Best practice when moving from one Exchange account to another

[Wolters]

Hi,
We currently are using Outlook 2007 together with an Exchange hosting
provider, but will now change to our new Small Business Server and use
Exchange on this instead.

We would like to keep all the mail, contacts, folder structure, etc from the
"old" Exchange account intact, so that when we start using the new Exchange
account, with a different email address, from within Outlook 2007 on our
laptops, it will look exactly as usual with all the emails, folders etc from
the old Exchange account.

Now we have been adviced somewhat different strategies when doing this
migration. One is to export all the current data from the old Exchange
account into a pst-file, then create a new Exchange account on the SBS,
connect to the new server, then import the pst-file, and finally move all the
folders, etc into the new Exchange mailbox so that the new Exchange mailbox
will be populated with all the old items...

The other advice is to create a new profile using the Mail application in
the Controlpanel, and then get the new Exchange account to point to the old
ost-file where I guess that all our mails, contacts, etc are stored with the
old Exchange account???

However, if this second scenario would be the "best practice" in a situation
like our's, I would be most grateful if someone could provide me with a
step-by-step instruction on how to best go along and implement it, as I am
new to Outlook and Exchange... Thanks!

 

[Roady [MVP]]

then import the pst-file, and finally move all the folders
This is the same. The pst/file contains all your data.

and then get the new Exchange account to point to the old
ost-file

Not possible, an ost-file is specific to the Exchange account.

I would do it all server-side and leave Outlook out of the equation Can your
ISP provide you an export of your Exchange accounts or do you have remote
management tools to do so? Then you can export directly from the database to
a pst-file. On your new Exchange server you can then automate the import
process of the pst-files to the newly created accounts. The method all
depends on the version of Exchange. You should ask in an SBS or Exchange
newsgroup for more details if you need more help.

As for the Outlook side; you can deploy a prf-file with the new account
settings. You can create this via the Office Customization Tool.



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