Requirements for Using ExMerge with a Recovery Storage Group

To extract mailbox data from a database in a recovery storage group to a personal folders (.pst) file, you do not have to override administrative Deny Receive As permissions. However, to merge this data from the recovery storage group to its original mailboxes, you must allow administrators Receive As permissions on the destination mailboxes.

By default, Exchange explicitly denies administrative accounts Send As and Receive As permissions on all mailboxes. This prevents administrators from logging onto mailboxes as clients and from using ExMerge with those mailboxes.

When extracting data from a recovery storage group database, ExMerge uses a special administrative logon that does not require you to grant administrators an override to the Deny permissions. To merge the data with the original database, you can grant administrators an override to the Deny permissions on that database. The use of the override can be audited.

The original mailbox must still be present in the original database and must still be connected to a Microsoft Active DirectoryŽ directory service user account.

If the mailbox in the original database has been disconnected, ExMerge does not show it on the list of available mailboxes. If the mailbox has been moved to a different database, it will appear on the list of available mailboxes, but ExMerge fails when it tries to extract data.

If the mailbox has been disconnected and then reconnected to a different Active Directory user, but is still present in the original database, ExMerge can extract its data from the recovery storage group. However, the Display Name of the mailbox as seen in ExMerge matches the mailNickname attribute of the current mailbox owner, while the Directory Name seen in ExMerge matches the previous owner's mailNickname attribute.

The .pst file extracted by ExMerge is based on the old mailNickname attribute, and the .pst file must be renamed to match the new mailNickname attribute before ExMerge can import data back to the original mailbox. This means you cannot do a one-step merge if you have connected the mailbox to a different user. You must do a two-step merge, manually renaming the extracted .pst file between steps.