Updated Exchange Public Folder Guidance

Vince: Depends on how you define support, I guess. There's been no visible change to Outlook users, and there's been no retraction of administrative ability. Just a lack of pretty GUI, some of which has been reintroduced in SP1.

Mike: Microsoft never once stated PFs were being removed from the product. At no time did Microsoft state that Exchange 2007 would *not* have PFs.

Karsten: While the wizard GUI isn't there, the ability is. There are several scripts in MicrosoftExchange ServerScripts which recreate the features of that wizard.

Damien: No. No joke.

Ken: Depends on what you mean. MAPI support on the server has always been shakey at best. I don't foresee the removal of MAPI on the client any time soon (that would be a major overhaul of Outlook), but I'm not privvy to those kinds of Big Decisions.

JoeyK: Please indicate what PFDavAdmin does that the cmdlets do not. I'm not insisting we didn't miss anything here, but it would be helpful to know what customers need in the "official" admin tools.

bday: New public folders inherit the replica list of their parent folder. Obviously, this doesn't apply to root-level public folders, as they have no parent. You should restrict user ability to create root public folders, and then your problem should go away.

As for connectivity issues, you should ensure your hub servers are functioning normally. The replication engine is based on email flow, and things will go sour if there's a problem with that. I've not had a problem with PF servers replicating with each other

if they're just left alone to do their thing. If you're having consistent trouble, I recommend read Bill Long's extensive blogs on diagnosing the problem.

Part 1: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/01/17/417611.aspx

Part 2: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/01/19/417737.aspx

Part 3: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/01/23/417974.aspx