System Administrator

[J]

Does the system administrator have access to see all public folders even if
he/she did not create them? What if he/she does not have access to these
folders?

Our Outlook system was updated and several public folders were lost, and the
administrator said it was becase he/she did not have access to see the folder
and should have had Owner rights to these folders. Is this true?

Now the system administrator is saying that those folders cannot be backed
up from the old server, and explained how difficult it is to pull one
person's folders. Is this also ture?

Thank you for all of your help.

 

[Noel All]

It depends on how it was setup and what permissions were applied, default
permission in Exchange 2000 then administrators have full control on which
users can set folders permissions, they have full control on access rights
to the object in AD but they dont necessary have any rights to access a
public folder.

Once again it depends on the organisation as to how easy it is for a sys
admin to grant themselves owner of a public folder.

It depends on what backup/restore software you are using and how often you
carry out a backup but it can be very difficult to restore the entire store
or just parts off.

 

[J]

Noel,

I have permissions to set-up folders with calendars, contacts, etc. I had
ownership of the folder, the system administrator was set to Author, however
since the folders are now missing on the new server, the system administrator
is saying it's because they had no rights to the folder to be able to see
it's existence when they moved from one server to the other.

So what you are saying is that the Administrator has rights to the folder
but not necessarily the ability to look at any items in that folder. So it's
correct to say that the Administrator should have seen the folders before
they converted to the new server.

Thank you!

 

[Noel All]

Author permission can Create and Read items and Edit and Delete their own
items.

It all boils down to how they moved the Exchange databases across to the new
server, by default Exchange installs One storage group that contains two
stores, the mailbox store and public folder store and depending on Exchange
version you may have the ability to create other stores and storage groups.
I have only ever moved stores to other servers within the network or have
had to do a restore to a new server but these are small networks where the
Administration was king. In larger or more complex organisations the
permissions can be manipulated as deemed necessary. But I would have thought
that if you are restoring a store then you restore would have to restore the
entire store.

Is the old server still available!

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

So what you are saying is that the Administrator has rights to the folder
but not necessarily the ability to look at any items in that folder. So
it's
correct to say that the Administrator should have seen the folders before
they converted to the new server.

The Administrator should have been using an account with at least Exchange
Administrator rights to perform the move and with that account he should
have been able to see the Public Folders.

And if the Administrator had Author permissions they should have been able
to see the folders with their own account even without the Exhange
Administrator role - Author permission should make the public folder visible
to them.

Aloha,

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, OneNote-MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft Outlook FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/outlook.htm

**I apologize but I am unable to respond to direct requests for assistance.
Please post questions and replies here in the newsgroup. Mahalo!

 

[J]

Noel,

So even if the Administrator had no permissions at all, any folders created
in the public folder should have been moved because it's part of the entire
store.

Yes, the old server still exists, however the administrator is saying that
1) since he/she never created the public folder they weren't able to see the
public folder to know it ever existed, therefore that is why it wasn't moved
and 2) the public folder never existed on the older server. However, the
public folder has been in existence for many years and is used by others than
just myself.

Thanks!

 

[J]

Ben,

So even if the Administrator had no permissions at all to the folder nor did
he/she create the folder, the folder still should have been part of the move
because it existed in the public folder.

Thanks!

 

[Noel All]

Well it leads back to how they did the data transfer/restore, I wouldn't
imagine that you would do a brick level restore if you are moving everything
across to a new server. Regardless whether they had permission to the folder
if they can get into Exchange System Manager (ESM) then the folder would be
visible under the Public Folder folder structure.
If you can get into the old server then fire up ESM and see if the folder is
there, if it is there and if you can connect an Outlook client to it then
you can drag the info in to the mailbox or pst, that's if its too much
effort to restore it.
The above is with Exchange 2000 and above.

 

[J]

Noel,

Thank you for all of your help. One last question. If they find the
information, your saying that if it's e-mails they can drag it directly to my
mailbox or they can save it as .pst files so I can retrieve them?

Thanks again for everything!

 

[Noel All]

Yep if the folder is still there and you can connect a client to the server
then they can either drag the items to the mailbox or drag them to a pst and
then you can open the pst and drag the items out.

 

[J]

Thank you very much for all of your help!

Yep if the folder is still there and you can connect a client to the server
then they can either drag the items to the mailbox or drag them to a pst and
then you can open the pst and drag the items out.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Well, it depends upon how they did the move. If they put up a second server
and merely replicated existing Public Folders to the second server then they
could have inadventently missed one. If they relocated the entire store(s)
to the new server en masse then it doesn't matter if they see the individual
folders or not because the entire public information store would go to the
new server (including all of the folders within).

"Administrator" is more than just an account name -- it's a role. If they
are using an account with the proper account role they will be able to see
all of the folders in the store.

Aloha,

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, OneNote-MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft Outlook FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/outlook.htm

**I apologize but I am unable to respond to direct requests for assistance.
Please post questions and replies here in the newsgroup. Mahalo!