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Using ExMerge with Exchange 2007

Alexander Zammit

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Software Development Consultant. Involved in the development of various Enterprise software solutions. Today focused on Blockchain and DLT technologies.

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ExMerge does work with Exchange 2007. Even if your Organization is exclusively composed of Exchange 2007 boxes, ExMerge can be employed to import to and export from PSTs.

Up to Exchange 2003, ExMerge was widely regarded as one of the most popular applications within the Exchange Tools arsenal. Thus many were surprised to find that Exchange 2007 did not immediately include an ExMerge update. Instead, an alternative providing similar functionality was scheduled for inclusion with Exchange 2007 SP1. This fueled a little uproar, with some considering this omission a valid reason for postponing Exchange 2007 adoption.

The truth is that ExMerge does work with Exchange 2007. You don't even need an Exchange 2000/2003 server within the Organization! Today I will show you how to get ExMerge working both in case of an upgrade from Exchange 2000/2003 and in case of a fresh Exchange 2007 installation.

Initial ExMerge Installation Steps

In Meeting the ExMerge Requirements, we installed ExMerge on Windows XP/2000 to run against Exchange 2000/2003. The procedure for Exchange 2007 is very similar and I will refer you to various parts of this article.

In earlier Exchange versions it was possible to run ExMerge directly on the Exchange server machine. However this is not the case with Exchange 2007. Here we will employ the ExMerge included with the Exchange 2003 Tools and this cannot be mixed with Exchange 2007. Thus we will again install ExMerge on a separate Windows XP machine.

There is nothing new with the installation of ExMerge itself. We can simply follow the steps described in Meeting the ExMerge Requirements. Just read through the first page of this article including the headings Installing the Exchange System Management Tools and Install ExMerge. Yes we need to install the Exchange 200x System Management Tools. Although we don't need a running Exchange 2000/2003 server this component is necessary to satisfy the ExMerge dependencies.

I performed this procedure on a fresh domain where no earlier Exchange version was ever installed. Because of this on installing the System Management Tools a warning popped reporting that the Schema was never extended for Exchange 2003. If you get this just ignore it.

Exchange 2003 Schema Warning

Configuring Permissions

Following the installation, the user account to be running ExMerge must be assigned the necessary rights. Here is where the procedure differs from that described in our earlier article. We still need to delegate the user with 'Exchange View Only Administrator' role. We also need to give the user SendAs and ReceiveAs permissions over the mailbox store. However these steps must now be done on the Exchange 2007 box.

So here are the steps taken from Meeting the ExMerge Requirements but updated for Exchange 2007:

  1. On the XP/2000 Pro machine the user account only requires to be a Standard User (Power User Group).

  2. To set the rights, at the server we first create a security group to hold all user accounts running ExMerge. We will call this group ExMerge to be consistent with the MS support articles. Once created, add the user account(s) to its membership list.

    Note: At this stage it is easier to work with accounts that have no Administrative role in Exchange. This helps us avoid hitting into issues related to permission inheritance that too often cause confusion.

  3. At the Exchange Server, delegate 'Exchange View Only Administrator' control to the newly created security group.

    Unless we do this, ExMerge would fail on enumerating the private information stores and would return an error saying: "Error getting list of private information store databases on server..."

    Error getting list of private information store databases on server

    1. Open the Exchange 2007 Management Console and select 'Organization Configuration'

      Organization Configuration

    2. At the right-hand Action pane, click on 'Add Exchange Administrator'

      Add Exchange Administrator
    3. Click on Browse to select the ExMerge security group.

    4. Select 'Exchange View-Only Administrator role' as the role to be assigned.

    5. Complete the wizard and ExMerge will now be added to the list of administrators.

    Alternatively we could have done all this in a single command-shell step using Add-ExchangeAdministrator as follows:
    Add-ExchangeAdministrator -Identity 'vert.local/Users/ExMerge' -Role 'ViewOnlyAdmin'

    At this point we should be able to logon to the Windows XP machine with the user account intended for running ExMerge. We should be able to open the Exchange System Manager and browse the Exchange organization. In my case I was unable to do this until the Exchange 2007 machine was restarted. However it is worth trying this immediately in order to avoid any downtime. The following screen shots show how the Windows XP ESM looked like before and after the Exchange View-Only Administrator role took effect.

Before View-Only Administrator Role

After View-Only Administrator Role

  1. Next we give the ExMerge security group SendAs and ReceiveAs permissions on the Mailbox Store. We do this from the Exchange 2007 Shell through the following command:
    Get-MailboxDatabase -identity "BANG\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database" | Add-ADPermission -user "Vert\ExMerge" -ExtendedRights Receive-As, Send-As

    Here we are piping the results of Get-MailboxDatabase to Add-ADPermission. The database identity was in this case:
    "BANG\First Storage Group\Mailbox Database"

    BANG is the Exchange 2007 server name.

    Add-ADPermission is fed with the account (Vert\ExMerge) for which the extended rights Receive-As and Send-As are to be set.

    Running successfully this command should return:

Add-ADPermission

Final Tips

We are now set to run ExMerge against Exchange 2007. This procedure can be applied to installations where no earlier Exchange version was ever installed. However the Exchange 2000/2003 System Management Tools are still necessary to satisfy the ExMerge dependencies.

Exchange 2007 SP1 will bring the Import-Mailbox and Export-Mailbox cmdlets. These should provide a native ExMerge replacement. Although I can imagine that some will still keep on using ExMerge for its UI. Details on these cmdlets were posted on the MS Exchange Team blog in How to Export and Import mailboxes to PST files in Exchange 2007 SP1.

References

Meeting the ExMerge Requirements

How to Delegate Server Administration

Planning and Implementing a Split Permissions Model

How to Export and Import mailboxes to PST files in Exchange 2007 SP1

User Comments - Page 1 of 1

John Park 15 Oct 2012 05:31
Your best bet is to ExMerge out the data from the source server, and import it into the Exchange 2007 server.

Bear in mind that replies to the imported messages may fail and modifications to old calendar items may not work right because the X500 addresses from the original Exchange install won't be assigned to the mailboxes in the new Exchange install. There are some details about that problem here: http://exchangeserver.tumblr.com/
Axel Culver 30 Aug 2011 04:39
The RTM release of Export-Mailbox was limited to moving messages only from one mailbox to another, but the SP1 release was enhanced to include the Export-to-PST functionality which is familiar to users of ExMerge utility.
Caio Ribeiro Cesar 2 Aug 2011 12:29
You are right "Exchange 2007 SP1 will bring the Import-Mailbox and Export-Mailbox cmdlets."

Thank you.
Alexander Zammit 21 Jul 2011 14:44
@Caio

The article was written before the release of Ex2k7 SP1 which made available that functionality.

Also check out the conclusion
Caio Ribeiro Cesar 21 Jul 2011 05:44
Not supported. If you wan't to use ExMerge features, Ex2k7 has cmdlets prepared for that:

Restore-Mailbox
Export-Mailbox
Import-Mailbox

Best Regards
Caio
Kashif Baig 7 Jun 2011 02:23
I want to purge (Deleted emails) user's folders in outlook 2003, How ?

Plz Help me....we have enviroment win2k8 server and ms exchange server 2007..

Thanks
Exchange 2010 and ExMerge 13 Apr 2011 02:52
Hi, is there any idea how to configure Exchange 2010 to work with ExMerge. Thanks
Ksw1 31 Jan 2011 14:56
Followed these instructions on an SBS2008 / Exchange 2007 SP-2 box and successfully exported .pst files! Note - When configuring exmerge security group, make sure it is set as a "global" group. Thanks for the great post!
Pmicken 5 Aug 2010 15:10
I tried following your istructions for adding a new group with permissions for running exmerge against Exchange 2007. I am still not able to get a list of mailboxes on the database. Do you have any other advice on getting exmerge working with 07.

[16:56:35] Error opening message store (EMS). Verify that the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is running and that you have the correct permissions to log on. - 0x80040111 ( (CMapiSession::GetMailboxesOnServer))
[16:56:35] Error getting list of mailboxes on server 'GONEXMBS'
[16:56:35] Error encountered getting mailbox information from the private information store database(s) on server 'GONEXMBS'. Make sure you have adequate permissions on the Information Store object. Please refer to the 'ExMerge.log' log file for more information.
Rizzo 25 Oct 2009 13:48
Thanks a lot everything worked fine!!!
ITSAM77 1 May 2009 16:48
Everything worked according to your description, but when I import the PST I do get the same error:
Error opening message store (MSEMS). Verify that the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is running and that you have the correct permissions to log on. (0x8004011d)

I wonder whether you can help me?
Thanx
Alexander Zammit 26 Dec 2008 10:57
Yes you can add users to the securty group and they will have the necessary rights.
Evan Camilleri 26 Dec 2008 05:08
Does this mean that all users in the ExMerge security role are now able to see the other users' email???
andreas 19 Nov 2008 05:59
I've tried it with a newly created user but had no luck. I still get the same error in the log file...
Alexander Zammit 19 Nov 2008 02:53
andreas/devraj,

In your case I would create a new user account and restart the procedure from scratch.

With a fresh account it always works for me.
andreas 19 Nov 2008 02:30
I have the same problem as devraj.
devraj 7 Nov 2008 19:33
I followed the instrucitons and I was able to import a few PST's into Exchange 2007. Now, I get a
"Error opening message store (MSEMS). Verify that the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is running and that you have the correct permissions to log on. (0x8004011d)"
I reran the "Get-MailboxDatabase" command and it said I have ACL's.
Can anyone let me know what I am doing incorrect?
Lasse Franck 30 Jun 2008 23:45
Oh, and BTW....
I wonder if you can remove the "Deny" permissions for administrator/administrators/domain admins by using ADSIEdit on the Exchange organization container in AD (or by using PowerShell)....
If so, then the security model of Exchange 2007 is equivalent to the one of Exchange 2003, just without any GUI to control it.
Lasse Franck 30 Jun 2008 23:42
Good article!
A comment: After having assigned permissions to the Information Store, you should either
a) Wait for a loong time while Exchange's miscellaneous caches run out
or
b) Restart the Information Store service
Harry Beekman 28 Feb 2008 05:11
MailMig also works with Exchnage 2007.

See:

http://www.win2kwereld.nl/forum/link.asp?TOPIC_ID=14122

(Dutch)
Alexander Zammit 15 Feb 2008 00:40
Check this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323546
E. Darby 14 Feb 2008 14:14
I'm getting errors when trying to open the mailboxes in ExMerge. Any Ideas?

Error 8007203a opening an LDAP connection. ('LDAP://<exchangeserver>/rootDSE') (CADRoutines::GetNamingContextData)

Error trying to open mailbox object in AD [8007200A] (CN=SystemMailbox{EDB4D8B9-E0BB-41FF-AE42-11D5C2AFB161},CN=Microsoft Exchange System Objects,DC=abc,DC=local) (CADRoutines::GetMailboxesHomedOnExchangeServerDatabases)
Alexander Zammit 9 Feb 2008 01:54
My guess is that something is completely wrong with your setup. I think you should start from scratch (on a different machine with a new user account) and follow the instructions to the letter (without assuming anything).

My experience is that you should see a log file when running ExMerge 2003 and it fails with the DAPI error.

You may also post your problem on:
microsoft.public.exchange.admin

to get a second opinion.

Glenn 8 Feb 2008 13:56
Yes the ExMerge files have been copied to the BIN folder on my workstation and I verified afterwards, no log file gets created after this message.
Alexander Zammit 8 Feb 2008 10:19
You did copy the ExMerge files to the Exchange Bin directory right? If no you should.

Then when you run ExMerge a log file named ExMerge.log should be created in the same dir.
Glenn 8 Feb 2008 08:37
Which log are you referring to, because ExMerge exits out and when I look I noticed it didn't even create the log file. So the only error I have is the popup and my Windows Event log show Event ID 26 with the same error message. Not sure why it thinks I have Exchange 5.5 though...
Alexander Zammit 31 Jan 2008 00:47
DAPI is an Exchange 5.5 (and earlier interface).

If it is insisting in using DAPI then I guess that means it believes you have Ex5.5.

Look further up the log file. It is likely you will find more errors.

Also make sure you did install the Exchange 2003 Management tools.

Glenn 30 Jan 2008 11:26
I am getting the same error of "the application has failed to start because dapi.dll.." even though I am using the ExMerge from Exchange 2003: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=429163ec-dcdf-47dc-96da-1c12d67327d5&displaylang=en
Alexander Zammit 11 Dec 2007 10:20
Yes you must have a public folder store on the Exchange 2007 server.
Marlon peguese 11 Dec 2007 09:11
Do public folders have to be setup for this to work
Alexander Zammit 10 Dec 2007 01:33
It is likely you have the wrong ExMerge version. DAPI is a technology that was supported up to Exchange 5.5. As from Exchange 2000 DAPI was gone.

You have to get the ExMerge version that corresponds to your Exchange version.
Milpo2717 8 Dec 2007 15:26
I am getting a error when running Exmerge that "dapi.dll" is missing. Any ideas? I am running it on our backup server (not exchange) and attempting to run Exmerge on that.

Appreciate any insight.

JMM
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