ExchangeBlog » Articles

Category Archives: Articles

Stellar EDB to PST converter – review

  By Remigiusz Szatkowski | 10/01/2014 - 16:06 |
2 Comments

All Microsoft Exchange servers administrators sometimes have to restore mailbox database.

When you restore database you will get .edb file which can be mounted in Exchange Server and then you can use PowerShell console to restore emails, notes, contacts, one mailbox or more and etc.

But sometimes you just have to restore mailbox database to find an email in one mailbox or to get all mailbox data which is no longer available in Exchange environment, or you just want to export mailbox or mailboxes to .PST file or .MSG, .EML files.

Then you can use some tools.

This time I will describe Stellar Phoenix EDB to PST Converter

You can download this tool from Stellar Phoenix website

www.stellarservertools.com/exchange-edb-pst-converter.php

Using Stellar EDB to PST Converter you can:

  • Facilitates online as well as offline EDB to PST Conversion
  • Flexible options to convert online EDB files: ‘PST’, ‘MSG’, ‘EML’
  • Converts PUB.EDB file to Outlook PST in offline mode
  • Preview of emails, contacts, notes, attachments, and calendar
  • Compatible with Windows 8 and supports MS Office (64 bit)

Installation is very simple, just download EDB to PST Converter and run it.

To use this tool you need to install also Microsoft Office on the same workstation where you have installed EDB to PST Converter.

When you start Stellar EDB to PST Converter you will get window where you can choose one of two mode:

  • Convert Online EDB to PST 
    The software converts online Exchange Server databases to PST files to make sure the conversion is least likely to impact Exchange users. Exchange administrators with full privileges for each mailbox can export all user mailboxes to PST files in a single attempt.
  • Convert Offline EDB to PST
    The EDB PST Converter is equipped to perform EDB to PST conversion in offline mode, i.e. when the Exchange database is taken offline. The software enables administrators to provide users access to mailbox data in times of planned or unplanned Exchange Server downtime. Also in those mode you can convert Public Folders database to PST.

First you need to activate Converter to do this, select either ‘Convert Online EDB To PST’ or ‘Convert Offline EDB To PST’ to open user interface, next click ‘Activate’ menu on the menu bar and select either ‘Activate Online’ or ‘Activate Manual’ from the drop down menu.

stellar1

 

When you select Convert Online EDB to PST then you can connect to your Exchange Server.

stellar2

 

You can select one mailbox or you can connect to all mailboxes on server.

Remember you need to have full access permission to mailboxes which you want to connect.

Converter connect to mailbox or mailboxes really fast, but it depends on how many mailboxes you have on Exchange server.

Also when you select connect to all mailboxes on server sometimes you can see Mailboxes with status Disconnected.

There may be more than one reasons for disconnected mailbox. If mailboxes are disconnected because they do not have ‘Mailbox Rights’, you can grant ‘Mailbox Rights’ to disconnected mailboxes.

Next you can select folder from folder tree in connected mailbox and then you will see all messages in those folder.
How fast messages will be loaded it depends on how many messages are in this folder.

stellar3

Now you can export one or more emails to .MSG or .EML file or you can export whole mailbox to .PST file or separate .MSG, .EML files.

stellar4

In Stellar EDB to PST Converter windows you can see message body and attachment but you can’t open attachment.

Another option in Stellar Phoenix EDB to PST Converter is to run it to work with offline EDB file.

So start Converter, and choose Convert Offline EDB to PST

In new window you can select .EDB file and select Exchange Server version.

stellar5

Next just click Start.

Converter will scan mailbox database .EDB file and will show you all mailboxes which this file contain.

This porocess will take some time.

Next you can export mailboxes to .PST file like before in online mode.

Advantages of Stellar EDB to PST Converter:

  • User-friendly and secure software.
  • Small tool easy and fast to install
  • Converts ‘Online’ Exchange database (EDB) to PST file(s).
  • Converts ‘Offline’ Exchange database (EDB) to PST file(s).
  • Supports PUB.EDB files for ‘Offline’ conversion.
  • Selective conversion of user mailboxes to PST file(s).
  • Supports MS Office 2000, 2003, 2007, and 2010.
  • Supports MS Exchange Server 5.5 / 2000 / 2003 / 2007 / 2010.
  • Provides preview of mailboxes and mailbox items such as – ‘Emails’, ‘Contacts’, ‘Calendar’, ‘Notes’, ‘Attachments’, ‘Sent items’ etc.
  • Compatible with Windows XP / 2003 / Vista / Windows 7/ Windows 8.

Little disadvantages:

  • you must add necessary access to mailbox for user who run Converter
  • Exchange 2013 is not supported

This tool looks good and it works. All Microsoft Exchange server administrators need tool like this to open and export mailboxes from .EDB file.

This is your choice which tool to use and how much you can pay for it.

More informations about Stellar Phoenix EDB to PST Converter you can find on Stellar Phoenix website:

stellarservertools.com

 

Print Friendly

SysTools Exchange Recovery – product review

  By Remigiusz Szatkowski | 09/12/2013 - 15:01 | ,
Leave a comment

Exchange server is a centralized unit that contains emails, contacts, shared folders and many more user database necessary for communication in collaboration with Outlook and POP3 websites.  Once Exchange – Outlook environment is established then you will receive emails in Outlook user account and it gives the access of emails in your desktop even being away from Exchange connection. But what if you are away from your machine? – Thankfully, through the Outlook Web Access facility user can access emails and other data in Exchange server anytime from any web browser. This is the instant method to access mailbox data till user is part of the Exchange- Outlook environment, but once detached from it there is no way to access those mailbox data. So, in order to keep the track of data that you saved for a life time in Exchange server, it is always suggested to carry the Exchange EDB mailbox data converted in PST format so that whenever and where ever you travel your data will be available just a click away from import it to Outlook.

SysTools® Exchange Recovery software serves user to save their Exchange server mailbox data thus it is suggested get the tool to convert EDB mailbox to PST as it is easy to use, technically advance format to work error free and also facilitated with multiple features. Other than the benefit to convert EDB to PST in terms of carrying mailbox data along with, there are multiple other situations that suggest the help of SysTools Exchange server Recovery software, some of them are listed below:

Resolve EDB Mailbox Corruption: EDB mailbox corruption issues are common trouble that force user to get Exchange Recovery like third party software solutions because the inbuilt applications with Exchange server such as ExMerge utility, Eseutil.exe and Isinteg.exe etc fail to resolve most of the corruption issues if the ratio of corruption reported is high. Both logical and physical corruption issues in turn harm the normal accessing of Exchange mailbox data and in this case the best solution is to run SysTools® Exchange Recovery software and recover EDB to healthy format or selected file type.

Transfer Exchange EDB to New Server Version- Exchange server is been updated time to time by Microsoft® for the improvised user experience and hence the latest edition Exchange 2010 version is here with much user friendly attributes and several options to manage the mailbox data in a much systematic way.  To transfer EDB mailbox from the existing server version say Exchange 2007 or 2003, user can get the help of Exchange Recovery software as it provide provision for the easy conversion of EDB mailbox data to Exchange server  mailbox data even when the EDB is inaccessible/corrupted or damaged.

What User Can Acquire By Working with SysTools® Exchange Recovery Tool?

SysTools® Exchange Recovery software can be an all-rounder solution for many issues that surrounds EDB mailbox database. Tool successfully resolves EDB corruption issues, EDB mount/unmount troubles, EDB migration needs, Exchange server downtime leading to EDB file inaccessibility, change in work environment from Exchange- Outlook to non Exchange, and demand to access EDB data under different email platforms like Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird etc as software brings the option to scan, recover and convert EDB mailbox data to PST, Exchange EDB server database, EML and MSG formats.

Powerful Attributes of SysTools® Exchange Recovery Software

Exchange Recovery software gives the extended support for user to resolve the error messages like “Error 1216 (Jet_errAttachedDatabaseMismatch) or Error 0xfffffb40”and many. The successful data conversion from EDB mailbox is possible because of the user friendly features the tool hold, such as:

  • Recover mailbox items from Priv.edb as well as Pub.edb folders
  • Single/batch conversion of EDB mailbox to PST, EML, MSG or Exchange server database.
  • From priv.stm and pub.stm media files can be extracted.
  • Emails, email attachment, contacts, Task and all other data can be recovered.
  • Deleted, compressed and encrypted mailbox data also can be recovered.
  • Large/small, corrupted/healthy, inaccessible/damaged EDB file can be recovered.
  • Email metadata retained even after bulk migration carried out.
  • EDB mailbox migration process report saved as CSV.

What is New in SysTools® Exchange Recovery Version 4.5?

With the release of version 4.5, SysTools® Exchange Recovery tool have become the feature rich solution to approach any kind of database migration or recovery related issues under Exchange- Outlook environment.

  • Recover and convert Exchange mailbox to different file types as:
  • EDB to PST, EDB to Exchange server database, EDB to EML and EDB to MSG
  • Option to split PST if PST file exceeds size limit.
  • Convert EDB to EML or MSG format with naming convention to for easy management.
  • Advance scanning option for accurate Exchange server mailbox recovery.
  • Rich algorithm to detect STM file automatically for lower version of EDB files and if it is in different location then file browse and locate facility is activated.
  • For EDB to Outlook 2013 conversion, extended support to Outlook 2013 version also.
  • Provision to preview email body as well as email attachment of file formats like PDF, DOCX/DOC, PPT/PPTX, image formats etc.

Offer to Try Free Version

As a trial run user can work with the free version of SysTools® Exchange Recovery software that can affirm the confidence of working with purchased version of the software. Free version is activated to work exactly like the full version allowing user to export 25 items per EDB folder to be desired file format for free. Try the demo first and then get the full version purchased with added confidence of experience in EDB mailbox recovery process.

System Requirements

  • Processor- 1GHz Processor (Recommended 2.4GHZ)
  • RAM- 1GB
  • Disk Space- 7.5 MB of free hard disk space
  • MS Outlook (any version) Installation is necessary.
  • Win OS- Win 8 to any version of Windows supported (64 and 32 bit)

 

Exchange Recovery Version- 4.5 How it Works

Follow the screen shots given to know more about how SysTools® Exchange Recovery software works to resolve the corruption/inaccessibility issues with EDB mailbox. The support to the Exchange 2013 and Outlook 2013 version make it a complete solution for the users of any version of Outlook. Users can enjoy the multiple options to convert EDB database once the scanning and recovery of EDB file are done. To know more, follow the screen below:

Download the software and run it from the default path which can be viewed as:

Start>> All Programs>> SysTools® Exchange Recovery>> SysTools® Exchange Recovery

First Screen – The software interface looks similar to that of MS Outlook, so the first screen itself will give the confidence of easy process execution of EDB recovery.

Add File- Click on the Add File option provided to add EDB file to the tool

 

systools01

 

Browse EDB- EDB file can be browsed and located on any Win OS that run the tool.

[Note: The option to browse EDB file will automate the browsing process of STM file in case if the lower version of Exchange is involved. In case if the STM file is saved in any other location, user can manually browse and load it.]

systools02

Locate and Open EDB- Locate EDB file in the system location and then confirm the selection with the option to Open

systools03

 

Select Scan Mode- Once the EDB file is loaded, the path of the file will be shown. Move to scan EDB file selecting mode of scanning from 2 options provided as:

  • Quick Scan: Fast recovery of EDB files( for minor corruption issues)
  • Advance Scan: Deep scanning for accurate EDB file recovery (for tough corruption)

systools04

Add File to Start Scanning- Select the scanning mode and then click ADD file and start the process of EDB file scanning

systools05

 

Get Notification- Once the EDB file scanning is done get the notification for successful scanning done, Click OK

Preview Emails- Emails and other data from the EDB file that is scanned can be previewed here. Two views of data is provided for emails as:

  • Normal View: Email body content and header portion can be viewed
  • Attachment View: Email attachment can be previewed.

systools06

 

Switch View- According to the user convenience the mode of preview can be changed as:

  • Horizontal View: Get the email content displayed horizontally.
  • Vertical View: Vertically view the email body and attachment content.

systools07

Export Mailbox- Select particular email from the preview list and right click to export it.

systools08

Select Export Type – Make selection for the conversion of EDB mailbox from the options as PST, EML, MSG or Exchange mailbox

  • Select PST- If user select PST file option to convert EDB file then the option to Split PST will also be activated.
  • Select EML or MSG – By selecting the option to export EDB as EML or MSG user get the facility to name the file accordingly before saving it.
  • Select Exchange- To import EDB to Exchange mailbox data, select Exchange option and validate the conversion giving an Exchange mailbox name.

systools09

 

Start Export- Once the file type and customization options are confirmed, user can export the EDB file to the file type selected. Click Export

systools10

 

Confirm Migration- Once successful migration of EDB file is done, get the message confirmed selecting OK

systools11

Export Report- Once the process of Exchange mailbox conversion is carried out successfully into the desired file format, get the process report. Click Save to retain report in CSV format for future reference.

systools12

 

Note: If user select the option to export EDB to Exchange mailbox, then there are further steps need to be concluded, which is in the CHM file attached with the tool.

 

Conclusion: SysTools Exchange EDB Recovery version 4.5 serves as best option to face the EDB file corruption or migration situations, even when the default solution fails to perform it. With an investment of just $299, one can resolve the Exchange mailbox related troubles and get the database in the format they desire among the options as Outlook PST, EML, MSG or Exchange mailbox data.

 

 

Print Friendly

Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery

  By Remigiusz Szatkowski | 20/08/2013 - 10:02 |
Leave a comment

In Microsoft Exchange Server environment without CCR cluster or DAG yours databases are not protected enough.
During Exchange Server damage you can lost your databases or those databases can be corrupted after damage.

To recover corrupted database you can try to use Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery.

Below we present product review:

 

Introduction

There is always some room for unpredictable behavior when it comes down to managing MS Exchange Server databases. The primary goal of managing these databases is ensuring database availability so that users can get what is required in a timely fashion. Surprisingly, you have to deal with the reality that corruption may creep in your system anytime and disrupt the services for an invariable length of time. Stellar Phoenix Exchange Mailbox Recovery comes in handy at the same time providing you a simple solution to repair the corrupt Exchange databases and ensure continuous uptime of Exchange data. The software helps Exchange administrators handle the most serious scenarios of database corruption and resume normal activity in no time.

Continue reading →

Print Friendly

Remove Team Calendar from Outlook

  By Łukasz Giemzik | 22/02/2013 - 11:33 | , ,
Leave a comment

Outlook 2010 introduced a new feature:  Team Callendar.  Team Calendar is created automatically  based  on fields ‘Manager’ , ‘Direct Reports’ from AD.

Organization

 

Automatic configuration of this feature is very convenient. The problem appears when you do not want to see these calendars in Outlook. So we’ll have a little work.

 

Disable Team Calendar for single user

For single user simply disable this feature directly in Outlook. Expand ‘Calendar Groups‘ and deselect ‘Show Team Calendar‘, ‘Show Manager’s Team Calendar‘.

 

kal4

 

 

If we want to avoid user’s ability to manage these functions and permamently disable feature we can use Registry Editor.

So fire up regedit and create folowing  DWORD key:

Continue reading →

Print Friendly

Exchange 2010 Database size growing problem

  By Remigiusz Szatkowski | 18/10/2012 - 03:03 | , , ,
3 Comments

 

When you have Microsoft Exchange 2010 environment you can have problem with Exchange database size growing.

This is common problem and mostly caused by Exchange 2010 mailbox dumpster.

But if you have problem with mailbox databases backup, then all items deleted by users and all deleted mailboxes will not be purged until backup will end successful.

If you check size of all mailboxes in Exchange 2010 mailbox database, the sum of mailboxes can be less than mailbox database size. Yes we know that mailbox database has AvailableNewMailboxSpace but you can check that sum of mailboxes size and size of mailbox database white space can be also less then size of .edb file.

You can find informations how to reduce Exchange database size by moving all mailboxes from database to new one, or to dismount database and use Eseutil to defragment mailbox database. You can also find all disconnected mailboxes in database and purge them.

We wrote about this in post:
Microsoft Exchange 2010 how to reduce the size of the database

You can find information on Microsoft Support Website An Exchange Server 2010 database store grows unexpectedly large that if you want to stop mailbox database unexpected growth you need to install Rollup 1 for Microsoft Exchange 2010 SP2.

Unexpected growth of Exchange 2010 mailbox database can be caused by using:

  • using jurnaling mailbox in Exchange 2010 environment
  • using a third-party email message archival system

This issue can occur if the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service does not remove the deleted messages from the database.

Unfortunatelly when you use third-party email message archival system like Symantec Enterprise Vault, all emails moved to archive are deleted from user mailbox but they still remain in dumpster.

When you install Rollup 1 for Exchange 2010 SP2 it will probably fix this problem but it will fix only problem with new data added to archive but not clean the dirty pages or whitespace from preexisisting databases. 

More information you can find on Symantec Support Website:
Archiving of an Exchange 2010 database does not generate the expected amount of re-usable whitespace

 

How to resolve Exchange 2010 database growth:

 

When you apply Rollup 1 for Exchange 2010 SP2 you need to check few mailbox databases properties to make sure that all retentions and Quotas are configured properly.

To check Exchange 2010 mailbox database items retention like Mailbox, Deleted items and EventHistoryRetention you need to run Exchange Mangement Shell (EMS) with command:

Continue reading →

Print Friendly

IMCEAEX i NDR

  By Łukasz Giemzik | 11/10/2012 - 16:55 | , ,
Leave a comment

This problem is not common but quite annoying and usually hard to understood by users.

In most cases problem occurs If you remove mailbox and re-create it with the same AD account , for an example after firing and  re-hiring of the employee after some time.

It also occurs after migrations.

When user sends an email to a recipient, to which earlier messages was delivered without any problem. Sudennly gets an Non Delivery Report with this content:

Delivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists:: 

Test User

The recipient's e-mail address was not found in the recipient's e-mail system. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for you. Please check the e-mail address and try resending this message, or provide the following diagnostic text to your system administrator..

Diagnostic information for administrators: 

Generating server: server01.exchange

IMCEAEX_O=Company_OU=EXCHANGE+20ADMINISTRATIVE+20GROUP+20+28FYDIBOHF23SPDLT29_CN=RECIPIENTS_CN=user@xxx.xx
#550 5.1.1 RESOLVER.ADR.ExRecipNotFound; not found ##

And now the question is: Why?

Continue reading →

Print Friendly

Exchange 2010 database create free space (white space)

  By Remigiusz Szatkowski | 10/10/2012 - 06:06 | , , ,
1 Comment

 

Every mailbox database in Exchange 2010 has white space. It’s free space which can be used before .edb file will grow.

Sometimes we need to create free space in database right now if we want to avoid of growing of .edb file.

To get free space in mailbox database we can do the following:

  • move few mailboxes from mailbox database to other mailbox database
  • purge disabled mailboxes
  • purge soft-deleted mailboxes

 

Exchange 2010 check AvailableNewMailboxSpace (white space) in database:

We can check available white space for new mailboxes in mailbox databases using powershell like below:

Get-MailboxDatabase -server MBX1 | select Name, DatabaseSize, AvailableNewMailboxSpace

or if we want to check only one mailbox database:

Get-MailboxDatabase DB01 | select Name, DatabaseSize, AvailableNewMailboxSpace

 

If we want to see all disabled mailboxes (disabled today) in database we have to wait for scheduled Cleanup Agent or we can run it from powershell:

Get-MailboxDatabase -server MBX1 | Clean-MailboxDatabase

When we run above command, all mailboxes disabled today, will be marked as disabled and we can find them in Disconnected Mailboxes.

 

Exchange 2010 list disabled mailboxes:

We can get informations about disabled mailboxes to know how much space we will get when we purge disabled or soft-deleted mailboxes.

To list all disabled mailboxes in all mailbox databases in server MBX1 run:

Continue reading →

Print Friendly

Remove specific messages from Exchange 2010 Server

  By Remigiusz Szatkowski | 03/10/2012 - 05:05 | , ,
Leave a comment

 

Sometimes Exchange administrator need to remove messages that fit specific criteria from large number of mailboxes or from Exchange transport queues.

Removing messages from Exchange mailboxes:

To perform remove message operation from mailboxes, in Exchange 2010 RBAC Mailbox Export Import role must be assigned to the admin account. To remove messages from Exchange 2010 mailboxes we will use Search-Mailbox cmdlet.

Account used to export data from mailboxes must be:

  • an Exchange Server Administrator
  • member of local Administrators group of target server
  • Full Access permission assigned to the mailboxes

 

To add RBAC role to user Admin:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Role “Mailbox Import Export” –User “Admin”

 

Sometimes you will need to add necessary permissions for user Admin to all mailboxes, then we can use:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited | Add-MailboxPermissions -User Admin -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType all

After completed removing operations, we have to remove this permissions like below:

Get-Mailbox -ResultSize unlimited |Remove-MailboxPermissions -User Admin -AccessRights FullAccess -InheritanceType all

 

To search all messages with specified subject like “Important Message” of all mailboxes on server MBX1 we have to use example like below:

Get-Mailbox -Server  "MBX1" -ResultSize Unlimited | Search-Mailbox -SearchQuery 'Subject:"*Important Message*" -targetmailbox "*SearchMailbox*" -targetfolder "*SearchFolder*" -logonly -loglevel full

Continue reading →

Print Friendly

Exchange 2010 quota warning messages issue

  By Remigiusz Szatkowski | 01/10/2012 - 06:06 | , ,
Leave a comment

 

In Microsoft Exchange 2010 environments, Exchange sends a quota message to mailbox owners when mailbox size exceeds:

  • IssueWarningQuota – the lowest storage quota
  • ProhibitSendQuota – the middle storage quota
  • ProhibitSendReceiveQuota – the highest storage quota

 

All Quotas limits can be configured at mailbox or database level.

We can define time when messages are sent by specifying QuotaNotificationSchedule for Mailbox Database.

 

If we want to check QuotaNotificationSchedule use:

Get-MailboxDatabase | select name, QuotaNotificationSchedule

Continue reading →

Print Friendly

Exchange 2010 Queues export, resubmit messages

  By Remigiusz Szatkowski | 28/09/2012 - 06:17 | , ,
Leave a comment

Sometimes in your Microsoft Exchange environment you can experience a problem with HUB or Edge Transport servers, when often messages stuck in Queues.

When you resolve problem with any Exchange server, sometimes it takes few minutes for Exchange to resubmit all emails, time depends on how many messages are in queues.

Until messages have one of the below status, we can manually resubmit them to the Exchange Submission Queue if queue hasn’t Suspended state:

  • mailbox Delivery queues or Remote delivery queues with status Retry
  • emails in Unreachable queue
  • emails in Poison queue

 

To manually resubmit messages in queues, you can use the following methods:

  • use the Retry-Queue cmdlet with parameter -Resubmit
  • export messages from queue to .eml message files and resubmit them by placing in the Replay directory. For Exchange 2010 default location:
    C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\TransportRoles\Replay
  • open Queue Viewer or Resume-Message cmdlet to resubmit messages in poison message queue.

 

Exchange 2010 export message copy from Queue:

Continue reading →

Print Friendly