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Here is some notes from a recent issue error, I encountered at a client, doing a decommission of some Exchange 2007 servers.

We had followed the best practices for moving Public Folder database content to new Public Folder databases. But still could not remove the Public Folder databases on some of the Exchange 2007 servers.

The best practices for removing a Public Folder database is:

1. Move the public folder replicas to another server. See my previous post about Public Folder replica management.

2. Associate mailbox databases with another public folder database.

3. Remove the PF database and delete the database files manually.

This error you might see in step 3, when trying to remove the Public Folder database is:

——————————————————–
Microsoft Exchange Error
——————————————————–
The public folder database ‘Public Folder Database’ cannot be deleted.

Public Folder Database
Failed
Error:
The public folder database "SERVERNAME\Second Storage Group\Public Folder Database" contains folder replicas. Before deleting the public folder database, remove the folders or move the replicas to another public folder database. For detailed instructions about how to remove a public folder database, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=81409.

——————————————————–
OK
——————————————————–

If you have followed the best practices and you still cannot remove the Public Folder, check which folders still reside in the database, using:

Get-PublicFolderStatistics –Server SERVERNAME

 

If the folders left are folders you care about, you should continue troubleshooting replication issues. But if the folders are leftover that you know have been replicated or if it is system folders, such as OWAScratchPad, you can remove them using:

Get-PublicFolderStatistics –Server SERVERNAME | Remove-PublicFolder

 

Be careful with the above command, since it removes everything left within your Public Folder database.

Now you should be able to Remove the Public Folder database from you Exchange 2007 server.

Other great references on the issue:

• http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2007/11/13/3404348.aspx
• http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2007/07/09/3403373.aspx

This might be old news to some
But PFDAVADmin is still a great utility and it works perfect for Exchange 2007 (from a client, see my last post). Besides using it to handle folder permissions, it can also recover public folders or public folder items, that have been accidentally deleted, as long as it’s within the retention time.

This article describes how to recover deleted public folders or items that are deleted from public folders in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server. You can use the Microsoft Exchange Server Public Folder DAV-based Administration (PFDAVAdmin) tool to recover public folders or items. You can use the methods that are described in this article when you cannot recover folders or items by using the Recover deleted items command in Microsoft Outlook.

Read more in the MS article.

If you have never used PFDAVAdmin (Public Folder DAV-based Administration Tool) to manage public folders and mailbox permissions, take a look at it, it’s a pretty nice utility. It’s not a new tool, but it can help you to do a lot of things “in bulk” that you might not have done as easily otherwise or at least certainly not as quickly. PFDAVAdmin works with Exchange 2000/2003/2007.

When working with Public Folder permissions on Exchange 2007 the tool is a great addition, for everyone who might not be that confident with managing PF permissions though the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) and would like a GUI for it.

However working with PFDAVAdmin on Exchange 2007 servers, I have seen this “error” message:
‘Could not expand https://localhost/exadmin/admin/mydomain.com/public%20folders/ : name cannot begin with the ’0′ character, hexadecimal value 0×30. Line 1, position 386′

The reason for this error is because PFDAVAdmin uses Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 (Exchange 2007 uses the .NET Framework 2.0) and if that is not installed, you’ll get the error message above.

Microsoft recommends using PFDAVAdmin from a workstation, not from the console of the Exchange 2007 server, though. So if you get this message, do NOT install the .NET Framework 1.1 on an existing Exchange 2007 server. You risk breaking the Exchange Server 2007! If you really want to run PFDAVAdmin from the console of an Exchange 2007 server, you would need to install the .NET Framework 1.1 prior to building Exchange.

Even so, using PFDAVAdmin from the workstation is much more desirable and recommended.

Download PFDAVAdmin here.