Hello, I need some help with the following article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822931 Currently we have 2 locations with an exchange server in each location (Location A and Location B). I plan to remove the Exchange 2003 Server that is in location A. I already moved all the mailbox from Location A to Location and now would like to move public folders, rehome offline address book folder, free + busy schedule and all options listed in the above article. In the article they discuss Source and Destination server and how to add and destination server then remove source server...etc but they don't mention which server I must the changes on. In my situation I plan to remove server in Location A and make server in Location B the main exchange server. Do I need to login to Server A, follow the option listed in article, add destination server when requested, and then from same server remove the source server for the same options? OR do I need to Server A make changes and add destination server, next login to server B and remove the source server? Thanks....B

I think I might have screwed up the Schedule + Free Busy. When I open my calendar and attempt to schedule meetings with others I am not able to see their free busy schedule and I get the messsage "No Information. No free/busy information could be retrieved". I was following the article listed in first post and made was making changes while I was logging to server in Location A which I plan to remove. In the replication tab I was adding the server from Location B. But for some reason, I also logged in to server in Location B and in the replication tab I was adding the server in location A. In addition to the issue with "no free/busy information could be retrieved", I am getting an error message when I attempt to download the address book using send/receive. The error message is "Task 'My Name' reported error (0x8004010F) : 'the operation failed. An object cannot be found'.". I tried to open calendars for some users and I see "could not be updated" on top of each calendar. Hopefully I can resolve this issues. :(

Hi Blue, Source or Destination. You can do the same thing from both the Servers. Both Should Work. Only Removing (uninstalling) you got to the Right Server. Regards Satheshwaran Manoharan

Hi Blue, Source or Destination. You can do the same thing from both the Servers. Both Should Work. Only Removing (uninstalling) you got to the Right Server. Regards Satheshwaran Manoharan I did the changes on both but it seemed I screwed things up. Since I am not longer able to download address book, no free/busy info and when I open a calendar for a user I see "could not be updated". Hope the info below will help in diagnosing the problem. Offline Address Book On Server A under System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>Offline Address Book I see /o=Company Name/cn=addrlists/cn=oabs/cn=Default Offline Address List. When I click on Replication tab I see Server A – In Sync and Server B – Local Modified. On Server B under System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>Offline Address Book I see /o=Company Name/cn=addrlists/cn=oabs/cn=Default Offline Address List. When I click on Replication tab I see Server A – Local Modified and Server B – In Sync. On Server A under System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>Offline Address Book I see EX:/o=Company Name/ou=First Administrative Group, when I click on Replication tab I see Server A – In Sync and Server B – In Sync. On Server B under System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>Offline Address Book I see EX:/o=Company Name/ou=First Administrative Group, when I click on Replication tab I see Server A – In Sync and Server B – In Sync. Schedule + Free Busy On Server A under System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY I see EX:/o=Company Name/ou=First Administrative Group, when I click on Replication tab I see Server A – In Sync and Server B – Local Modified. On Server B under System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY I see EX:/o=Company Name/ou=First Administrative Group, when I click on Replication tab I see Server A – Local Modified and Server B – In Sync Update: it seemed that I am able to see the busy/free schedule for some but not all. Maybe it takes a while for changes to update. Because I when I go to Server B under System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY>EX:/o=Company Name/ou=First Administrative Group, I clicked on Content tab and I see a list of emails related to USER-/CN=RECIPIENT/CN=USERNAME. The list of users are the same one that I am able to view the free/busy schedule for.

I am not sure why it is taking so long for the free/busy schedule to update. As of now I am able to see the free/busy schedule for 26 users but not all employees. On Server B I opened System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY>EX:/o=Company Name/ou=First Administrative Group. In the Content tab I see 26 users listed and for some reason it stopped updating yesterday at 4:35 PM and then continued with this morning at 7:50 AM. Is this normal operation considering the changes I made above? At this point I am not sure what I must do to remove the first exchange server in our company per the article above and don’t want to cause more problems with the scheduling…etc.

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:13:14 +0000, Bluem1 wrote: >I am not sure why it is taking so long for the free/busy schedule to update. As of now I am able to see the free/busy schedule for 26 users but not all employees. On Server B I opened System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY>EX:/o=Company Name/ou=First Administrative Group. In the Content tab I see 26 users listed and for some reason it stopped updating yesterday at 4:35 PM and then continued with this morning at 7:50 AM. > >Is this normal operation considering the changes I made above? At this point I am not sure what I must do to remove the first exchange server in our company per the article above and don?t want to cause more problems with the scheduling?etc. F/B data is published to the site folder by the Outlook client, usually every 15 minutes. Given the times you refer to above, it looks like everybody shuts down around 4:30PM and comes back to work around 8AM. For the clients that don't have any published F/B data you can try starting Outlook with the /cleanfreebusy" switch. That should cause them to publish the F/B information from their calendars. The Outlook client finds the site folders in the "siteFolderServer" property of the administrative group that's in the user's legacyExchangeDN property. This is why it's very important to NOT remove the Administrative Group even if it's empty. Have you removed the public folder store from the server you're removing? That should have updated the siteFolderServer property and the msExchOwningPFTreeBL property for the folder hierarchy. Use ADSIEDIT or LDP to check the validity of those properties. You'll find the msExchOwningPFTreeBL here: CN=Public Folders,CN=Folder Hierarchies,CN=<AG-NAME>,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=<ORGANIZATION>,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=<DOMAIN>,DC=<TLD> And the siteFolderServer property here: CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=<ORGANIZATION>,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=<DOMAIN>,DC=<TLD> How about the default public folder server for each mailbox database? Do they all reference the new public folder database? --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:13:14 +0000, Bluem1 wrote: >I am not sure why it is taking so long for the free/busy schedule to update. As of now I am able to see the free/busy schedule for 26 users but not all employees. On Server B I opened System Manager>Administrative Group>Folders>Public Folders>SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY>EX:/o=Company Name/ou=First Administrative Group. In the Content tab I see 26 users listed and for some reason it stopped updating yesterday at 4:35 PM and then continued with this morning at 7:50 AM. > >Is this normal operation considering the changes I made above? At this point I am not sure what I must do to remove the first exchange server in our company per the article above and don?t want to cause more problems with the scheduling?etc. F/B data is published to the site folder by the Outlook client, usually every 15 minutes. Given the times you refer to above, it looks like everybody shuts down around 4:30PM and comes back to work around 8AM. For the clients that don't have any published F/B data you can try starting Outlook with the /cleanfreebusy" switch. That should cause them to publish the F/B information from their calendars. The Outlook client finds the site folders in the "siteFolderServer" property of the administrative group that's in the user's legacyExchangeDN property. This is why it's very important to NOT remove the Administrative Group even if it's empty. Have you removed the public folder store from the server you're removing? That should have updated the siteFolderServer property and the msExchOwningPFTreeBL property for the folder hierarchy. Use ADSIEDIT or LDP to check the validity of those properties. You'll find the msExchOwningPFTreeBL here: CN=Public Folders,CN=Folder Hierarchies,CN=<AG-NAME>,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=<ORGANIZATION>,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=<DOMAIN>,DC=<TLD> And the siteFolderServer property here: CN=First Administrative Group,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=<ORGANIZATION>,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=<DOMAIN>,DC=<TLD> How about the default public folder server for each mailbox database? Do they all reference the new public folder database? --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP I did not delete anything. All I wanted to do is make prepartions to remove the first exchange server that was setup in our company. We have 2 locations (A and B) with Location A being setup first and later the business expanded and we opened location B. Now we plan to close Location A and keep on Location B. I was following the instructions in MS article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822931 and was not sure if the changes should be made on server I plan to remove or server I plan to keep. So I went ahead and followed the articles and made sure that both servers are showing the Replication tab based on the article. The article states that once you add the destination server, I need to go back and remove the source server, but I have not yet removed the source server from the replication tab on either servers. I wanted to wait and see that once I add the destination server I would still gain access to address book, free/busy schedule...etc and that is when I noticed that the free/busy schedule was not working.

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:15:50 +0000, Bluem1 wrote: [ snip ] >I did not delete anything. All I wanted to do is make prepartions to remove the first exchange server that was setup in our company. We have 2 locations (A and B) with Location A being setup first and later the business expanded and we opened location B. Now we plan to close Location A and keep on Location B. > >I was following the instructions in MS article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822931 and was not sure if the changes should be made on server I plan to remove or server I plan to keep. So I went ahead and followed the articles and made sure that both servers are showing the Replication tab based on the article. The article states that once you add the destination server, I need to go back and remove the source server, but I have not yet removed the source server from the replication tab on either servers. I wanted to wait and see that once I add the destination server I would still gain access to address book, free/busy schedule...etc and that is when I noticed that the free/busy schedule was not working. Have you asked one of the clients that has F/B info in one site folder but not the other to use the /cleanfreebusy switch? What you're describing is a Public Folder replication problem. At least that's what it looks like to me. For how long has it been since you created the new public folder store? It may just be that the backfill replication request from the new stre hasn't been sent to the old store. That can take up to a couple of days. These are good places to start: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842273 http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2006/01/17/417611.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2006/01/19/417737.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2006/01/23/417974.aspx --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

I used the Outlook /cleanfreebusy switch for 2 users yesterday and as of now I am not not able to see their schedules in Outlook. When I attempt to schedule an appointment I see \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ and when I place mouse over nothing is displayed vs in the past I used to get the "no information, no free/busy information could be retrieved. As for public folders since I joined the company we never used or created new public folders stores. The public folders are the same for the past 3 years.

On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:31:43 +0000, Bluem1 wrote: > > >I used the Outlook /cleanfreebusy switch for 2 users yesterday and as of now I am not not able to see their schedules in Outlook. When I attempt to schedule an appointment I see \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ and when I place mouse over nothing is displayed vs in the past I used to get the "no information, no free/busy information could be retrieved. Did you follow any of the links on PF troubleshootng I put into my earlier reply? Is replication working without errors? >As for public folders since I joined the company we never used or created new public folders stores. The public folders are the same for the past 3 years. On which server are there public folders? In one of your earlier posts you said "In the replication tab..." so you must have PF stores on more than one machine. Use PFDAVADMIN and have a look at the SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY system folder on each machine with a replica. How many folders do you see beneath it? If you have only Exchange 2003 and only one Administrative Group you should see a single folder names something like "EX:/o=ORGNAME/ou=First Administrative Group". If you see only one, select that folder (on each replica) and click the "Items" tab. Do you see the users with the missing F/B info on each replica, or do they missing on some replicas? If they're present in each replica, check the permission on the Outlook Calendar folder. Is it set to "Default Free/Busy Time", or has the "Read" permission been set to "None"? If you see that users are missing in one of the F/B folders you can try this: 1. Use PFDAVADMIN and navigate to the folder that has all the users in it. 2. Right-Click that folder and select "Remove item-level permissions". 3. Select the folowing radio buttons: .. "The selected folder only" .. "All items in the folder" 4. Click "Execute" That should modify each item in the folder and force them to be replicated to all other replicas. Since there aren't any item-level permissions on the items in the folder you won't be doing anything except marking each item as "recently modified". --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

> > >I used the Outlook /cleanfreebusy switch for 2 users yesterday and as of now I am not not able to see their schedules in Outlook. When I attempt to schedule an appointment I see \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ and when I place mouse over nothing is displayed vs in the past I used to get the "no information, no free/busy information could be retrieved. Did you follow any of the links on PF troubleshootng I put into my earlier reply? Is replication working without errors? ****I followed the articles but could not find any problems **** >As for public folders since I joined the company we never used or created new public folders stores. The public folders are the same for the past 3 years. On which server are there public folders? In one of your earlier posts you said "In the replication tab..." so you must have PF stores on more than one machine. ***** We have 2 exchange 2003 servers and each server has a public folder. I am able to see pub1.edb and pub1.stm files on each server. In Server A in Location A (which I was to remove) I see a pub1.edb (174 MB) and pub1.stm (13 MB). In Server B in Location B (which I plan to keep), I see pub1.edb (92 MB) and pub1.stm (140 MB). I do remember that last week the size for .edb and .stm on Server A where smaller. **** Use PFDAVADMIN and have a look at the SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY system folder on each machine with a replica. How many folders do you see beneath it? If you have only Exchange 2003 and only one Administrative Group you should see a single folder names something like "EX:/o=ORGNAME/ou=First Administrative Group". If you see only one, select that folder (on each replica) and click the "Items" tab. Do you see the users with the missing F/B info on each replica, or do they missing on some replicas? **** I used PFDAVADMIN and under System Folders>SCHEDULE + FREE BUSY there is only one entry "EX:/o=ORGNAME/ou=First Administrative Group". I opened the Items tabs on each server and noticed that on Server A I see more users than on Server B. Server A shows 91 users while Server B show 45. The list of users on Server B are the only ones that I am currently able to view Free/Busy schedule for. **** If they're present in each replica, check the permission on the Outlook Calendar folder. Is it set to "Default Free/Busy Time", or has the "Read" permission been set to "None"? **** I need more clarification regarding this not sure where to check for permissions. Should I check within PFDAVADMIN or I need to check on the user's machine for the ones that I am not able to see free/busy schedule? **** If you see that users are missing in one of the F/B folders you can try this: 1. Use PFDAVADMIN and navigate to the folder that has all the users in it. 2. Right-Click that folder and select "Remove item-level permissions". 3. Select the folowing radio buttons: .. "The selected folder only" .. "All items in the folder" 4. Click "Execute" ***** Did not perform this step yet **** That should modify each item in the folder and force them to be replicated to all other replicas. Since there aren't any item-level permissions on the items in the folder you won't be doing anything except marking each item as "recently modified". **** I want to add that on Wednesday I performed "outlook /cleanfreebusy" for one of the users and notice that I am still seeing \\\\\\. I ran the same command on Thursday and was able to see free/busy schedule. Also, on Thursday for the first time I ran the outlook /cleanfreebusy for another user and I was able to see his free/busy schedule and I was no longer getting the \\\\\ with "no information, no free/busy information could be retrieved" message. This whole issue started when I followed the MS article in my first post regarding removing the first exchange server in the company. I went to replication tab on both servers and made sure that both exchange servers are listed in the "Replicate contents to these public store". Also, in Administrative Groups>First Administrative Groups>Folders>Public Folders, I can view public folders and system folders. Do I need to have both servers listed in the Replication tab for the existing public folders that we created overtime? Initially I added both servers in replication tab, waited a day and then removed the server in Location B from the replication tab since I am planning to take offline. However, both servers are still listed in the Replication tab for OFFLINE ADDRESS BOOK and SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY when I am viewing System Folders, I did not remove Server B yet because I had this issue with free/busy schedule. ****

On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:29:47 +0000, Bluem1 wrote: >>>>I used the Outlook /cleanfreebusy switch for 2 users yesterday and as of now I am not not able to see their schedules in Outlook. When I attempt to schedule an appointment I see \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ and when I place mouse over nothing is displayed vs in the past I used to get the "no information, no free/busy information could be retrieved. >>Did you follow any of the links on PF troubleshootng I put into my earlier reply? Is replication working without errors? >****I followed the articles but could not find any problems **** >>>As for public folders since I joined the company we never used or created new public folders stores. The public folders are the same for the past 3 years. >>On which server are there public folders? In one of your earlier posts you said "In the replication tab..." so you must have PF stores on more than one machine. >***** We have 2 exchange 2003 servers and each server has a public folder. I am able to see pub1.edb and pub1.stm files on each server. In Server A in Location A (which I was to remove) I see a pub1.edb (174 MB) and pub1.stm (13 MB). In Server B in Location B (which I plan to keep), I see pub1.edb (92 MB) and pub1.stm (140 MB). I do remember that last week the size for .edb and .stm on Server A where smaller. **** >>Use PFDAVADMIN and have a look at the SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY system folder on each machine with a replica. How many folders do you see beneath it? If you have only Exchange 2003 and only one Administrative Group you should see a single folder names something like "EX:/o=ORGNAME/ou=First Administrative Group". If you see only one, select that folder (on each replica) and click the "Items" tab. Do you see the users with the missing F/B info on each replica, or do they missing on some replicas? >**** I used PFDAVADMIN and under System Folders>SCHEDULE + FREE BUSY there is only one entry "EX:/o=ORGNAME/ou=First Administrative Group". I opened the Items tabs on each server and noticed that on Server A I see more users than on Server B. Server A shows 91 users while Server B show 45. The list of users on Server B are the only ones that I am currently able to view Free/Busy schedule for. **** Okay, so replication hasn't yet backfilled the folder and the Outlook clients may still be using the instance of the folder on the old server to publish their F/B info. >>If they're present in each replica, check the permission on the Outlook Calendar folder. Is it set to "Default Free/Busy Time", or has the "Read" permission been set to "None"? >**** I need more clarification regarding this not sure where to check for permissions. Should I check within PFDAVADMIN or I need to check on the user's machine for the ones that I am not able to see free/busy schedule? **** Use Outlook. However, given what you added below I don't think it's necessary. >>If you see that users are missing in one of the F/B folders you can try this: >>1. Use PFDAVADMIN and navigate to the folder that has all the users in it. >>2. Right-Click that folder and select "Remove item-level permissions". >>3. Select the folowing radio buttons: >>.. "The selected folder only" >>.. "All items in the folder" >>4. Click "Execute" >***** Did not perform this step yet **** It won't hurt anthing. But if replication is starting to backfill the folders it may not be necessary. >>That should modify each item in the folder and force them to be replicated to all other replicas. Since there aren't any item-level permissions on the items in the folder you won't be doing anything except marking each item as "recently modified". >**** I want to add that on Wednesday I performed "outlook /cleanfreebusy" for one of the users and notice that I am still seeing \\\\\\. I ran the same command on Thursday and was able to see free/busy schedule. Also, on Thursday for the first time I ran the outlook /cleanfreebusy for another user and I was able to see his free/busy schedule and I was no longer getting the \\\\\ with "no information, no free/busy information could be retrieved" message. Well, that's a good thing! >This whole issue started when I followed the MS article in my first post regarding removing the first exchange server in the company. I went to replication tab on both servers and made sure that both exchange servers are listed in the "Replicate contents to these public store". Also, in Administrative Groups>First Administrative Groups>Folders>Public Folders, I can view public folders and system folders. Do I need to have both servers listed in the Replication tab for the existing public folders that we created overtime? No, you don't. If you're removing the 1st server you should remove it from the replicas list on all your public folders. Once the entire contents of a folder is replicated and both servers agree that they have a copy of everything that was on the server you're removing, the instance of the folder on the 1st server will be removed from the database. >Initially I added both servers in replication tab, One of them should already have been there! >waited a day and then removed the server in Location B from the replication tab since I am planning to take offline. However, both servers are still listed in the Replication tab for OFFLINE ADDRESS BOOK and SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY when I am viewing System Folders, I did not remove Server B yet because I had this issue with free/busy schedule. **** Well, when your comfortablem remove the server from the replicas list. All this is another good reason to get off Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003 and move to 2010 where public folders are no longer need for this stuff. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP