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" ...
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" ...