Account Replication and Deltion

[Guest]

Had a very wierd thing happen this morning...

Had a laptop running outlook 2003 which is connected to SBS Exchange server
2003, on which i created another local profile to store e-mails coming from a
pop3 account.

The local profile then replicated the contents of the inbox of the exchange
server profile (but none of the other folders). Next i removed the local
profile (and at this point the e-mails were still showing on both), and it
not only removed the local profile, but also the exchange server profiles
inbox (not the other folders) and also wiped it from the server as well.

Im totally baffled by why it would firstly replicate one inbox over to
another without prompting or any kind of setup, and why it would then
effectively nuke every inbox on the laptop on removing this new local profile
as well. It appears to now be effectively impossible to restore it from
anything other than a full exchange server restore.

Anyone seen this before? also, anyone know how to get around it other than
the restore?

 

[Brian Tillman]

Had a laptop running outlook 2003 which is connected to SBS Exchange
server 2003, on which i created another local profile to store
e-mails coming from a pop3 account.

The local profile then replicated the contents of the inbox of the
exchange server profile (but none of the other folders). Next i
removed the local profile (and at this point the e-mails were still
showing on both), and it not only removed the local profile, but also
the exchange server profiles inbox (not the other folders) and also
wiped it from the server as well.

Im totally baffled by why it would firstly replicate one inbox over to
another without prompting or any kind of setup,

By default, POP accounts download AND DELETE messages in the Inbox of the
server. This is normal, documented POP account behavior. Outlook won't ask
you to verify default behavior.

and why it would then
effectively nuke every inbox on the laptop on removing this new local
profile as well. It appears to now be effectively impossible to
restore it from anything other than a full exchange server restore.

What you are calling "nuke" is probably what I said: it emptied the Inbox in
the Exchange server. That means that any other mail profile that uses an
Exchange account instead of a POP account will be looking in the Inbox on
the Exchange server, but since your other profile removed the data, it won't
find it because you set Outlook up in the other profile to remove it.

Anyone seen this before? also, anyone know how to get around it other
than the restore?

In one of the profiles that used an Exchange account, open the PST of the
profile containing the POP account (File>Open>Outlook Data File), open the
Inbox in that PST, select everything with CTRL-A, click Edit>Move (or Copy)
to Folder, and specify the Exchange Inbox as the destination. You may have
to do this with the other PST folders as well, because I believe making a
local PST the delivery location for an Exchange-based mailbox sucks
everything out of the mainbox to the local PST (but I'm not going to
experiment). If it does, the process for the other folders is still the
same: open each folder, select all the items in it with CTRL-A, then use
Edit>Move (or Copy) to Folder to put it back in the approrpiate folder in
the mailbox. The Calendar is a little different because you'll have to use
a table view like By Category in order to select everything in it.

After you've put everything back on the Exchange server, use the Mail applet
in Control Panel to modify the POP account to leave copies of messages on
the server. I don't know, however (because I don't want to experiment with
my own Exchange account) whether or not that will prevent Outlook from again
sucking down the contents of the other folders, though, if, in fact it does.