Centrally Changing the Delivery Location

[RecLambyUK]

Hi there, I have a problem and wondered if anybody knows a solution?

I have approx 300 users who currently use Outlook 2003 connecting to our Exchange 2003 server. Each client has a PST file which their mails are delivered to. Our company has decided to introduce a new policy of all users mails being delivered to their mailboxes instead to assist in data recovery etc.

Is it possible to change each client so they deliver to the mailbox instead of the PST? I dont really want to visit 300 clients at their convinience if it can be done centrally via GPO / registry / script etc?

Many thanks
John

 

[ShackDaddy]

John, even if you were able to point the users to the server via script, the moving of the mail from the .pst to the server would still be a manual process.

I know that there was no option to set the delivery location in the Office XP Resource Kit (ORK) policy templates. Perhaps something got added in the ORK for Office 2003, but I've looked through it and didn't see it.

Here's a little trick I use fairly frequently to figure out undocumented information. Download RegMon from Sysinternals.com and open up Outlook. Set Outlook to deliver to a .pst file or find a client that is currently set to do so. Then run RegMon. Next, change the default delivery location to the Exchange server, and Apply the change. Stop RegMon's logging and look at all the registry events that are related to Outlook. Comb through and see if you can find a registry entry that changed when you changed the Delivery Location option. That will be your reg entry. If you then create a reg file that can change that entry, you can put the file on a server and then include the path in your domain startup script to push the change out. But you will still have to migrate the .pst data system-by-system at some point.

It's also possible that it isn't a registry change at all, but I'd guess it would be.

ShackDaddy

 

[RecLambyUK]

Thats a very good tip, thanks for that.

With regards to the mail itself, we have no intention of moving mail to the server from the PST. The user will keep their PST as an archive and going forward any new mails will be dealt with by the mailboxes on the server.

 

[xmsre]

The ability to change profiles instead of overwriting them came with the modprof utility in thw Outlook 2000 resource kit. In later versions of the ORK, this became the Custom Maintenance Wizard.