Exchange 2010 moving mailboxes back to source forest

The following examples show moving a mailbox from a 2007 Exchange Forest to a new 2010 Exchange Forest then moving back to the 2007 Exchange Forest. When moving mailboxes cross forest, the source mailbox is deleted. For contingency planning you can export the mailboxes to a pst prior to moving or move the mailboxes back to the source Forest.

Moving the mailbox from the Exchange 2007 Forest to new Exchange 2010 Forest.

1. .\Prepare-MoveRequest.Ps1 -Identity "CN=migusr5,OU=Office,DC=ipcfcdom,DC=inphonic,DC=com" -RemoteForestDomainController "dcfcdc03.ipcfcdom.inphonic.com" -RemoteForestCredential $Remote -LocalForestDomainController "eqdcp01.corp.dom" -LocalForestCredential $Local -TargetMailUserOU "OU=FromILM,OU=GALSync,DC=corp,DC=dom" -UseLocalObject


2. New-MoveRequest -Identity "CN=migusr5,OU=FromILM,OU=GALSync,DC=corp,DC=dom" -RemoteLegacy -TargetDatabase "mdb01 tier1" -RemoteGlobalCatalog "dcfcdc03.ipcfcdom.inphonic.com" -RemoteCredential $Remote -TargetDeliveryDomain "simplexity.com"


Moving the mailbox back from Exchange 2010 Forest to Exchange 2007 Forest.

1. New-MoveRequest -Identity "migusr5@simplexity.com" -remotelegacy -RemoteTargetDatabase "DCEX01\Third Storage Group\Third Storage Group Mailbox Database 250MB Limit" -Remoteglobalcatalog "dcfcdc03.ipcfcdom.inphonic.com" -RemoteCredential $Remote -TargetDeliveryDomain "simplexity.com"


Make sure to clear the move request log in EMC prior to moving the mailbox back.

Known issues:
It may take 2 hours for the mail to start working in the source domain. This is because the source Exchange server's information store caches the homemdb value. You either have to restart the IS service or wait. During this time the recipient will not receive any emails and will bounce back to the sender. As a temporary workaround, you can create a transport rule to redirect all emails sent to this moved user to another mailbox to save all emails and prevent bounces.



James Chong (MVP)
MCITP | EA | EMA; MCSE | M+, S+
Security+, Project+, ITIL
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