Exporting Mailboxes in Multi-Domain Environment

Hi folks,

Just wanted to share with you about an issue I have recently encountered. In the AD forest which has multiple domains when remotely connected to Exchange server via PowerShell and running New-MailboxExportRequest command you may experience the issue as below:

Basically, PowerShell will complain that it can't find mailbox on a DC from the same domain as Exchange server is. And this is because that by default EMS is by default talking to the same domain where Exchange servers are located and where it was launched. As I previously posted to see mailboxes cross forest you will need to execute this command:

Set-ADServerSettings -ViewEntireForest:$true

However, in this case it doesn't become a magic bullet to solve the problem.

Google-ing took me to this thread on MS TechNet forum. According to it in addition to seeing the whole forest you also need to talk to a domain controller in a child domain where your mailbox is located. So imagine and in the contoso.com forest you have a domain child.contoso.com which has Exchange mailboxes the code for exporting mailbox to PST file will be as follows;

Set-ADServerSettings -ViewEntireForest:$true
New-MailboxExportRequest user@child.contoso.com –FileName \\servername\pst\test.pst -DomainController DC01.child.contoso.com

I hope you will find it useful.

Enjoy!