Scripting/Programming Outlook .PST Backups (advice sought)

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
 
J

Jim Vierra

I had to respond to your plea.

I have been using Exchange 2003 for about 2 years. Exchange 2003 has some
great tools available on the
S web site which will allow you to make PST copies of user mailboxes. I
would explore this avenue for security backups. There are also numerous
mail archive add-ins for Exchange and Outlook that can do what you are
trying to accomplish.

I suggest that you look at
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...ec-dcdf-47dc-96da-1c12d67327d5&displaylang=en

This utility can copy an exchange mailbox to a PST file or copy multiple
mailboxes to multiple PST files. It can be run in batch mode and also used
to import the backed up data into exchange. The PST files can be placed on
a share where users can attach to them and recover individual mail items.
The program can be scripted and scheduled to run every night or as needed.

ExchMerge can also extract data from Exchange 2000 and 5.5 servers.

Download and unpack the program and read the documentation. It's quite
detailed.

This program will do everything you have specified and more. It can restore
a mailbox and it can merge folders and items by filter qualification back
into a mailbox. It can permanently archive data from any or all mailboxes.
 
D

Doc Newbie

Dear Jim:

Thank you for the information you have provided. I have not yet looked at
the nuts and bolts of the utilities you mentioned, however, given your
experience its very good to hear.

Do you know if any of the utilities you mention work to do these .PST
backups from an Exchange 2000 box?

All the best,

Doc Curious
 
J

Jim Vierra

I believe the info states that it will backup 5.55, 200, 2003 but you must
run it on a 2003 Exchange server that is the front end server for 2000. I
haven't tested this as my 2003 and 2000 are in different companies with no
way to link them.

From the docs
Note This version of ExMerge.exe should be run only from Exchange Server
2003 or from computers with the Exchange 2003 administrative tools loaded.
It can be run against Exchange 5.5, Exchange 2000, and Exchange 2003.


If you only have 2000 there are numerous third party tools that can perform
this task. If you really want to script it yourself then delegate all
mailboxes to an account that can attach to the Exchange mailbox store and
copy each user folder to an attached PST file. This should be dome from a
workstation and will not give you access to every folder the users has.

To script it on Exchange you will have to use CDO or MAPI which is not
trivial.

What you are looking to do has been fully addressed by Exchange 2003 making
it worth the upgrade. You can do incremental mailbox backup and recovery on
2003 which is harder on 2000.

A simple method is to use an archiving rule to a PST stored on a file
server. Make sure you back up these PSTs nightly and you have a poor mans
backup.
 
D

Doc Newbie

Thanks Jim.

When I save a trillion hours of work because of your solid advice I will
name a server after you - I would name a child after you, but all that
working around nuclear reactors back in the 80's made me sterile as a rock.

All the best,

Doc
 
J

Jim Vierra

Don't name a server after me as it will be obsolete before you get it
running.

Spend time on the Exchange site and go to the webcasts and you will find out
how to save huge amounts of time. Save the programming for the really
esoteric things.
 

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