I am doing an upgrade (move) from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 SP1. The new server is built and connected. I did an ExMerge dump of all the mailboxes. The customer wants most of the mailboxes completely cleared out before moving them to the new server. It is a school and they just want to start fresh. My thought is that it would be quicker and easier to empty the mailboxes before moving them to the new server. There must be an easy way to just purge the contents of an Exchange mailbox in 2003 but retain the connection to AD but I am not finding it. Perhaps it is the late hour. It is easy to just delete the mailbox in 2003 which clears the contents then re-create a fresh mailbox on the new 2007 server but the user will have to re-configure Outlook the first time they connect. I am looking for a way that will be seamless to the users. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks, Tom

Hi Tom, Firstly, please let me know whether it is a migration within single forest or cross-forest. If it is a migration within single forest, please consider the following suggestion: I think that Outlook will reconfigure the Profile automatically to connect to the new server. When starting Outlook, it will connect to the old Exchange Server which configured in the Outlook Profile. Then, the Exchange Server DSProxy Service will recommend a GC server to Outlook. Outlook will then connect to the GC Directory Service to authenticate and get new server name where the user mailbox located. At last, Outlook will connect to the Information Store service on the new Exchange Server where the user mailbox located to retrieve mails. In addition, if the new Exchange Server name and old Exchange Server are different. The profile will be corrected automatically. Thus, I think that you only need to keep the old Exchange Server 2003 online for the Outlook to reconfigure profile when the first time they connect. Mike

Thank you very much for your reply. To answer your first question, the new server with Exchange 2007 is the second Exchange server with an active IS. It is within one organization that is in one domain/forest. My intention is to move all of the accounts from the Exchange 2003 server to the new Exchange 2007 server then retire the Exchange 2003 server. My question was what can I use to "clean out" most (but not selected) mailboxes before moving them to the new server. I found the answer on another forum. Here is a link to an article that started me on the right path. http://searchexchange.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid43_gci1119801,00.html The article describes using Mailbox Manager Policy to clean out the mailboxes and leave them with no entries in any folder or sub folder. You are right in your second paragraph. When I move the mailboxes from one server to the other, Outlook will automatically find the new server. One method I had tried to use to "clean out" the mailboxes was to delete them from the old Exchange 2003 server then recreate them on the new Exchange 2007 server. In this case, Outlook did not automatically find the new server. Instead I had to configure Outlook to find the new mailbox on the new server. This would be too much hastle for 270 users. The method described in the article will be easier on users and admins alike. Thanks, Tom

Hi Tom, Thanks for the information. It is really helpful. Mike