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Outlook 2003, Free/Busy, and Exchange 2007

Hi,

We recently migrated our Exchange 2003 environment to Exchange 2007. Everything went very smooth and we decommissioned the old 2003 server. Well, a user brought to my attention last week that when she was scheduling appointments in her Calander in Outlook 2003, the Free/Busy data wasn't pulling up. I did some research and it looks like it's because we didn't replicate the Schedule+ Free/Busy data from 2003 over to 2007's public folder. Some solutions I saw on the net was to replicate, can't do that because the server is gone. The other options included upgrading to Outlook 2007 (can't afford it right now) or use OWA. Well OWA works, but that can't be a solution for 100+ users right now. Does anyone know how to get this working on Exchange 2007? How would this work if you started a new company with 2007 and used Outlook 2003 without ever having Exchange 2003?

Thanks!

Mestha

Do you have a public folder store?
Are the free/busy folders in the public folder store? They are SYSTEM folders.

Simon.

fairrington

ASKER

Yes there is a public folder store. Is it in the Second Storage Group. How do I look at the system folders?

Thanks

fairrington

ASKER

Sorry, I found it under Toolbox. Attached is a screen shot of my Public Folders.

fairrington

ASKER

Oops, forgot attachment.
Doc1.doc

Mestha

I don't open .doc files as they could contain a payload.
Do you have free/busy folders in there?

Simon.

fairrington

ASKER

Yes I do.

Mestha

Do they have any content?

get-publicfolderstatistics | where {$_.name -match "EX"}

Look for folders called

EX:/o=Exchange Org Name

Simon.

fairrington

ASKER

Here is what it pulled back. I would assume the 21 is the amount of Forms we have.

Name ItemCount LastAccessTime
---- --------- --------------
EX:/o=Fairrington Transportation/ou=Exch 21 4/21/2009 1:00:00 AM
ange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPD
LT)
EX:/o=Fairrington Transportation/ou=Exch 0 4/21/2009 1:00:00 AM
ange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPD
LT)

Mestha

21 is the number of items. That means some information is going in to the free/busy folders. Although unless you have a very small number of users or they don't use the calendar I would expect the number to be higher.

Simon.

fairrington

ASKER

That could be a reasonable number. I would think only Manager and Execs would really use it. Maybe I'm wrong.

fairrington

ASKER

I just ran PFDAVAdmin and looked at the data. Those 21 objects are users that would use the calendar.

Mestha

In that case it would seem like free/busy is being published correctly. Can you see it through OWA?

Simon.

fairrington

ASKER

Yes, just not in Outlook 2003 or 2007.

Mestha

Are the mailbox stores pointing at the correct server for public folders? I doubt if that is the problem because the content is being published to the folder.

Simon.

fairrington

ASKER

Is there a command to run to check that? I would think so since it works in OWA and we can use our forms from the Public Folder.

Mestha

It isn't a command, you just need to look at the properties of the mailbox store and see whether the public folder server is set to the right server.

Simon.

fairrington

ASKER

Yes, it looks to be correct.

Mestha

I don't know what else to suggest other than a call to Microsoft. It would appear that the free/busy information is being published to the server, but for whatever reason Outlook cannot see it.

Simon.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

fairrington

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