Exchange Server Pro » Public Folders

Poll: Do You Still Use Public Folders in Your Exchange Environment?

Paul Cunningham — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 11:06:26 +0000

Microsoft has been hinting at the removal of public folders from Exchange for a few years now. But many organizations are reluctant to move because of issues such as cost, dependencies, or simply no decent alternative for the functionality that public folders provide for them.

So has your organization managed to free yourself from public folders? Or do you still have them in your Exchange environment? Do you have plans to migrate away from them?

Please vote in the poll below, and if you wish to expand on your answer feel free to leave a comment below.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Risk of Data Loss After Installing Update Rollup 4 for Exchange 2010 SP1

Paul Cunningham — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:02:20 +0000

Microsoft has verified that this is an Outlook bug and has escalated it to the Outlook team. Please read both updates below as this bug seems to impact more than just public folders as initially reported.

Exchange Server Pro reader Jens Jensen reported the following problem after installing Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 SP1.

After installing the update, I cannot copy folder structures in Public Folders. When I copy a folder with subfolders, only the top folder is copied.

Same problem occurs if I move a folder structure from a Public folder to a mailbox or to another piblic folder. The top folder and messages are moved, but all subfolders and content is not moved, just deleted…

I’ve tested this scenario in my own Exchange 2010 lab and sure enough, after installing UR4 and copying a Public Folder to a new location in the Public Folder tree only the parent folder is copied, none of the sub-folders are copied as well.

After removing UR4 from the Mailbox server hosting the public folder database and repeating the same copy operation it copied both the parent folder and all sub-folders.

Jens has also left a comment on the Microsoft Exchange Team blog about this issue in the last hour or so and hopefully we’ll see a response soon.

Update: 1st July 2011

The Microsoft Exchange team has provided an update on the issue:

In SP1 RU4 we addressed the issue where you could not recover deleted public folders from dumpster. However, Outlook incorrectly passes a flag that indicates the item has been deleted when it has not. As a result, when you perform a copy or move in the manner Jens described, the sub-folders are deleted. As mentioned previously, you can recover these deleted folders from dumpster. We’ve contacted the Outlook team to assist in further diagnosis of the issue and to help us determine the right vehicle for a fix, we’ll provide more details soon.

Update: 6th July 2011

The bug affecting UR4 and Outlook seems to be impacting more than just public folder interaction. Another commentor, Rob, on the Microsoft Exchange Team blog reports the following:

Similarly to the Public Folders issue, after installing RU4 on ExSrvr2010, when a Folder is copied from a user mailbox to a PST, only the folder itself survives the copy, all messages are deleted. Singular or groups of messages will copy OK, but not a folder with messages. Tested (and failed) with both Outlook 2007 and 2010.

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How to Remove an Exchange 2010 Public Folder Database

Paul Cunningham — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:48:24 +0000

Before you can uninstall Exchange Server 2010 from a server you must remove all databases, including public folder databases.

A public folder database can’t be removed until it no longer hosts any public folder replicas. If you try to remove it while it still hosts replicas you’ll receive an error message.

Exchange 2010 public folder database can't be removed

——————————————————–
Microsoft Exchange Error
——————————————————–
The public folder database ‘PF-BR-01′ cannot be deleted.

PF-BR-01
Failed
Error:
The public folder database “PF-BR-01″ contains folder replicas. Before deleting the public folder database, remove the folders or move the replicas to another public folder database. For detailed instructions about how to remove a public folder database, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=81409&clcid=0×409.

——————————————————–
OK
——————————————————–

Microsoft has provided some PowerShell scripts with Exchange Server 2010 for public folder management. They are located in the \Scripts folder of the location that Exchange is installed.

Launch the Exchange Management Shell and run the following command to navigate to the \Scripts folder.

[PS] C:\>cd $env:exchangeinstallpath\scripts

Now inspect the public folder replicas to see whether the public folder database you’re trying to remove is the only replica, or if there are other replicas as well.

Get-PublicFolder \ -Recurse | ft name,parentpath,replicas

Name                ParentPath     Replicas
----                ----------     --------
IPM_SUBTREE                        {}
All Staff           \              {PF-HO-01, PF-BR-01}
CEO                 \All Staff     {PF-HO-01, PF-BR-01}
Social Club         \All Staff     {PF-HO-01, PF-BR-01}
Branch Office       \              {PF-BR-01}
Admin               \Branch Office {PF-BR-01}
Sales               \Branch Office {PF-BR-01}
Head Office         \              {PF-HO-01}
Admin               \Head Office   {PF-HO-01}
Finance             \Head Office   {PF-HO-01}
Sales               \Head Office   {PF-HO-01}
Service             \Head Office   {PF-HO-01}
Internet Newsgroups \              {PF-BR-01}

As you can see above the PF-BR-01 public folder database is the only replica for a few of the public folders. If the folders are no longer needed they can simply be deleted. Otherwise we need to move those replicas to another public folder database if we want to keep those folders. The MoveAllReplicas.ps1 script is provided for this task.

.\MoveAllReplicas.ps1 -Server esp-br-ex2010 -NewServer esp-ho-ex2010a

You may need to wait a while for this change to take effect depending on how many replicas you’re trying to move.

You also need to ensure that no mailbox databases are configured to use that public folder database. You can check this quickly using the following command.

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabase | ft name,publicfolderdatabase

Name       PublicFolderDatabase
----       --------------------
MB-HO-01   PF-HO-01
MB-HO-02   PF-HO-01

If the public folder database doesn’t appear in the list then no mailbox databases are using it.

You’ll also need to make sure that the server is not the OAB generation server for any Offline Address Books that are also being published to public folders.

If necessary move the OAB generation to another mailbox server.

[PS] C:\>Move-OfflineAddressBook "Default Offline Address List" -Server ESP-HO-EX2010B

You can also disable public folder distribution of the OAB if you no longer have Outlook 2003 clients on the network.

Finally, if you have multiple public folder servers in your environment check whether there are custom public referral lists configured on any of them. If you remove a public folder database that is in another server’s custom referral list it can cause an error that the public folder store is in an inconsistent state.

Get-PublicFolderDatabase | where {$_.customreferralserverlist -like "*esp-br-ex2010*"}

Once all of these conditions have been met you should be able to remove the public folder database.

If you still can’t remove it and you’re sure the public folder database contains no more replicas you can use ADSIEdit to remove the public folder database from the organization.

Removing Exchange 2010 public folder database with ADSIEdit.msc

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Exchange 2010 FAQ: Can I Access Public Folders Using IMAP?

Paul Cunningham — Tue, 24 May 2011 13:33:53 +0000

Question: Can I access Exchange Server 2010 Public Folders using an IMAP email client?

In Exchange Server 2003 it is possible to connect to public folders using an IMAP4 connection. However in Exchange Server 2010 this feature is no longer available.

Microsoft’s advice on the Discontinued Features list for Exchange 2010 is:

If you need this functionality, retain an Exchange 2003 server in your Exchange 2010 organization.

Keep in mind that Exchange organization that is migrating to Exchange 2010 can stay in a co-existence state with Exchange 2003 indefinitely, so this is not an impractical solution. However you do need to be aware of the end of life date for Exchange Server 2003 and plan to move away from it at some point.

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Exchange 2007/2010 Public Folder Store in an Inconsistent State

Paul Cunningham — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 08:09:38 +0000

In Exchange Server 2007 or 2010 you may encounter an error that the public folder store is corrupted and is in an inconsistent state.

The following warning(s) were reported while loading topology information:

get-PublicFolderDatabase
Completed

Warning:
Object EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\Public Folder Store (EX2007PF1) has been corrupted and it is in an inconsistent state. The following validation errors have occurred:

Warning:
The item “fbd8a0c6-8083-4175-915c-6842e6408af6″ in public folder referral does not reference an existing server.

In this particular case the problem was a server in the public folder referral list that no longer existed. This could be seen by inspecting the CustomReferralServerList attribute of the public folder database.

[PS] C:\>$list = (Get-PublicFolderDatabase -server EX2007pf1).customreferralserverlist

[PS] C:\>$list

ServerName          ServerGuid                         Cost Name
----------          ----------                         ---- ----
SYDEXPF1         3b1789ed-8d9b-43...                  10 SYDEXPF1:10
MELEXPF1          7521739a-6dc1-41...                  10 MELEXPF1:10
ADLEXPF1         5ce9557a-8e70-41...                  40 ADLEXPF1:40
                    fbd8a0c6-8083-41...                  90 {fbd8a0c6-8083-4...
EX2007PF2         8e074cb6-6170-46...                  25 EX2007PF2:25

Note the missing entry in the ServerName column above, though the ServerGuid, Cost, and Name were still populated.

But because the ServerName attribute was empty, removing the entry from the list could not be done by referencing it as the necessary pair of values (ie ServerName:Cost).

Fortunately PowerShell 2.0 makes it possible to remove an entry from an array by referencing it by number, using the RemoveAt method.

The first entry in an array is 0, so the fourth entry is 3.

[PS] C:\>$list.RemoveAt(3)

The array now has the invalid attribute removed.

[PS] C:\>$list

ServerName          ServerGuid                         Cost Name
----------          ----------                         ---- ----
SYDEXPF1         3b1789ed-8d9b-43...                  10 SYDEXPF1:10
MELEXPF1          7521739a-6dc1-41...                  10 MELEXPF1:10
ADLEXPF1         5ce9557a-8e70-41...                  40 ADLEXPF1:40
EX2007PF2         8e074cb6-6170-46...                  25 EX2007PF2:25

The final step is to update the public folder database with the new value.

[PS] C:\>Set-PublicFolderDatabase "EX2007PF1\Public Folder Store (EX2007PF1)" -CustomReferralServerList $list

This may take some time to replicate throughout your Active Directory, after which the public folder database should no longer report the inconsistent state.

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PowerShell: Configuring Settings on Multiple Exchange Mailbox Databases

Paul Cunningham — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:00:27 +0000

One of the strengths of using PowerShell for Exchange Server administration is the ability to perform changes to multiple objects simultaneously. In this article I will demonstrate an example of this by showing you how to update a setting on multiple Exchange Server mailbox databases at once.

In this example the public folder database associated with the mailbox databases needs to be configured. There is already one mailbox database with the correct public folder setting and we want to apply the same setting to all of the other mailbox databases on the server.

Doing this manually, one at a time would be tedious. But thanks to the Exchange Management Shell we can do it very quickly.

First, read the desired public folder setting from the first mailbox database into a variable.

[PS] C:\>$pfdb = (Get-mailboxdatabase EX2007MB1\EX2007MB1_DB1).publicfolderdatabase

Now we can inspect the variable to see the result of that first step.

[PS] C:\>$pfdb

Rdn               : CN=EX2007PF1_DB1
Parent            : EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1
Depth             : 12
DistinguishedName : CN=EX2007PF1_DB1,CN=EX2007PF1_SG1,CN=InformationStore,C
                    N=EX2007PF1,CN=Servers,CN=Exchange Administrative Group (
                    FYDIBOHF23SPDLT),CN=Administrative Groups,CN=Corp,CN=M
                    icrosoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=corp,
                    DC=org
DomainId          : corp.org
ObjectGuid        : e898f054-85f2-4486-9d35-654a16083348
Name              : EX2007PF1_DB1

Next, we apply that public folder setting to all of the mailbox databases on the server with this single command line.

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabase -server EX2007MB1 | Set-MailboxDatabase -PublicFolderDatabase $pfdb

Now we can confirm that the change has occurred.

[PS] C:\>Get-MailboxDatabase -server EX2007MB1 | ft name,publicfolderdatabase

Name                                    PublicFolderDatabase
----                                    --------------------
EX2007MB1_DB1                         EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB2                         EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB3                         EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB4                         EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB5                         EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB6                         EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB7                         EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB8                         EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB9                         EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB10                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB11                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB12                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB13                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB14                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB15                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB16                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB17                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB18                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB19                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB20                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB21                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB22                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB23                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB24                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...
EX2007MB1_DB25                        EX2007PF1\EX2007PF1_SG1\EX2007PF...

As you can see the Exchange Management Shell lets us make bulk changes with ease.

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Exchange 2010 FAQ: Are Public Folders Supported in Exchange Server 2010?

Paul Cunningham — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 15:33:21 +0000

Question: Are public folders supported in Exchange Server 2010?

Yes. Public folders are an included feature of Exchange Server 2010 and come with full support from Microsoft.

There has been some confusion about public folder support in the latest versions of Exchange. Microsoft began “de-emphasizing” public folders in Exchange Server 2007. The most obvious demonstration of this was the complete lack of a GUI administration tool for public folders. The Public Folder Management console was added in a service pack after some outcry from customers.

Exchange Server 2010 retains the same public folder capability and management tools as Exchange Server 2007 (with a few minor enhancements) and public folders are mandatory in some deployments (eg those with Outlook 2003 clients). Support for public folders will be provided for the full support life cycle of Exchange Server 2010.

However, the message from Microsoft is that if you don’t need them, don’t use them. And if you have a new need that public folders might provide, look to SharePoint or another solution instead.

Here is a table that the Microsoft Exchange Team published (in 2008) to help customers make these decisions.

Exchange public folder advice from Microsoft

From the admin perspective, since public folder migration can be a bit of a pain, I say if you don’t need them then try to get rid of them for good.

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Exchange 2010 FAQ: How Do I Migrate Public Folders to Exchange Server 2010?

Paul Cunningham — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:33:50 +0000

For most organizations migrating public folders is as simple as moving replicas from one server to another. This can be achieved using one of two methods:

Either method will work in just about any scenario, it just comes down to which one you’re most comfortable using.

Moving all Public Folder Replicas to Exchange Server 2010 Using the Exchange 2003 System Manager Console

In this example scenario the public folders hosted on the Head Office Exchange 2003 server are being moved to the Head Office Exchange 2010 Mailbox server.

As with mailbox migrations public folder migrations can generate heavy disk I/O on the source server, and will generate a lot of transaction logging that consumes free disk space on the target server.

On an Exchange 2003 server open Exchange System Manager. Navigate to the server that currently hosts the public folder replicas, and browse to the public folder Instances folder of the public folder database.

Note the public folder instances currently on this server.

Public Folder Instances shown in the Exchange 2003 System Manager console

Right-click the public folder database and choose Move All Replicas.

Move all Public Folder Replicas

Choose the public folder database to move the replicas to.

Choose the database to move the Public Folder replicas to

A warning appears that the move may take a lot of time depending on the amount of public folder content to be moved. Click OK to begin.

Note that moving Public Folder replicas can take some time

You can refresh the public folder instances folder to monitor progress. This operation can take some time, even for a small amount of public folder content. When the public folder instances displays an empty list the operation has completed.

All public folder replicas have been moved

Moving all Public Folder Replicas to Exchange Server 2010 Using the Exchange Management Shell

Public folder replicas can also be moved using the Exchange Management Shell. In this example the public folders hosted on the Branch Office Exchange 2003 server will be moved to the Branch Office Exchange 2010 Mailbox server.

On the Exchange 2010 server open the Exchange Management Shell. Navigate to the scripts folder of the Exchange installation folder.

[PS] C:\>cd $env:exchangeinstallpath\scripts

Microsoft has supplied a PowerShell script called MoveAllReplicas.ps1 for moving public folder replicas. Run the script with the following parameters:

-Server is the name of the Exchange 2003 server
-NewServer is the name of the Exchange 2010 server

Note that this is a single-line command run from the folder containing the scripts.

[PS] C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\scripts>.\MoveAllReplicas.ps1 -Server ESP-BR-DC -NewServer ESP-BR-EX2010

You can use the same method as with the Exchange System Manager console technique to determine when all replicas have been moved.

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Error Message Exchange Server Administrator Blocked the Version of Outlook You Are Using

Paul Cunningham — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 09:00:54 +0000

In an Exchange Server 2010 environment Outlook 2003 users may receive an error message when they attempt to connect to an Exchange 2010 Mailbox server.

Outlook 2003 error connecting to Exchange 2010 mailbox

Your Exchange Server administrator has blocked the version of Outlook that you are using. Contact your administrator for assistance.

This error will occur if there are no Public Folder databases in the Exchange Server 2010 organization.

You can resolve the error by provisioning at least one Public Folder database on an Exchange 2010 Mailbox server.

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Commvault iDataAgent and Remote Public Folders

Paul Cunningham — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:02:04 +0000

There is a change in behaviour between Commvault version 7 and version 8 in the way that the Public Folder iData Agent handles public folders.

In Commvault version 7 the Public Folder iDataAgent will only back up content for local public folders. Any public folders for which there is no local replica on the Exchange server being backed up will not be included in the backup.

In Commvault version 8 the Public Folder iDataAgent will back up both local and remote public folders. This means that if the local public folder database has replicas for say 5Gb of the total 20Gb of data in that public folder hierarchy, it will back up the remaining 15Gb from a remote public folder database.

If the remote public folder database that it connects to is over a slow WAN connection then you run the risk of two undesirable outcomes:

WAN link saturation during the backup window
Very long running public folder backup jobs

There are three approaches that you could take to resolve this:

Replicate all public folder data to any server that is running Public Folder iDataAgent backup jobs. This may increase local storage requirements and WAN utilization caused by public folder replication (though you can optimize this in the public folder replication settings to suit your network).
Only run the Public Folder iDataAgent backup job at a central site that holds replicas for all public folders in the hierarchy. This is probably the least administrative effort. However it requires that any data restores also be run at that site and then replicated to the remote site that needs it, which potentially lengthens the total restoration timeframe.
Narrow the scope of the Public Folder iDataAgent backup job to only those folders in the hierarchy for which there are local replicas. This solves the problem now but could lead to new folders created later not being included in the backup scope.

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Exchange Server Pro » Public Folders

Poll: Do You Still Use Public Folders in Your Exchange Environment?

Related posts:

Risk of Data Loss After Installing Update Rollup 4 for Exchange 2010 SP1

Related posts:

How to Remove an Exchange 2010 Public Folder Database

Related posts:

Exchange 2010 FAQ: Can I Access Public Folders Using IMAP?

Related posts:

Exchange 2007/2010 Public Folder Store in an Inconsistent State

Related posts:

PowerShell: Configuring Settings on Multiple Exchange Mailbox Databases

Related posts:

Exchange 2010 FAQ: Are Public Folders Supported in Exchange Server 2010?

Related posts:

Exchange 2010 FAQ: How Do I Migrate Public Folders to Exchange Server 2010?

Moving all Public Folder Replicas to Exchange Server 2010 Using the Exchange 2003 System Manager Console

Moving all Public Folder Replicas to Exchange Server 2010 Using the Exchange Management Shell

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Error Message Exchange Server Administrator Blocked the Version of Outlook You Are Using

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Commvault iDataAgent and Remote Public Folders

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