Migrating encrypted pst files

[JN]

We just merged with another company and I just in-herited about 50
mis-managed users and need to get their email on to our Exchange 2003
server.

They users had storage limit of how much mail they could have on their old
system (which I understand), but they were never given any direction on how
to save or organize old emails. Because of this we now have about 5 user
with an average of 5 pst files each. Each of the PST files were started
with the standard encryption option which uses the users logon credentials
and no password.

Tomorrow these users will be coming over and their computer need to flipped
over to my domain with no access to their old domain, however on their old
domain I copied all these PST files up to one of the servers. I have domain
admin privileges on the old domain now so hjow can I convert these PST file
to non-encrypted ones so I can migrate them to my Exchange server?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

They users had storage limit of how much mail they could have on their old
system (which I understand), but they were never given any direction on
how to save or organize old emails. Because of this we now have about 5
user with an average of 5 pst files each. Each of the PST files were
started with the standard encryption option which uses the users logon
credentials and no password.

Are you saying that the properties of these PSTs had shown "Compressable
Encryption" in the "Encryption" field? That seems to be a default value and
I've never heard of one instance of Outlook not being able to open such a
PST even when opened by another user. I would expect that EXMERGE would be
able to handle them as well.

Tomorrow these users will be coming over and their computer need to
flipped over to my domain with no access to their old domain, however on
their old domain I copied all these PST files up to one of the servers. I
have domain admin privileges on the old domain now so hjow can I convert
these PST file to non-encrypted ones so I can migrate them to my Exchange
server?

I don't think they'll need converting. Did you try to copy one to the new
domain and open it?

 

[JN]

OLDDOMAIN users had various PST files because there old admins would only
let them keep a little mail. They archived to pst file which defaulted to
compressable encryption. I setup NEWDOMAIN\Username accounts and tried to
access the OLDDOMAIN pst files and was given an access denid error message.
There was no request for password.

<<I've never heard of one instance of Outlook not being able to open such a
PST even when opened by another user.>>

Then what would be the sense of the encryption if anyone can open the file?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

OLDDOMAIN users had various PST files because there old admins would only
let them keep a little mail. They archived to pst file which defaulted to
compressable encryption. I setup NEWDOMAIN\Username accounts and tried to
access the OLDDOMAIN pst files and was given an access denid error
message. There was no request for password.

It sounds to me like you're running into NTFS file system protections, not
encryption. First, make sure the files are not read-only. If that's not
the problem, then take ownership of the files. Since you're in a new
domain, the userID values of the owners are different and don't exist in the
current domain.