Migrating Public Folders to Exchange 2013 / Exchange Online After Coexistence

If you are migrating from Exchange 2007/2010 to either Exchange 2013 or Exchange Online and your customer has Public Folders chances are you followed the following document from Microsoft for setting up coexistence with legacy Public Folders…

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn249373(v=exchg.150).aspx

Now you’ve completed moving mailboxes to Exchange 2013 (or Exchange Online) and you want to migrate Public Folders to the new system so you follow one of the following articles…

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150486(v=exchg.150).aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj983799(v=exchg.150).aspx

Life is good.  You run the command…

Set-Mailbox -Identity <Test User> -DefaultPublicFolderMailbox <Public Folder Mailbox Identity>

…against a test mailbox and successfully access Public Folders.  You think you are all set and run…

Get-Mailbox -PublicFolder | Set-Mailbox -PublicFolder -IsExcludedFromServingHierarchy $false

…but, then to your shock, nobody else can get to the recently migrate Public Folders.

The problem is caused by when you setup legacy coexistence.  As part of this process you ran the command…

Set-OrganizationConfig -PublicFoldersEnabled Remote -RemotePublicFolderMailboxes PFMailbox1

Your Exchange Organization still thinks it should direct Public Folder traffic to a remote Organization.  To fix this, run the following command…

Set-OrganizationConfig -PublicFoldersEnabled Local

It will take awhile to take effect but, once it does, you should see the DefaultPublicFolderMailbox automatically change for your mailboxes.  To check run the following command…

Get-Mailbox | FT Alias,DefaultPublicFolderMailbox

Exchange 2010 and the Case of the Empty Server Container

I have seen several issues pop up with Exchange 2010 in regard to Public Folders.  They include:

• Public Folder replication fails with Event 1020
• Mail-enabled Public Folders do not receive email

These issues all link back to the same problem; an empty “Servers” container under an Exchange Administrative Group.  This typically occurs in an environment were you have migrated from Exchange 2003 and have decommissioned the last of the legacy Exchange servers.  To fix this issue do the following:

1. Launch ADSI Edit and connect to the Configuration container
2. Browse to CN=Services –> CN=Microsoft Exchange –> CN=OrganizationName –> CN=AdministrativeGroupName –> CN=Servers
3. Verify the CN=Servers container is empty.  If it is right-click on CN=Servers and choose Delete from the context menu

More information on this error can be found in the following KB article.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2487271