after performing a crossadministrative group mailbox move, leave the OAB, Favorites, and Nicknames files intact; you can use command-line options to do so. (ExProfre deletes these files to facilitate interorganizational mailbox moves when existing Favorites, OAB, and Nicknames files would be of little use in a new Exchange organization. For simple intraorganizational crossadministrative group mailbox moves, a lot of the information stored on the client computer is still valuable and should be retained.) I discuss how to handle Offline Store (OST) files later.
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