Recipe9.5.Replicating the Public Folder Hierarchy

Recipe 9.5. Replicating the Public Folder Hierarchy

Problem

You've made changes to the public folder hierarchy and want to force them to be replicated throughout your network.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

1. Launch the Exchange System Manager (Exchange System Manager.msc).

2. In the left pane, expand the appropriate Administrative Groups container.

3. Expand the Folders node.

4. Right-click the Public Folders node and select Send Hierarchy. (This option also appears when you right-click an individual public folder database).

5. When the Send Hierarchy dialog box (see Figure 9-4) appears, select the server whose copy of the hierarchy you want sent from the Source Servers column, and select the destination servers.

6. Enter the number of days of updates you want sent into the Resend changes made in the last (days) field. ESM won't allow you to leave this field blank.

7. Click OK. When the confirmation dialog appears, click Yes.

Figure 9-4. The Send Hierarchy dialog box

Discussion

A copy of the public folder hierarchy is stored in each public folder store within a particular TLH. For the MAPI TLH, that means that every public folder server will have a copy of the hierarchy. If an individual server doesn't have an up-to-date copy, though, its replica list won't be up to date, and users may find that folders randomly appear and disappear, depending on which server they're connected to. To solve this problem, you can forcibly send a copy of the hierarchy to a server. However, after doing so, if the hierarchy change updates the server's replica list, you'll still have to wait for the actual folder contents to be replicated (or force replication; see Recipe 9.4) before users will see a consistent set of folders and items on all servers.

See Also

Recipe 9.4 for forcing folder replication and MS KB 823817 (Exchange Server 2003 Public Folder Administration Improvements)