D
Doc Newbie
Dear Colleagues:
A while back I sought out the advise of some buddies who have far greater
experience with scripting and programming than I do (which amounts to NULL)
to create or improvise an organizational Exchange/Outlook .PST backup and
restore solution. I made some headway in terms of the Outlook & Exchange
2000 side of the equation, however, my knowledge of scripting and
programming being what they are, I find myself here again "electronically
panhandling" hoping that somebody could shed some light on my dilemma(s).
Our organization went from Exchange 5.5 to 2000 without much fanfare. This
was not because the entire process of upgrading was so 'pleasant' (insert
sarcasm here) or that the thousands of messages from user mailboxes came
over 'seamlessly' (insert more sarcasm here) onto our Exchange 2000 box - it
was simply because 99% of our users did not have anything critical in their
mailboxes. I sent out global emails asking our users to let me know if they
needed anything backed up and manually created .PST files for the handful
that did. I work for a school, thus, I deal with users who are quite busy
doing ten things at once - besides, that's why I get paid the 'big bucks'
(insert MASSIVE amounts of sarcasm here). The switch from Exchange 5.5 to
Exchange 2000 went as smooth as could be planned since the new Exchange
server was a totally virgin install - mailboxes were re-populated with the
aforesaid .PST files.
The introduction of Exchange 2000 with its more user friendly distribution
lists and other features (plus our faculty using Outlook more extensively)
has seen me planning for a deployment of Exchange Server 2003 in the next
few months. I've done some pretty extensive reading into in place
migrations as well as the 'move mailbox' utility, but I face economic and
licensure issues. I also have some serious concerns with these processes as
I have kicked back a few with several bug-eyed Exchange guys who got beaten
up in the process.
What I have been experimenting with for quite some time now is the idea of
programming (or scripting) a process whereby an account that has rights to
all mailboxes creates multiple .PST files from their respective Exchange
mailboxes at the root level (sub folders and everything else contained
therein) and then dumps them into a folder, or set of folders as the case
may be. These folders should not be in the user's home folder because they
may be accidentally deleted. Of course, this process has to be reversed for
the purposes of restoring these .PST files back to their respective
mailboxes, but I would settle for manually restoring these .PST files if
need be, resetting passwords in the process and so forth.
I know that the move mailbox feature makes life a lot easier. As I
mentioned, there are some licensing and economic issues involved here and
although the process may seem a bit clunky and awkward, it sure beats losing
critical data!
Any suggestions, links, macro links, tidbits of information or references
that can be cited to help me accomplish this task is greatly appreciated in
advance.
Doc Newbie
A while back I sought out the advise of some buddies who have far greater
experience with scripting and programming than I do (which amounts to NULL)
to create or improvise an organizational Exchange/Outlook .PST backup and
restore solution. I made some headway in terms of the Outlook & Exchange
2000 side of the equation, however, my knowledge of scripting and
programming being what they are, I find myself here again "electronically
panhandling" hoping that somebody could shed some light on my dilemma(s).
Our organization went from Exchange 5.5 to 2000 without much fanfare. This
was not because the entire process of upgrading was so 'pleasant' (insert
sarcasm here) or that the thousands of messages from user mailboxes came
over 'seamlessly' (insert more sarcasm here) onto our Exchange 2000 box - it
was simply because 99% of our users did not have anything critical in their
mailboxes. I sent out global emails asking our users to let me know if they
needed anything backed up and manually created .PST files for the handful
that did. I work for a school, thus, I deal with users who are quite busy
doing ten things at once - besides, that's why I get paid the 'big bucks'
(insert MASSIVE amounts of sarcasm here). The switch from Exchange 5.5 to
Exchange 2000 went as smooth as could be planned since the new Exchange
server was a totally virgin install - mailboxes were re-populated with the
aforesaid .PST files.
The introduction of Exchange 2000 with its more user friendly distribution
lists and other features (plus our faculty using Outlook more extensively)
has seen me planning for a deployment of Exchange Server 2003 in the next
few months. I've done some pretty extensive reading into in place
migrations as well as the 'move mailbox' utility, but I face economic and
licensure issues. I also have some serious concerns with these processes as
I have kicked back a few with several bug-eyed Exchange guys who got beaten
up in the process.
What I have been experimenting with for quite some time now is the idea of
programming (or scripting) a process whereby an account that has rights to
all mailboxes creates multiple .PST files from their respective Exchange
mailboxes at the root level (sub folders and everything else contained
therein) and then dumps them into a folder, or set of folders as the case
may be. These folders should not be in the user's home folder because they
may be accidentally deleted. Of course, this process has to be reversed for
the purposes of restoring these .PST files back to their respective
mailboxes, but I would settle for manually restoring these .PST files if
need be, resetting passwords in the process and so forth.
I know that the move mailbox feature makes life a lot easier. As I
mentioned, there are some licensing and economic issues involved here and
although the process may seem a bit clunky and awkward, it sure beats losing
critical data!
Any suggestions, links, macro links, tidbits of information or references
that can be cited to help me accomplish this task is greatly appreciated in
advance.
Doc Newbie