I'm kind of stunned that I cannot find this in Internet land... Does anyone know how to tell the Exchange 2007 Management Console to create the display name using the "Lastname, First" format? This was WAY easy in previous versions of Exchange but I cannot seem to find a way to do it in Exchange 2007. I changed the "createDialog" attribute in the AD configuration with ADSI edit so users that are created with ADUC use a "Last, First" format but that does not affect the Exchange Management Console. How can I get the console to use "Last, First"? Anyone...? -Patrick

Hi Patrick, createDialog method applies fornew users, here is what you did. Open ADSIEdit.msc -> Configuration -> Configuration -> DispaySpecifiers -> CN=409 -> cn=User-Display -> Properties -> Open an attribute createDialog & give value %<sn>, %<givenName> 409 is US English display specifiers For existing users you need to change it manually in EMC or EMS. Here is a Powershell scriptwrote for you, which changesexisting user's display name from"First Last" to "Last, First". $Users = Get-User -resultsize unlimited|where {$_.RecipientTypeDetails -eq "UserMailbox"} ForEach ($User in $Users) { $DN = $User.LastName + ", " + $User.FirstName Set-User $Mailbox -DisplayName $DN $DN = $Null } I would suggest you to do this in test environment first.

Amit, Thanks for the reply. I am aware that I can change them after the fact but if I have help desk staff doing account creations I do not want them to enter the display name incorrectly. I was planning on giving them the Exchange console to do account creations since ADUC will not show any of the optional attributes. What I want is for the Exchange Console to default to "Last, First" for the display name. Make sense? -Patrick

Clarify: You want to create Mailbox-enabled user on EMC, with the name format: [Last name, space,First name], right? Based on my research, the related fields in EMC include: "First name", "Initials", "Last name" and "Name". The "Name" field is automatically populated based on the "First name", "Initials" and "Last name" fields following a certain rule for each language. For English, the "Name" field is generated as: {First name} {Initials} {Last name} The rule generating the "Name" field is fixed in code. There is no way for administrators to customize the generation of this field Please view the Name Layout Section in the article below: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/02/01/432722.aspx

Patrick, I think James is correct, there is not any option to set Display Name while creating users in EMC and it sets the Name as a display name for user. However if you are creating users with EMS then you can add parameter DisplayName to set it. Exchange 2007 has better ability to maintain environment with powershell scripts and admins should take advantage of it so I think you shouldnt worry about your helpdesk to give correct display name, here is a script I prepared for you which you can schedule every night to run which changes the display name from FirstName Initial LastName to LastName, FirstName Initial for all users which are created in last 24hours. Procedure: Create below two filesand put it in a folder & create a task scheduler to run DisplayName.CMD every night on Exchange Server. ========================DisplayName.CMD======================== powershell -command "& {C:\PathOFScript\DisplayName.ps1 }" ========================DisplayName.CMD======================== ========================DisplayName.PS1======================== Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.Admin $Users = Get-User -resultsize unlimited|where {$_.WhenCreated -gt (get-date).adddays(-1)} ForEach ($User in $Users) { $DN = $User.LastName + ", " + $User.FirstName + " " + $user.Initials Set-User $user -DisplayName $DN $DN = $Null } ========================DisplayName.PS1======================== Hope this helps you to automating things!!!

Thanks guys. That sucks. I was hoping to avoid asking the Help Desk to run any scripts or having to schedule period runs of the shell to maintain this. Oh well... -Patrick

This is design limitation of Exchange Management Console in Exchange 2007 and some of the workarounds are documented here... Exchange 2007 & Display NameFormat Changing the display name of active directory users I hope these help to the users who check this thread in future...

Hi Amit!Ihave read your blogs about the display name,script,and i found it very interesting.However, in my case i already have custom defined display names, and against this numbers of users, there are so many to change (lastname,firstname Initials), lets say 200 usersare already Custom Defined Display Names and 600 users to be defined to use Lastname, Firstname Initials. If i'm going to run the said script, the 200 users will use the Lastname, Firstname Initials? Is there a way to include an exemptions?Thanks.LRMCP

Hi, I'm probably doing this completely out of sequence BUT, I have an existing Exchange/Windows 2003 Active Directory user that I need to change her FIRST NAME such that it shows up correctly in both Active Directory so it shows up correctly on the areas of the Desktop that display her name AND when she goes into Outlook. This is required due to a misspelling. I'm currently unfamiliar with PowerShell (is this an independent Microsoft Product?) or is it a component of a development environment like Visual Studio? There is also an MMC snapin (ADSIEdit.msc) listed here I'm unfamiliar with. Are these downloadable? Free? Part of a larger product package? Any info would be helpful. Again, sorry if I'm posting out of sequence. Thanks. Chuck Fries