Moving Exchange Public Folders from one server to another used to entail a fairly time-consuming process of opening the property sheet for EACH public folder, setting its replication properties, waiting for replication, and then removing the source replica. This was mitigated somewhat by the ability to propagate settings to subfolders. If you were really savvy, you moved all subfolders underneath one top-level folder, made the adjustment, and then moved them back. Even so, it was a labor-intensive, time-consuming process.

So we all cheered mightily when Exchange 2003 SP2 brought us the capability to right-click the Public Folder Store and Move All Replicas. However, this euphoria was short-lived for me. I found that this process often did not move all of the data.

Well, I was missing one important piece of information: Do not dismount the database! If the source database is dismounted before all its contents are moved, you have to tell it to move the replicas again. A dismount of the database creates the system folders again and blocks removal of Public Folder instances in the database.

I suspect that in my impatience to get on with the migration, I most likely made some other changes that required a reboot (which dismounts the database), and my public folder migration was interrupted. I just assumed that, like any other Exchange replication process, it would pick up where it left off when the store came back up.

That being said, I still highly recommend that you take a good backup of the Public Folders to PST before you use this method, just in case. Getting at the Public Folders to restore/verify data after an Exchange migration can be very time consuming if you didn’t export them to PST. It’s time well spent.

One additional tidbit: Make sure you set the public folder replication interval in the Public Folder Store properties. By default, the replication values are empty in the UI. I’m not sure if they are really not set in the software, but I always go in there and click the “defaults” button, or set the values I want.

Tags: Exchange, Migration, Public Folder Replication, Replicas

You can configure a setting called “SCL” (Spam Confidence Level) in the SMSMSE console. This corresponds to a setting in the Intelligent Message Filter in MS Exchange System Manager. Using these two settings, you can more finely control which messages get sent to the Junk E-mail folder based on Symantec’s rating of the message.

Changing the Store Action Threshold in Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange:
Grabbed from here.

Question/Issue:
This page describes how to control the Store Action Threshold (SAT) in Microsoft Exchange 2003. The SAT works with the Spam Confidence Level (SCL) that you specify in Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange to determine which messages are sent to the users’ Junk E-mail folders. By default, the SAT value is null. The null SAT forces all messages with an SCL value of 1 or greater to the user’s Junk E-Mail folder. You installed one of the following versions: -Symantec Mail Security 4.6 for Microsoft Exchange -Symantec Mail Security 4.5 for Microsoft Exchange -Symantec Mail Security 5.0 for Microsoft Exchange
Solution:
To change the Store Action Threshold

In the Exchange System Manager window, in the left pane, under Global Settings, right-click Message Delivery -> Properties.
In the Properties dialog box, on the Intelligent Message Filtering tab, on the Store Junk E-mail Configuration drop-down list, click the appropriate level.
Click OK.
Close the Exchange System Manager window.
——————————————————————————–
Note: You cannot set the store threshold higher than the gateway threshold.

After you have configured the global settings in the Message Delivery area, you need to enable Intelligent Message Filtering on the Default SMTP Virtual Server properties. Intelligent Message Filtering is installed by default as part of Exchange SP2, but it is not enabled. To enable it:

In the Default SMTP Virtual Server properties, on the General tab, click Advanced.
Select the IP address (or “All Unassigned” and click the Edit button.
Check the box for “Apply Intelligent Message Filter” and click OK.

If you want to verify the SCL rating on a message in Outlook, here is how to do it. This article was written for Outlook 2003. It will probably work in 2007, but the menus will probably be different.

Tags: Exchange, Intelligent Message Filter, Junk E-mail, SCL, Spam, Symantec Mail Security