Hi There, We've just recovered from a major Exchange 2007 disaster but during the recovery processes we had to move our users mail into new mailboxes. As a result of that we now have a situation where all our users are getting the Outlook Message asking whether they want to use their old mailbox or a temporary one. As far as I'm aware the only way to get rid of this message is to blast the old Outlook mail profile and create a new one. We have over 800 users so I was wondering if there is any way to automate the creation of a new Outlook profile (leaving the old one there so we can still look at the old osts) and then point Outlook to it. Yours hopefully ;-) C

Hello, I'm afraid you need to remove the Outlook profile and create a new one. If you are on Outlook 2007+ the autodiscover process can handle the recreation for you, you just need to remove the existing profiles. Of course doing so will invalidate the old ost files, and your clients in cached mode will pull all their mail again.

But is there any way to automate the creation of the new profiles?

Hello, Yes, if you are using Autodiscover this process is automatic. Otherwise you can deploy a script that uses a PRF file to customize the user profile when they log in. This capability is provided via the Office Resource Kit. You would create a custom PRF file, then deploy it via Group Policy and modify the registry so Outlook uses the PRF file when starting. Here is a link that gives more info: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/orkXP/HA011364251033.aspx

Autodiscover will only help create new profiles for users that don't already have profiles though and it's only available on Outlook 2007. I want to create new profiles for users who already have profiles. I'll look into the PRF thing as it might help our Outlook 2003 users but as far as I can see you can't use PRFs on Outlook 2007 so I still need something for them. Any ideas?

Autodiscover will only help create new profiles for users that don't already have profiles though and it's only available on Outlook 2007. I want to create new profiles for users who already have profiles. I'll look into the PRF thing as it might help our Outlook 2003 users but as far as I can see you can't use PRFs on Outlook 2007 so I still need something for them. Any ideas? Hi, sorry, I thought you wanted to remove the existing profiles first and then add a new profile, which is why I recommended letting Autodiscover do its magic. Anyway, the PRF format for Outlook 2007 is identical to Outlook 2003, so you can use the same file to accomplish what you want in both versions: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179062.aspx