Exchange 2003 2007 

I have recently migrated mailboxes from Exchange 5.5 to 2003.  In doing so I changed accounts that were linked with a couple of mailboxes to accounts having only one mailbox each.
I am now trying to change the linked account on a few of these mailboxes.
I created a new account that I want to use and did not create a mailbox for it.
I gave the mailbox on the original user owner rights for the new user.
How do I get the mailbox off of one user and then on to the other while still keeping all messages in the mailbox intact?
A few of the mailboxes have not been migrated from 5.5 yet.  If I change the Primary account in 5.5 the ADC doesn't change it over to the new account in AD.  If I migrate it anyway, it still stays linked with the original account.
I'm looking forward to resolving this asap so I can finish up this migration.
Thanks!

---

phanson

Hi 

I would migrate the account over after this you can simply delete (de-attach) the mailbox from the current user then re-attach to your new user.

It might sound crazy to delete the mailbox but as long as you have deleted mailbox retention configured (which is default) on your Information store the mailbox will not actually be deleted. I recomend checking the mailbox retention, before performing this procedure, to do so find the relevant Infromation store from Exchange System Manager, right click properties then in the Limits tab ensure there is a value greater than 0 in the "Keep deleted mailboxes for (days)" field. You should find the default is greater than 0 days anyway.

To de-attach mailbox go into Active Directory Users & Comptuers find and right click properties on the user's account, from here select "Exchange Tasks" then either select "Delete Mailbox" or "Remove Exchange Attributes" wait for recipient update services (RUS) to run or run RUS manually.

To attach the mailbox to the new user go into Exchange System Manager find the mailbox under mailboxes in the information store (you will notice the de-attached mailbox has a red circle with a cross thru it) then select reconnect, now specify the new account (ie Domain\username or username@domainname.com). after RUS has run the mailbox should be connected to the new account.

Let me know how you go with this.

Regards 

---

Ben Hoffman
Microsoft MVP - Windows Server System Exchange

Hi Ben;
Thanks a bunch for the solution.
It worked perfectly and even retained the security rights for the others that need to access this shared mailbox.

The only issue I had was that I had to wait until the next day to see the mailbox as detached in the ESM.
I tried to manually tell the system to update but didn't get the red circle until the next day.  
The RUS looks like it is set to always update.
What is the proper way to manually run the RUS so I can make things happen sooner.
I have found a code script that you can create and run (article 306866) but shouldn't this be able to be done at the server in the software?

Thanks again!
Pat Hanson

---

phanson

Hi Pat

One thing I forgot to mention, which will cause the mailboxe/s to associate straight away.

In Exchange System Manager navigate down to your information store right click Mailboxes and click "Run Cleanup Agent"

Regards

---

Ben Hoffman
Microsoft MVP - Windows Server System Exchange

Where is the information store that I need to right click mailboxes on?

Will

For Exchange 2003 in Exchange System Manager navigate to

<Exchange Org Name> (Exchange) | Administrative Groups | <Site Name> | Servers | <Server Name> First Storage Group <or different if you have named differntly> | Mailbox Store (ServerName) | Mailboxes

Regards