AutoArchving problem with Outlook 2003 - Default archiving setting for new Inbox sub-folders

R

Robert Stokes

Hello all,

I'm really struggling to find a solution to my problem, so hopefully someone
here will have some thoughts. I am the IT Manager for a company with c.160
staff and want to enable AutoArchiving on all user's accounts. We use
Outlook 2003 for everyone and Exchange 2003 SP2 on the server.

I have set all the settings I want using Group Policy and these have applied
successfully to all machines. I have also used a registry file (that ran at
logon) to change the location of the Archive.pst file. So, AutoArchiving is
"working" correctly in effect, but none of the sub-folders beneath the Inbox
are archiving. The majority of our staff have in excess of 50 sub-folders
(some many more).

I have found that this is because when a new folder is created under the
Inbox, it's default setting (when you right-click on it, get Properties and
look at the AutoArchive tab) is "Do not archive items in this folder". Now,
I know that I can go into Options > Other > AutoArchive and click the button
"Apply these settings to all folders now" to sort this out, but there are
two problems with this ... 1. Because we use Group Policy to control many of
the settings in Options, this is greyed out to all users so we would have to
disable the GPO or move them to a different OU in Active Directory to get
this option enabled (which with 160 staff is just not an option) and 2. By
clicking this button things would be sorted out for now, but as soon as they
create new folders, the new ones will never get archived until the button is
pushed again.

So, what I would like to be able to do, is leave a command/call a batch
script in everyone's login script that does whatever pushing that button
does. This way, each time they log on, we would be able to ensure that ALL
folders beneath the Inbox will be archived.

This is a serious request because we are rapidly running out of disk space
on the database partition on the Exchange server, the company is growing
rapidly and there is a demand for increased mailbox sizes (we're already at
between 300MB - 500MB per user), so archiving off to their home directories
would be a godsend.

Please does anyone have any ideas of how this would be feasible? If it can't
be done on logon, can it be done each time Outlook launches? I have seen a
couple of posts on the web that are similar to mine, but they require
programming in C++ or Delphi to create a workaround. I'm an IT Manager, not
a programmer, so this really isn't an option for me.

Looking forward to any ideas!

Thanks very much in advance,
Robert Stokes

IT Manager
Audley Travel
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top