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Disabling Tenant-Wide Auto-Archiving in Exchange Online
Hello, I need to disable auto-archiving for Exchange Online mailboxes at the tenant level. Before I pull the trigger, I would like to make sure I’m looking at the right knobs and understanding the downstream effects. Where is the definitive On/Off switch for auto-archiving at the tenant level (Admin Center vs. PowerShell)? What is the actual functional difference between the Archive settings in Org Settings and a standard Retention Policy? If I disable the tenant-wide auto-archiving, what happens to the mail that is already sitting in users' archive mailboxes? Does it stay put, or does it try to merge back? Thank you in advance.SolvedIT_BeeMar 18, 2026Copper Contributor184Views0likes3CommentsOAB download fails after hybrid mailbox move.
Hi folks, I'm posting this query here as I doubt anyone in the Outlook forums would have the necessary Exchange hybrid knowledge. I run a classic hybrid Exchange environment where Exchange Server 2019 CU15 is the on-premise platform. Authentication is provided by on-premise AD FS, with the accounts being synchronised from on-premise via AAD Connect. I've just moved my on-premise mailbox to Exchange Online via New-MoveRequest and for the most part, everything is fine. One thing that possibly isn't fine - going off the Bits-Client event log is the regular offline address book downloads, where I'm seeing regular failures in the event log and through double-checking with bitsadmin.exe. The initial address book synchronisation worked as the view in Outlook is fully populated, however, I expect that future changes likely won't come through. bitsadmin output Event log output (There's numerous events to choose from - this is the one I'm most curious about.) The BITS service provided job credentials in response to the UNIDENTIFIED authentication challenge from the outlook.office365.com server for the Microsoft Outlook Offline Address Book <guid> transfer job that is associated with the following URL: /OAB/<guid>/oab.xml. The credentials for the <sid> user were rejected. When the mailbox was on-premise, the OAB came from the Exchange Server - no surprise there, where post migration it can be seen from the bitsadmin output it now comes from outlook.office365.com. Perhaps that's also to be expected - I don't know, but it makes sense given the move. What alerted me to there potentially being an issue is the systray icon frequently gets stuck on the "synchronising" icon, and running a manual full OAB sync from within Outlook fails to complete. After an extended "hang" period, the sync window eventually times out with the error shown above (the protracted UI behaviour would appear to be due to the large number of retries). Dropping the BITS job URL into Edge simply returns a HTTP 503, which doesn't necessarily strike me as a problem. After all, I'm unable to provide a BEARER token using this method. I haven't yet tried via PowerShell as it only occurred to me now but perhaps I'll do so after posting this. Searching on this error and scenario has turned up nothing useful. I have also checked and compared event log entries from an Azure AD-native account, where it's a mixed bag of successful OAB BITS downloads and unsuccessful ones that feature the same symptoms as above, which offers up the possibility this might be a transient service-side error (though I'm not leaning heavily towards this). Has anyone else encountered this issue and resolved it? Is it even an issue to begin with, or is this expected behaviour? I'm unsure what to make of the symptoms. Cheers, LainSolvedLainRobertsonMar 13, 2026Silver Contributor197Views0likes2CommentsAutoreseed, now what?
Have had a disk failure in a four server Exchange SE DAG with autoreseed enabled. New disk inserted, but now what? What I can google and AI myself to is something like this: Bring the new disk online Remove the broken mount point by deleting the mount point folder that does not lead anywhere Create a New Simple Volume and mount it in an empty NTFS folder Format it as per our standard, ReFS 64K and label to our standard (same as the old one) Does the experts agree that this is all there is to it? Many thanks!SolvedMartenTJan 15, 2026Copper Contributor152Views1like6CommentsUpgrading to Exchange SE
Hi, I currently have Exchange 2019 and need to upgrade to SE. When attempting an upgrade the process didn't appear as expected. Articles I've read basically said the process should be the same as a regular CU upgrade. When I run setup from the ExchangeServerSE-x64 iso, I get an Add Server Role window, instead of the expected upgrade method. The window presents 3 Roles, 2 are ticked, and they're all greyed out. The Next button has no function. I have Standard Edition 15.2 2562.17 (CU15). When checking my build number online, it is listed as the SE version, released July 1st, 2025. When I run Get-ExchangeServer, the Edition = Standard. Should it not say Subscription, or maybe SE? How do I verify my installation is actually SE? ThanksSolvedSteveJDJan 08, 2026Copper Contributor754Views2likes4CommentsNeed to Purge DiscoveryHolds Data from Archive Mailbox in Exchange Online
Hello Team, I am working on an Exchange Online mailbox where the archive mailbox has accumulated a large amount of data (over 335 GB) under the Recoverable Items → DiscoveryHolds folder. The mailbox is not on Litigation Hold or Retention Hold, and the InPlaceHolds property shows exclusions (-mbx...), so there are no active holds preventing deletion. Environment Details Service: Exchange Online Mailbox: email address removed for privacy reasons Archive mailbox size: ~335 GB DiscoveryHolds subfolders contain the bulk of the data. Background : Initially, the user’s primary mailbox was full because more than 100 GB of data resided in the Recoverable Items folder of the primary mailbox. Since I was unable to delete the data, so as a workaround, I enabled the archive mailbox and moved the data there. I have raised multiple tickets with Microsoft, but after more than 45 days, I still do not have a proper resolution. Mailbox Hold Status PS H:\> Get-Mailbox -Identity email address removed for privacy reasons -Archive | fl *hold* LitigationHoldEnabled : False RetentionHoldEnabled : False EndDateForRetentionHold : StartDateForRetentionHold : LitigationHoldDate : LitigationHoldOwner : ComplianceTagHoldApplied : True DelayHoldApplied : False DelayReleaseHoldApplied : False LitigationHoldDuration : Unlimited SCLDeleteThreshold : SCLRejectThreshold : SCLQuarantineThreshold : SCLJunkThreshold : InPlaceHolds : {-mbx23233XXXXXX, -mbx212433XXXXXX} RecipientThrottlingThreshold : Standard PS H:\> Get-MailboxFolderStatistics -Identity email address removed for privacy reasons -Archive -FolderScope RecoverableItems | ft Name,ItemsInFolder,FolderAndSubfolderSize Recoverable Items : 0 335.2 GB DiscoveryHolds : 80495 335.2 GB DiscoveryHolds_2022 : 177 20.7 MB DiscoveryHolds_2023 : 350 88.12 MB DiscoveryHolds_2024 : 4117 1.34 GB DiscoveryHolds_2025 (multiple subfolders): 47 GB – 55 GB each Issue : I need to purge only the DiscoveryHolds data from the archive mailbox without affecting other folders. I tried using Search-Mailbox , but received: The term 'Search-Mailbox' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet... I understand that Search-Mailbox is deprecated in Exchange Online. Also, the Content search is not very helpful.SolvedsakhareashwinDec 05, 2025Copper Contributor807Views0likes3CommentsHelp please! Exchange report questions
Hello! I’m hoping someone can help clarify a few things about a deletion report I received. The report shows hard and soft deletes, but it seems to be missing information about moves and restores. I’m trying to understand the following: 1. **Hard Deletes:** * When something is hard deleted, does it go to the Purge folder, and is it still recoverable from there? * Is a “hard delete” simply what happens when someone empties their Deleted Items folder? * Can hard deletes happen accidentally? 2. **Limitations of the Report:** * Are there other reports that can show moves, restores, or whether an item is *currently* deleted? * My understanding is that this delete report only indicates that an item was deleted at some point, not its current status. Is that correct? 3. **Missing Message IDs:** * About half the entries in the report don’t include a message ID. Am I correct in assuming those items aren’t emails? If anyone is willing to chat or walk through this with me, I’d really appreciate it — I’m hoping to understand this report better. Any guidance or links to solid documentation would be truly appreciated. Thank you!SolvedDmvhelpneeded2Dec 03, 2025Copper Contributor495Views0likes3CommentsCould any one explain Exchange Server SE Licensing Model?
I have the following M365 licenses in my education tenant: Microsoft 365 A5 without Audio Conferencing (Student Use Benefit) As per my understanding, each user requires an A3/A5 license to access their mailbox on an Exchange Server (Exchange SE). Since A3/A5 licenses already include Exchange Online, do we still need to assign these licenses to each on-premises user, or is this only for compliance purposes? For example, if we have 100 on-premises users, must all 100 users be assigned A3/A5 licenses in Microsoft 365? Reference articles are below. Microsoft Product Terms Please correct me if I am wrong.Solved223Views0likes2CommentsHybrid Update Agent download fails
Hi there, last Friday I was successfully able to execute the HCW with the full classic deployment. As we had some sharing issues we tried the full modern as well. But we were able to execute the HCW and finish it all the time. This morning there was an update for the HCW and suddenly we had issues with the part Hybrid Update Agent download which always mentions "Content Not Found" We tried this several times throughout the day, but unfortunately the error is still the same. Is there a general issue with the location of the HybridAgent file since the HCW has been updated? Kind regardsSolvedwoelkiNov 17, 2025Iron Contributor3.4KViews4likes19CommentsAuthServer in Exchange Online
The result of Get-AuthServer is different between on-prem and EXO. The list of objects from EXO get-authserver includes some "IssuerIdentifiers" that include a "{tenantid}" pattern. Was this supposed to be expanded by a script, or by HCW? (HCW has never run to completion without exceptions.) There seems to be no documentation about this: no list of default entries, no documentation on the expected form, few mentions of the use of Set-AuthServer/New-AuthServer, and the options don't match the properties.SolvedkirkzNov 13, 2025Copper Contributor216Views0likes2Comments
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