.PST, Time to Walk the Plank
Published Jan 30 2012 09:00 AM 44.6K Views

Ask and ye shall receive, mateys!

As we announced in July, we are always looking for new ways to make your work easier - especially when your work involves ending PST proliferation. Today, we are happy to announce that PST Capture is now available as a free download.

PST Capture helps you search your network to discover and then import .pst files across your environment - all from a straightforward admin-driven tool. PST Capture will help reduce risk while increasing productivity for your users by importing .pst files into Exchange Online or Exchange Server 2010 - directly into users' primary mailboxes or archives.

In addition to all the positive feedback you have given us regarding the Archiving, Retention, Legal Hold and Discovery capabilities of Exchange, you made it clear that PST import is an important area for us to focus on moving forward. As we looked at the best ways to address this challenging need, we saw the great work that ISV partner, Red Gate, has done with their stellar solution. We determined that acquiring this product from Red Gate as a starting point was the best strategy to ensuring a quality product for you.

We put Red Gate’s tool through further feature development and a rigorous testing process that included beta testing with customers, passing through our internal product security gates, and overall quality assurance. It’s now ready for prime time and available as a free download here! For even more insight, watch the video below

And thus, we offer you PST Captarrrrrrrrrgh - or PST Capture, for those more refined than I.

As always, keep the feedback coming!

Ankur Kothari

Red Gate creates ingeniously simple software tools used by more than 500,000 IT professionals worldwide. The company works to uplift the market it serves through free web community sites, technical publications and conference sponsorships that reach millions annually.

71 Comments
Not applicable

Martin, Johnny - if you want to do any post-import processing on the .pst files, you can do a few things:

1) You know know the location of the PST files, you can take action on them via a script

2) Use a GPO for DisableCrossAccountCopy which will prevent copying or moving items between pst files for accounts.  This object replaces DisablePST or PSTDisableGrow

3) Use a GPO for DisableCopyToFileSystem which prevents users from moving or copying messages from restricted accounts to their computers

4) Use DelPST here: support.microsoft.com/.../2000021

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Performance wise how many computers can be run simultaneously?

I guess it depends. but approximate?

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Hi,

We are seeing issues displaying a large number of mailboxes with the PST Capture Tool.  Is this a bug/limitation?

social.technet.microsoft.com/.../e120a2f6-ff9c-4507-be2e-22d53468d5d5

Thanks!

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@Neil - How much RAM do you have on your console?  Do you have the issue on a console with more RAM/space in the PST Staging directory?

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I read through the documentation - is there a way to only import pst data that falls into a certain date range, like with a new-mailboximportrequest?  We have policies that only allow users to keep a certain amount of data and we dont want to bloat the mailboxes only to purge them, and also mis-set expectations from the clients that they can keep more than they are really allowed to.  Thanks!

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@MJF - not from the tool directly.  You can use the output of the tool and schedule imports using new-mailboximportrequest to get that functionality.

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The pst capture console at the moment only works correct on workstations that are joined to a domain (any domain is ok!)

Standalone doesn't work, would be nice that in a next version a standalone machine also works.

I also discovered that if you use nod32 antivirus V5 the winrm / powershell doesn't work (not even when disabling nod32 temporalily)

Not a microsoft problem but maybe a usefull hint for other early adopters that try to get this tool working.

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@JodyMcCarty

I'm using a Service Account now that is not Domain-Admin but full Exchange Org Admin and has Full rights on all Mailboxes.

Anyway I didn't find the "permissions guidelines in the documentation" you mentioned. Where do I have to search for that?

I'm still getting this errors when trying to select a Mailbox for the Import:

taurec42.files.wordpress.com/.../pst.jpg

What is also confusing me is that the DC Used in that Screenshot in in a different AD-Side and it's a RODC. I don't know why the tool is picking that one instaed of my login DC with is at the same Side and it's a normal DC/GC.

Any Idea?

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Ok.. found that I forgot to EMail enable the Service Account. Not when I try to chose the Import Location the errors iin the Log looks the same but the Popup is now diffrent. Not an error in it just an emtpy window and everything greyed out but the Cancle Button. :(

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Is this tool capable of exporting from Exchange Archives to a pst?

Thanks Guys!

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I have PST Capture running on an Exchange 2010 server and I have copied some.pst files to that server. Upon trying to import some of these .psts into Exchange mailboxes, they fail with either an RPC error (Import error: The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)" or this error: (Import error: Could not find any resources appropriate for the specified culture or the neutral culture.  Make sure "RedGate.ExchangeArchiver.MAPI.Engine.Properties.Resources.resources" was correctly embedded or linked into assembly "Microsoft.Exchange.PSTCapture.MAPI.Engine" at compile time, or that all the satellite assemblies required are loadable and fully signed")

Usually, it will say transferring, go to 100% and then an error appears. Some files do import fine.  Looking at the capture logs, this appears at the end:

Hope someone can help...

22:09:59.016|Verbose|ExchangeHierarchy   |7  |GetDatabases for Exchange: PFM-SERV.PFM.local

22:09:59.016|Verbose|MailboxGetter       |7  |AdHarvester: Mailbox harvest success - got 12 boxes

22:10:31.880|Trace  |Listener            |5  |Accepted incoming connection from 192.168.100.35:15083

22:10:31.880|Trace  |CentralService      |3  |Received message from Agent

22:10:31.880|Trace  |Request parser      |3  |Processing configuration request from Agent

22:10:31.882|Debug  |DBComputer          |3  |SetStatus - Agent of PFM-SERV sent state  NotStarted

22:10:49.391|Verbose|AD                  |3  |AsyncUpdatedObject timer tick

22:10:49.403|Verbose|AD                  |4  |AsyncUpdatedObject timer tick

22:10:49.403|Verbose|AD                  |4  |AsyncUpdatedObject timer tick

22:10:49.403|Trace  |AD                  |4  |AsyncUpdatedObject update on timer

22:10:49.403|Verbose|AdoDb               |4  |SELECT name FROM 'LDAP://PFM-SERV.PFM.local/DC=PFM,DC=local'

22:10:49.421|Verbose|AD                  |3  |AsyncUpdatedObject timer tick

22:10:49.421|Trace  |AD                  |3  |AsyncUpdatedObject update on timer

22:10:49.972|Verbose|Server Provider     |4  |Get server took 0.5690325s - AD performance may not be optimal

22:10:49.973|Verbose|AdoDb               |4  |SELECT cn, distinguishedName FROM 'LDAP://PFM-SERV.PFM.local/CN=Databases,CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT),CN=Administrative Groups,CN=PFMGreen,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=PFM,DC=local' WHERE objectClass='msExchPrivateMDB' AND msExchMasterServerOrAvailabilityGroup='CN=PFM-SERV,CN=Servers,CN=Exchange Administrative Group 28FYDIBOHF23SPDLT29,CN=Administrative Groups,CN=PFMGreen,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=PFM,DC=local'

22:10:49.973|Verbose|Server Provider     |3  |Get server took 0.5520316s - AD performance may not be optimal

22:10:49.974|Verbose|AdoDb               |3  |SELECT distinguishedName, mail, msExchMailboxGuid, msExchArchiveGuid, legacyExchangeDN, sAMAccountName, homeMDB, name, msExchResourceCapacity, msExchResourceDisplay, msExchResourceMetaData, msExchResourceSearchProperties  FROM 'LDAP://PFM-SERV.PFM.local/DC=PFM,DC=local' WHERE msExchHideFromAddressLists<>TRUE AND objectClass='Person'

22:10:49.986|Verbose|AdoDb               |4  |SELECT msExchHostServerLink FROM 'LDAP://PFM-SERV.PFM.local/CN=Mailbox Database 0873069872,CN=Databases,CN=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT),CN=Administrative Groups,CN=PFMGreen,CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services,CN=Configuration,DC=PFM,DC=local' WHERE objectClass='msExchMDBCopy'

22:10:59.161|Verbose|AD                  |3  |GetExchangeServerHostnames() returns:

PFM-SERV.PFM.local

22:10:59.161|Verbose|ExchangeHierarchy   |3  |GetDatabases for Exchange: PFM-SERV.PFM.local

22:10:59.161|Verbose|MailboxGetter       |3  |AdHarvester: Mailbox harvest success - got 12 boxes

22:10:59.220|Warn   |BposInfo            |3  |No BPOS username set

22:11:32.961|Trace  |Listener            |5  |Accepted incoming connection from 192.168.100.35:15092

22:11:32.972|Trace  |CentralService      |7  |Received message from Agent

22:11:32.972|Trace  |Request parser      |7  |Processing configuration request from Agent

22:11:32.974|Debug  |DBComputer          |7  |SetStatus - Agent of PFM-SERV sent state  NotStarted

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This item is awesome,and I prefer to read quality content,so I am happy to get so many good points here in a post, the writing is simply super, thanks for the post.

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@Steven why should it? Exchange can do this without additional tools. Thanks to Exchange Powershell Commands.

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@ Lars - Thanks for the reply.

You are correct, the import into exchange can also been done via PowerShell so the question still stands as the tool is meant to reduce the time these tasks take when doing a migration. If the tool can import into exchange, natively it should also be able to do the reverse, probably asking for too much, but this is where I can see the benefits from the tool.

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We are still unable to import anything. According to the Logs the Tool always pics the first Domain Controller in the DC list. In our case this is a RODC in a total different AD - Site. I have no clue why it does that instead of just picking a DC in its own AD Site. We tried this on two different servers in two different Sites.

Any suggestions?

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@ Taurec42

The following commands have been executed for service account in addition to the security groups the service account resides in. Hope this helps.

[PS] C:>get-qaduser ServiceAccountName | get-qadmemberof | fl Name

Name : Domain Users

Name : Public Folder Management

Name : View-Only Organization Management

Get-MailboxDatabase -identity "DatabaseName" | Add-ADPermission -user aa1RME -ExtendedRights Receive-As, Send-As

Add-ADPermission -InheritedObjectType User -InheritanceType Descendents -ExtendedRights Send-As -User "ServiceAccountName" -Identity "DC=DomainName,DC=com"

Add-ADPermission -InheritedObjectType User -InheritanceType Descendents -ExtendedRights Receive-As -User "ServiceAccountName"" -Identity "DC=DomainName,DC=com"

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@Jody, sorry still an emtpy window.

Logs look like this:

08:07:11.289|Verbose|ExchangeHierarchy   |4  |GetDatabases for Exchange: DAG

08:07:11.291|Verbose|MailboxGetter       |4  |AdHarvester: Mailbox harvest success - got 957 boxes

08:07:11.469|Warn   |BposInfo            |4  |No BPOS username set

08:07:13.905|Trace  |Listener            |5  |Accepted incoming connection from 10.10.128.41:18324

08:07:14.109|Trace  |CentralService      |4  |Received message from Agent

08:07:14.109|Trace  |Request parser      |4  |Processing configuration request from Agent

08:08:11.677|Error  |CentralService      |3  |Error occured in get mailbox update check

System.InvalidCastException: Specified cast is not valid.

  at System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteDataReader.VerifyType(Int32 i, DbType typ)

  at System.Data.SQLite.SQLiteDataReader.GetString(Int32 i)

  at RedGate.PSTImporterForExchange.Engine.Repository.DbMailbox.GetMailboxes(Boolean is365)

  at RedGate.PSTImporterForExchange.Engine.Repository.RepositoryMailbox.GetMailboxes(Boolean is365)

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Recently used this on migrating a small business to Office 365 - great tool. Thanks guys!

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Hello,

We have the following issue: the tool stops when it needs to import a task with the error RPC unavailable. We tried it a few times and it always stops in the same subfolder containing a few messages and a task.

Unchecking the tolerance, doesn't change this.

After running into this "RPC" issue, The tool is in a faulty state. It refuses to import any other PST giving the error: Import error: Error opening the PST. Even reimporting pst's which were imported succesfully before the RPC error are getting this Import error. Through reinstalling the tool/restarting the pc we manage to get it back working each time ... but this is a bit cumbersome.  

Bart

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Hi, How about a nice way of adding and managing Signatures to Emails in exchange? There are a lot of third party software around to do this. This give an indication that it is a feature that we could really use. Take me , The management of our server is only a small part of my job but my boss wants me to change the company email signature to reflect our marketing. Please take alook at what codetwo are offering. This would be nice as standard for SBS. Especially as this product is aimed at small businesses.

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@Kel this is a Feature since Exchange 2007 and is called Transport Rules!

-> blog.chrislehr.com/.../exchange-2010-hub-transport-building.htm

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‎Jul 01 2019 04:04 PM
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