Some mailboxes show up as Shared or Linked... after Migrating to Exchange Server 2007

Here's a scenario where after migrating users from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange Server 2007, some of the user mailboxes show as "Shared" Mailbox or "Linked" Mailbox within the Exchange Management Console... instead of showing them as "User" Mailbox.

A Linked mailbox is a mailbox that is associated with an external account. Thus Linked mailboxes are normal mailboxes that can hold an External account in a separate resource forest.

Few of these mailboxes here were shown as Linked mailboxes after migration because an orphan Active Directory Account has the "Associated External Account" right on the mailbox in question.

To fix this and have them show up as normal "User" mailboxes remove that orphan Active Directory account that has the "Associated External Account" right on the mailbox in question and run the following command from the Exchange Management Shell:

set-mailbox -id MAILBOX_NAME -ApplyMandatoryProperties

Now we come to why few mailboxes are shown up here as Shared mailboxes. If you have Self permission with associated external account checked, you get the shared mailbox on migration. That is the reason these mailboxes are showed up as shared.

To fix this, remove the "Associated External Account" permission from the Self and again run that command:

set-mailbox -id MAILBOX_NAME -ApplyMandatoryProperties

To read and understand more about the ApplyMandatoryProperties Parameter, read this excellent blog entry from Evan Dodds.

Generic User Accounts | Exchange 2007 Shared Mailboxes

In an organization, there are mailboxes required that are shared by many individuals in a particular department... I will say them as generic accounts that a group of people use for common mail access. However, the Information Security team may take it as offensive as they have an active mailbox enabled user account... and if you decide to close on them, it becomes really difficult as users are used to them as it helps them to organize and manage their tasks efficiently... and instead creating the Distribution List with the same email address won't solve the purpose.

In Exchange 2007, we have concept of shared mailbox recipient type. When we create a mailbox as 'shared' it creates a disabled active directory account to which the mailbox is connected. Shared mailboxes do not have an associated password so we must grant mailbox permissions for the users requiring access to that mailbox.

Advantages

• Disabled accounts act as a security measure.
• Since the user account is disabled by default no initial password is required.
• If desired, existing mailboxes can be converted to shared mailboxes. Users can still be able to access emails and continue to receive emails on that mailbox.
• Will let the users to continue their operations more or less the same way.
• No need to setup Distributions Lists on account of closure of their respective generic accounts.

Find Users not using Default Exchange Storage Limit set via Mailbox Policy

Here's an LDAP query that I use frequently to search and display all the users in the domain that do not have the default mailbox store policy set.

(&((mailNickname=*)(mDBUseDefaults=FALSE)))

Out of Office Assistant not Working

The OOF message is a hidden entry in a user’s mailbox. The Out of Office Assistant creates a set of two rules in the Inbox subtree. The first contains a Message Class of IPM.Note.Rules.Oof.Template.MicrosoftMessage, whilst the other rule contains a Message Class of IPM.Note.Rules.OoFTemplate.Microsoft. If one or both of these rules are corrupted or unsynchronized with the OOF-enabled indicator, then it’s possible that the Out Of Office notification may no longer work.

To resolve this, use the Mdbvue32 (Microsoft Exchange Server Information Store Viewer) utility which can downloaded from here to delete the two entries for Out of Office.

Here are the instructions:

1. Run mdbvu32.exe.
2. Click OK to clear the first window that pops up.
3. Make sure that your profile is selected in the Choose Profile window and click OK.
4. Click on the MDB menu option.
5. Click on the OpenMessageStore option.
6. Make sure that "Mailbox- [user's full name]" is selected and click on Open.
7. Click on the MDB menu option again.
8. Click Open Root Folder.
9. In the Child Folders box - double click on "Top of Information Store".
10. In the next Child Folders box - double click on "Inbox".
11. Look in the Associated Messages in Fld box. All of your rules are in this box.
12. Examine each row of entries that appear under Associated Messages in Fld by double-clicking the CB items one at a time.

You are looking for two items that have the following message properties:

• The item that contains a message property Ox65EB that displays either OOF Rules or MSFT:TDX OOF Rules.
• The items that contain a message property PR_MESSAGE_CLASS that displays IPM.Note.Rules.OofTemplate.Microsoft.

13. Select both CB: values. To do so, press and hold down CTRL while you click both CB values under Associated Messages in Fld.
14. In the "Operations available (select operation, then push Call Function button)" text box, push the drop down button to reveal the list of functions.
15. Scroll down the list of functions until you see "lpFld -> deleteMessages() (ON SELECTED MSGS)" and then click on it to select it.
16. Next press the Call Function button. This will delete the rule that you selected.
17. Press the Close button to exit the MAPI_FOLDER window.
18. Press Close again to exit all the windows.

Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/248709

Mailbox Move: Disconnected Mailbox remains on source Mailbox Store

I faced this issue while moving the mailbox from one mailbox store to a mailbox store on another server.
The mailbox is moved successfully and the user can access it fine on the server it was moved to.

However, the mailbox remains on the source mailbox store in a disconneced state and has small size. The number of items are shown as 0. The mailbox is disconnected and it does not allow you to purge or reconnect it to another user giving the message "This mailbox is already connected to a user."

To be able to purge the mailbox from the Target Store, try to move the mailbox back to that (original) Store. Move Mailbox will fail and gives you the message:

"A duplicate mailbox was found due to problems during a Move Mailbox procedure. The duplicate mailbox has been deleted. Try again later."

Hence when you run the cleanup agent on the original source mailbox store... that duplicate mailbox will be purged.

Reset the language for the folder names inside the Mailbox

In Exchange 2000/2003, when one of the following conditions takes place, the default language names of the folders inside the user's mailbox might change and names of standard folders in an Exchange mailbox, such as the Inbox, Sent Items, Public Folders, and so on, appear in different languages when seen from the client program:

1. You move a mailbox from one Exchange server to another Exchange server.
2. You create a new mailbox.

Exchange creates the folders based on the language of the Outlook client that first touches the mailbox, or the language of IE if OWA is first to touch the mailbox.

To reset the folder names, here is the registry tweak

In HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Setup, create a DWORD value ResetFolderNames and set its value to 1.

Here is more information about this from Microsoft.

Restrict expanding a Distribution List for users

I have heard this question a lot... Here is way we can restrict expanding a distribution list so that the users can't see its members.

Use ADUC. Right-click the DL and click on "Exchange tasks...". From there, select "Hide membership".

This is useful when we have the Message restrictions applied on the properties page for the DL and it fails when the user expands the list to its members, then the message is sent again to everybody.