[Off Topic] Backing Up Exchange Mailboxes for Individual Recov

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1
Woohoo !!! What did I win??

Dan Tisone
IS / IT Consultant
dan.tisone@...
(949) 440-3685 x148
Cel (714) 227-4173




-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Anderson [mailto:tanderson@...]
Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 11:24 AM
To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
Cc: 'bmyers@...'
Subject: [Vantage] [Off Topic] Backing Up Exchange Mailboxes for
Individual Recovery - The Solution


My thanks to every one who replied to this thread!

The winner is Dan Tisone for pointing me in the right direction.

MS provides a utility called EXMERGE.EXE. With Exchange-2000 it's on
the CD
with Exchange. ( Exmerge-V-2000 ) For Exchange V 5.5 you need
EXMERGE-V-3.7
which is NOT on the CD. If you need this older version let me know and
I'll
see what I can do.

There is a EXMERGE.DOC with the utility that contains 64 pages of
excellent
program documentation.

This utility is really designed to export from one Exchange server so
you
can then import into another. For instance, when upgrading from V 5.5
to V
2000.

But that's not exactly what I had in mind ...

Installation and procedure:

* Copy EXMERGE.EXE + EXMERGE.INI to your Exchange Server - save in
C:\EXCHSRVR\BIN\ folder.

* On you email server - via Explorer - double click on EXMERGE. It's
all
menu driven. What you want it to do is export ALL mailboxes to a folder
on
the server as PST files - one mailbox is 1 pst file. As you go through
the
dialog boxes and set up the options there is a point where you can click
SAVE and your settings will be saved to the EXMERGE.INI file.

This is very straight forward. In our case 80 mailboxes generated 2.3
gig
of PST files. Note: The first time I ran it the runtime was 1 hr 15
min.
The second time I ran it was 5 minutes because it only changes what's
different.

You can also run this utility from a BAT file using
"C:\EXCHSRVR\BIN\EXMERGE.EXE -B" in which case it uses the INI file to
determine what it should be doing.

Once setup ... I changed the BAT file that I use to run the NTBACKUP
command
to include EXMERGE Prior to the backup.

Result - All mailboxes are saved to tape nightly as PST files and EACH
mailbox can be restored WITHOUT restoring ALL of Exchange. We keep
daily
tapes for 2 weeks, weekly tapes for 8 weeks, monthly tapes for 6 months,
yearly tapes for ever.

Final note - If you aren't familiar with PST files. You could restore a
PST
file from tape for one mailbox. Then copy that PST file to the client
PC's
"C-drive". From Outlook you can IMPORT from a PST file. When you do so
you
can specify a specific folder within the mailbox you want to restore and
you
can restore that folder to an alternate location. IE. Restore
'VANTAGE-EMAIL' to "VANTAGE-EMAIL-OLD" ...



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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
2
Yup... just did that the weekend before last to migrate 50 users from Exchange 5.5 on an old NT-SBS server to Ex2K on a new Win2K active directory server. One gotcha we (the consultant and I) had not expected was the need to enter a very long and cryptic case sensitive password to restore each .PST - Twice! Think CD-Key code on MS apps install but with upper and lower case and masked entry (****). Restoring one would not be too bad but 50 got tedious. Not sure if the password thing was a standard process or influenced by our changing domain names in the migration. A password CSV type file was created automatically as PST.PASSWORD. It took us awhile to figure out that the password had to be entered twice on the import. For awhile we thought we were just mistyping it the first time everytime we entered it. And it would not allow pasting so it had to be typed in.

But I can see where it would be very worthwhile "just in case" a single user had to be restored.

-Todd C.

-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Anderson [mailto:tanderson@...]
Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 1:24 PM
To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
Cc: 'bmyers@...'
Subject: [Vantage] [Off Topic] Backing Up Exchange Mailboxes for Individual Recovery - The Solution


My thanks to every one who replied to this thread!

The winner is Dan Tisone for pointing me in the right direction.

MS provides a utility called EXMERGE.EXE. With Exchange-2000 it's on the CD
with Exchange. ( Exmerge-V-2000 ) For Exchange V 5.5 you need EXMERGE-V-3.7
which is NOT on the CD. If you need this older version let me know and I'll
see what I can do.

There is a EXMERGE.DOC with the utility that contains 64 pages of excellent
program documentation.

This utility is really designed to export from one Exchange server so you
can then import into another. For instance, when upgrading from V 5.5 to V
2000.

But that's not exactly what I had in mind ...

Installation and procedure:

* Copy EXMERGE.EXE + EXMERGE.INI to your Exchange Server - save in
C:\EXCHSRVR\BIN\ folder.

* On you email server - via Explorer - double click on EXMERGE. It's all
menu driven. What you want it to do is export ALL mailboxes to a folder on
the server as PST files - one mailbox is 1 pst file. As you go through the
dialog boxes and set up the options there is a point where you can click
SAVE and your settings will be saved to the EXMERGE.INI file.

This is very straight forward. In our case 80 mailboxes generated 2.3 gig
of PST files. Note: The first time I ran it the runtime was 1 hr 15 min.
The second time I ran it was 5 minutes because it only changes what's
different.

You can also run this utility from a BAT file using
"C:\EXCHSRVR\BIN\EXMERGE.EXE -B" in which case it uses the INI file to
determine what it should be doing.

Once setup ... I changed the BAT file that I use to run the NTBACKUP command
to include EXMERGE Prior to the backup.

Result - All mailboxes are saved to tape nightly as PST files and EACH
mailbox can be restored WITHOUT restoring ALL of Exchange. We keep daily
tapes for 2 weeks, weekly tapes for 8 weeks, monthly tapes for 6 months,
yearly tapes for ever.

Final note - If you aren't familiar with PST files. You could restore a PST
file from tape for one mailbox. Then copy that PST file to the client PC's
"C-drive". From Outlook you can IMPORT from a PST file. When you do so you
can specify a specific folder within the mailbox you want to restore and you
can restore that folder to an alternate location. IE. Restore
'VANTAGE-EMAIL' to "VANTAGE-EMAIL-OLD" ...



Yahoo! Groups Sponsor

ADVERTISEMENT
<http://rd.yahoo.com/M=241773.2861422.4212389.1925585/D=egroupweb/S=1705007183:HM/A=1394045/R=0/*http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/pac_ctnt/text/0,,HGTV_3936_5802,FF.html> HGTV Dream Home Giveaway
<http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=241773.2861422.4212389.1925585/D=egroupmail/S=:HM/A=1394045/rand=853877070>

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]