Moving a Exchange 2007/2010 mailbox to another user

In the day to day administration there are situations when you need to switch around domain user accounts on a mailbox. You need to disconnect the user from the mailbox and then connect the new user account. This is very easy in PowerShell.

1. Lookup on which storage group/mailbox store the user is connected at this moment (if there is more than 1 storage group)
2. Disable the user for Exchange (command-shell): Disable-Mailbox -Identity “Full Username”
   This will remove all Exchange properties on the User account in Active Directory (you will be prompted to delete all info). The mailbox will not be deleted. The connection between the account and mailbox will be removed.
3. Reconnect the mailbox to the account.Use the command-shell :
   Connect-Mailbox -Identity “Full Username” -Database “ServerStorage GroupMailboxstore” -User “Domainusername”
4. Check the properties of the mailbox.

Hidden Folders in Outlook and Exchange

The inbox folder in Outlook became suddenly “Invisible”. For som reason Outlook had change an attribute on the Exchange server making the inbox hidden. The proposed solution will work for any hidden folders in the mailbox. First of all we will need to get a tool that can read all attributes in the mailbox. I used MFCMapi (Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Editor) , really great tool. In this scenario we will need to set up the users mailbox in Outlook before proceeding.

1. Start the MFCMapi
2. From the session menu, choose Logon and Display Store Table.
3. You will be asked to choose a profile. Choose the Profile (Mailbox) your fixing.
4. Double-click the store that contains the hidden folder. In my case this store was Exchange
5. Expand the Root Container of the store, navigate to the hidden folder and select it. Please note that your visible folder hierarchy is contained in a sub-folder of the Root Container that is likely named IPM_SUBTREE or Top of Information Store. This again in my case is “Inbox” which was under the IPM_SUBTREE.
6. When the Folder Inbox is selected on the left side view, find the value PR_ATTR_HIDDEN  on the right side view. Right-click the PR_ATTR_HIDDEN  property and choose Edit Property from the menu.
7. Uncheck the Boolean check box and click OK
8. Select File | Exit to close the current window. From the Main window, select ‘Logoff’ from the ‘Session’ menu, and then Exit MFCMapi.

Information provided here is based on  KB Article (924226)

Exchange 2010 Arbitration Mailboxes

Finding about Arbitration mailboxes is most likely to do with the deletion of a database or accidentally deleting attributes in Active Directory. You can also encounter Arbitration mailboxes if you need to remove the mailbox role. So what are Arbitration Mailboxes? TechNet put it quite nicely:

“Arbitration mailboxes are used for managing approval workflow. For example, an arbitration mailbox is used for handling moderated recipients and distribution group membership approval. The arbitration mailbox is used to store the original message that’s awaiting approval. By default, one arbitration mailbox is created for moderated transport during setup. It’s used for all moderated recipients. You can add additional arbitration mailboxes for load balancing purposes. If you’re using multiple arbitration mailboxes, you need to specify which mailbox to use for each moderated recipient.”

Arbitration Mailboxes are a part of the new Moderated Transport features in Exchange 2010. Since you cannot see these in the Exchange Management Console, you need to launch Exchange Management Shell (EMS).

To find Arbitration Mailboxes:

Get-Mailbox -Arbitration

You can also specify the database.

Get-Mailbox -Arbitration -Database DB1

Once you are getting the correct values you are ready to:

Move:       Get-Mailbox -Arbitration -Database db1 | New-MoveRequest -TargetDatabase db2

Disable:    Get-Mailbox -Arbitration -Database db1 | Disable-Mailbox -Arbitration

Remove:  Get-Mailbox -Arbitration -Database db1 | Remove-Mailbox -Arbitration -RemoveLastArbitrationMailboxAllowed

The arbitration mailbox is always installed on the first exchange 2010 server in your environment. If you are moving the arbitration mailbox. You can check the status of the move request by running:

Get-MoveRequest -SourceDatabase DB2

Once the move requests has a status of Completed. You need to remove the Move Requests

Get-MoveRequest -SourceDatabase DB2 | Remove-MoveRequest.

You should now be able to remove the database. Don’t forget to go to the server and delete the old database files that are located in the file structure.

So what happens if the arbitration accounts are deleted from Active Directory. Pretty simply, you need to rerun the AD preparation steps from the 2010 media.

Setup.com /PrepareAD

Only /prepareAD is required to recreate these accounts.

Stokkavannet, Stavanger