RE: Needing to use Exmerge to move mailboxes and mail from one server to another?

I’m stealing a newsgroup post from Chris Puckett!

To Obtain Exmerge.exe

  1. To download Exmerge.exe, visit the following Microsoft Web site
  2. This download is a self-extracting executable. Double click Exmerge.exe to extract the files to the location of your choice.
  3. Once the files are extracted copy the exmerge.exe program to the C:Program Filesexchsrvrbin folder.

Preparing the SBS 2003 Server to Run Exmerge

By default in Exchange 2003, organization administrators and domain administrators inherit the Allow permission in addition to the Deny permission for the Receive As permission and the Send As permission.To use ExMerge, the accounts that use this utility must have the Send As permission and the Receive As permission. To grant these permissions to the Administrator account to use ExMerge, follow these steps:

  1. Click “Start”, point to “All Programs”, point to “Microsoft Exchange”, and then click “System Manager”.
  2. In Exchange System Manager, locate the Mailbox Store under “Servers//”
  3. Right-click the Mailbox Store, click “Properties”, click the “Security” tab, and then click “Advanced”.
  4. On the Permissions tab, uncheck the box “Allow inheritable permissions from the parent to propagate to this object and all child objects. Include these with entries explicitly defined here. Click “Apply” and click “Copy” on the security popup.
  5. Remove the Deny entries for the Receive As and Send As permissions on Administrator account, Domain Admins group, and the Enterprise Admins group.
  6. Click Apply. Click Yes on the security popup. Click Yes on the Permissions warning popup.
  7. Make sure that the “Send As” check box and the “Receive As” check box are selected under the “Allow” column in the “Permissions” list for the Administrator account, Domain Admins group, and the Enterprise Admins group. Note Make sure that the “Send As” check box and the “Receive As” are not selected under the “Deny” column in the “Permissions” list.
  8. Click “OK” to close the “Properties” dialog box.

Importing data into the Mailbox Store

  1. Before you import data into a new Exchange store, log on to any mailbox on that Exchange store, and send a test message to every mailbox on the server. If you do not do this, ExMerge.exe will not detect any mailboxes that have not been logged on to or that have not received any mail. This step is necessary only when you run the program using the two-step merge and import data into a Microsoft Exchange Information Store. This is because the program gets the list of mailboxes from the Exchange store, and if no Exchange store object exists for a mailbox, the program will skip that mailbox.
  2. By default in SBS 2003, a 200 MB mailbox store limit is imposed on all mailboxes.If any of the .pst’s you import are greater than 200 MB, only 200 MB worth of data will be imported into the Exchange mailbox and then exmerge will report a failure on that mailbox.You can modify or remove these storage limits prior to running exmerge to avoid this. See article 319583 below for the location of the mailbox store. The location is the same in Exchange 2003 as Exchange 2000. 319583 HOW TO: Configure Storage Limits on Mailboxes in Exchange 2000 http://support.microsoft.com/?id=319583 Or Look on Mariette and Marina’s site
  3. Double-click the C:Program Filesexchsrvrbinexmerge.exe
  4. On the “Welcome to the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Merge Wizard” screen, click Next.
  5. Select “Extract or Import (Two Step Procedure)” and click Next.
  6. Select “Step 2: Import data into an Exchange Server Mailbox”
  7. Type the Exchange Server (SBS) computer name that is found in the Exchange System Manager program and click Next. Note For more information on the data selection criteria available within the Options button refer to the Mailbox Merge Wizard (Exmerge).doc that was extracted from the Exmerge download.
  8. Select the mailboxes that you want to import, or click “Select All”, and then click “Next”.
  9. Select the appropriate mailbox locale and click Next.
  10. On the Target Directory screen, click “Change Folder” and directory in which the program should find the existing .pst files. Click “OK” to accept your selection and click “Next”.
  11. On the Save Settings screen click Next.
  12. The import will begin.
  13. Once it is complete, click Finish.

[Via E-Bitz – SBS MVP the Official Blog of the SBS “Diva”]