Re: SBS user with extremely large mailbox

HI

If ALL else fails b*llsh*t is the last resort to make the user 'sympathetic'
to the server.

Set the limits on his mailbox size to start giving warnings then cut him
off. He'll start screaming and shouting and you will 'have' to investigate
the server to see whats going on. You'll find exchange is 'Struggling' but
"You've managed to get it working for now" (you've increased the limit again)
but you can't say how long it will be up without some remedial work and
reorganisation etc etc

The net result if this that if the user NEEDS his email on the road and
doesn't have it for a while he will make damn sure to listen to you after you
get it working (you will be God at this stage). Also, it will be the
catalyst for him to play by the rules in the future.

If nothing else it will open the door for you to have THAT conversation.
Unless he knows his way around the server he will never know

Don't forget that after you have temporarlily got it working you will have
to take the server down at some point to do some work on exchange because of
HIS mailbox size (block HIS RAS or VPN for a while when he is in THAT
important meeting)

I'm sure MS needs to include psychology in it's server exams for admins

Hope this helps
Matt
"Wopster" wrote:

Russ and Dave thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions.
I like the idea of scheduling two different syncs to take place. You have
both been very helpful.

Take Care,
LT

"Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" wrote:

Some suggestions. I would guess that a major part of the issue is that he
may be using an ANSI OST file instead of Unicode. This would account for
the failure to sync, since he would be up against the 2 GB ANSI file size
limit. R-click Mailbox in his Outlook Folder List -> Properties. On the
General tab, Advanced, Advanced again. At the bottom it should say "Outlook
is running in Unicode mode against the Microsoft Exchange Server."
Otherwise, you need to switch the OST to Unicode and re-sync from scratch.

I would most definitely do this while connected to the wired LAN. You
should be able to get Outlook to create a Unicode OST by shutting it down
completely (including ActiveSync etc.). Find all the PST and OST files in
the user profile and rename them. Open Outlook, which should recreate the
OST. Without waiting for the new OST to sync, check to see that it's in
Unicode mode. If not, post back and I'll figure out a group policy setting
you can create to tell Outlook to prefer Unicode. After the Unicode OST is
created and synched, you can rename any PSTs that he uses back to their
original names. If there are size issues with PSTs, I would create new ones
in Unicode and import the items from the old PSTs. If Outlook finds any
ANSI files when it goes to create the new OST, it won't create it in Unicode
and you'll be right back in the same place.

Another suggestion if you're still having issues after this: stop using
cached mode. Manually configure the settings for folders to be available
offline, and set the sync to happen on a schedule he prefers. This is done
on Tools -> Send/Receive -> Send/Receive Settings -> Define Send/Receive
Groups. Get the user to create a folder structure where he can have a
significant number of folders that seldom or never change. Then create two
sets of send/receive settings. One of these will sync the whole mailbox,
and it'll only be used occasionally when circumstances allow. The other
will sync only the folders that commonly change. That one will be the one
used most often when working remotely. Please note that although this is a
manually created send/receive configuration and schedule, and it's not
cached mode, it still uses the OST. So you still need to make sure he's in
Unicode mode.

You can fine tune the send/receive settings to only download headers. Then
the messages will download when he requests them. There are a lot of
options for this - search Outlook Help for "work offline" or "synchronize"
and see what you come up with.

Lastly, it seems to me that folders containing smaller numbers of items sync
faster/better. My boss and I both have mailboxes containing large numbers
of items. His are in about 100 folders, mine in maybe 15 or so. My
perception is that his performance is better than mine because even though
he has many more folders, his contain more reasonable numbers of items than
mine.

Your customer needs to understand that while some work and learning curve
are going to go into this, it's to his benefit, and it's an attempt to make
a currently unsatisfactory situation a lot better. He has to realize that
there is no way to make a 12 GB mailbox perform like a 200 MB one, but if he
configures everything properly, he'll be a lot happier than he is now.



"Wopster" <Wopster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4558E1C5-F5CE-491F-B70A-14AF56786547@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hey all I need a little advice for a growing sbs problem of mine.

I have an sbs2k3 customer where one user has 12gb's of mail. Prior to the
exsp2 installation, we were having to constantly monitor his mailbox and
manually archive where necessary to free up space, his mailbox was taking
approximately half the usable exchange space for all users in the office.
After the installation exchsp2 installation we haven't had to monitor it
as
much. Here is where the problems occur.

The customers mailbox hasn't been able to complete a sync in a very long
time therefore he's missing some of his mail. My recommendation was to let
it
sync for a very long time (read 4-6 hrs), his interpretation of long was
1hr.
He is unhappy because his mail isn't synced and is slow. Here are some
details of what I've tried to do.

#1 - This user is remote 99.99% of the time, he has outlook 2003 setup
with rpc over http. This as you can imagine takes a very long time to
sync.
He does a lot of flying and types a lot of email while in flight when he
doesn't have an internet connection. OWA is out of the question.

#2 - Because I exmerged mail from their old server and imported it into
the new one, the modified date on the messages is when the import took
place.
So archiving is out of the question because it works off the modified take
(which is now the date I installed the server). Besides that, the customer
has several litigations that have been going on for years and he needs
access
to email as far back as 98/99. What I ended up doing was setting up a
separate profile for his secretary (inoffice) where she could access his
mailbox, and manually drag folders/messages to an archive file (she knew
what
litigations where complete), however after moving large amounts of his
mail
because he's remote it takes forever to sync up.

#3 - PST files - I was thinking of popping mail to his system so he
wouldn't have to sync but then we'd have to manage the 2gb file limit and
he'd end up with 6 separate pst files.

#4 - Spam Filtering - I thought I could reduce his mailbox by running
the IMF filter or cloudmark against it. However the customer didn't
receive 1
message he was expecting (and this was the day I set it up) and he "can't
afford not to receive those messages and doesn't have time to look at his
Junk Mail folder". So spam filtering has been disabled.

Knowing the limitations of the sbs2k3 software and outlook, and knowing
how
important it is to try to keep the customer happy what would some of you
recommend as an email solution in a situation like this?




.

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