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Enable a Personal Archive for a New Mailbox

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Enabling the personal archive for a mailbox allows you to regain control of the organization's messaging data by eliminating the need for .pst files. The personal archive also allows users to store messages in an archive mailbox, which is then accessible to users by using Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Microsoft Outlook Web App.

When you create a personal archive for a new mailbox, the archive and the mailbox must reside on the same server. For more information about moving archive mailboxes, see Understanding Move Requests.

Looking for other management tasks related to personal archive? Check out Managing Personal Archive.

Use the EMC to enable a personal archive for a new mailbox

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Mailbox users" entry in the Mailbox Permissions topic.

  1. In the console tree, click Recipient Configuration.

  2. In the action pane, click New Mailbox.

  3. On the Introduction page, select one of the following options:

    • User Mailbox   Click this button to create a mailbox that is owned by a user to send and receive e-mail messages.
      The Active Directory account that is associated with user mailboxes must reside in the same forest as the Exchange server. To use an account in a trusted forest, select Linked Mailbox.
    • Linked Mailbox   Click this button to create a user mailbox that is accessed by a user in a separate, trusted forest. You must still create a user account in the forest in which Exchange Server resides. This is required to create the necessary Active Directory object for storing the mailbox information.
      Linked mailboxes might be necessary for organizations that choose to deploy Exchange in a resource forest. The resource forest scenario allows an organization to centralize Exchange in a single forest, while allowing access to the Exchange organization with user accounts in one or more trusted forests.

  4. On the User Type page, click New User.

  5. On the User Information page, complete the following fields:

    • Specify the organizational unit rather than using a default one Select this check box to select an organizational unit (OU) other than the default (which is the recipient scope). If the recipient scope is set to the forest, the default value is set to the Users container in the Active Directory domain that contains the computer on which the Exchange Management Console is running. If the recipient scope is set to a specific domain, the Users container in that domain is selected by default. If the recipient scope is set to a specific OU, that OU is selected by default. To select a different OU, click Browse to open the Select Organizational Unit dialog box. This dialog box displays all OUs in the forest that are within the specified scope. Select the desired OU, and then click OK. To learn more about recipient scopes, see Understanding Recipient Scope.

    • First name   Use this box to type the first name of the user. This field is optional.

    • Initials   Use this box to type the initials of the user. This field is optional.

    • Last name   Use this box to type the last name of the user. This field is optional.

    • Name   Use this box to type a name for the user. This is the name that's listed in Active Directory. By default, this box is populated with the names you enter in the First name, Initials, and Last name boxes. If you didn't use those boxes, you must still type a name in this field. The name can't exceed 64 characters.

    • User logon name (User Principal Name)   Use this box to type the name that the user will use to log on to the mailbox. The user logon name consists of a user name and a suffix. Typically, the suffix is the domain name in which the user account resides.

    • User logon name (pre-Windows 2000)   Use this box to type the name for the user that is compatible with the legacy versions of Microsoft Windows (prior to the release of Windows 2000 Server). This field is automatically populated based on the User logon name (User Principal Name) field. This field is required.

    • Password   Use this box to type the password that the user must use to log on to his or her mailbox.

      Note

      Make sure that the password you supply complies with the password length, complexity, and history requirements of the domain in which you are creating the user account.

    • Confirm password   Use this box to confirm the password that you typed in the Password box.

    • User must change password at next logon   Select this check box if you want the user to reset the password when they first logon to the mailbox.
      If you select this check box, at first logon, the new user will be prompted with a dialog box in which to change the password. The user won't be allowed to perform any tasks until the password is successfully changed.

  6. On the Mailbox Settings page, complete the following fields:

    • Alias   Use this box to type an alias for the mailbox. The alias can't exceed 64 characters and must be unique in the forest.
    • Specify the mailbox database rather than using a database automatically selected   Select this check box to specify an Exchange 2010 mailbox database instead of allowing Exchange to select a database for you. Click Browse to open the Select Mailbox Database dialog box. This dialog box lists all the Exchange 2010 mailbox databases in your Exchange organization. By default, the mailbox databases are sorted by name. You can also click the title of the corresponding column to sort the databases by database name or server name. Select the mailbox database you want to use, and then click OK. This is an optional field.
    • Managed folder mailbox policy   Leave this check box cleared. Managed folders are not compatible with personal archives. Personal archives use retention policies. To learn more, see Understanding Retention Tags and Retention Policies.
    • Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy   Select this check box to specify an Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy for the mailbox. Exchange ActiveSync enables access to an Exchange mailbox from a mobile device. To learn more, see Understanding Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies.
      Click Browse to open the Select ActiveSync Mailbox Policy dialog box. Use this dialog box to select the policy that you want associated with this mailbox. This is an optional field.

  7. On the Archive Settings page, select the Create an archive mailbox for this account check box. Mailbox items will be moved automatically from the primary user mailbox to the archive, based on the default retention policy settings or those you define. To learn more, see Understanding Personal Archives.

  8. On the New Mailbox page, review your configuration settings. To make any configuration changes, click Back. To create the new mailbox, click New.

  9. On the Completion page, review the following, and then click Finish to close the wizard:

    • A status of Completed indicates that the wizard completed the task successfully.
    • A status of Failed indicates that the task wasn't completed. If the task fails, review the summary for an explanation, and then click Back to make any configuration changes.

    Note

       If you selected the Managed folder mailbox policy check box on the Mailbox Settings page, you'llreceive an error because archive mailboxes and managed folders are incompatible. Archive mailboxes use retention policies. To learn more, see Understanding Retention Tags and Retention Policies.

Use the Shell to create a user new mailbox with personal archive enabled

This example creates the user Chris Ashton in Active Directory and creates the mailbox on mailbox database DB01 with archive enabled. The password must be reset at the next logon. To set the initial value of the password, this example creates a variable ($password), prompts you to enter a password, and assigns that password to the variable as a SecureString object.

$password = Read-Host "Enter password" -AsSecureString
New-Mailbox -UserPrincipalName chris@contoso.com -Alias chris -Archive -Database "DB01" -Name ChrisAshton -OrganizationalUnit Users -Password $password -FirstName Chris -LastName Ashton -DisplayName "Chris Ashton" -ResetPasswordOnNextLogon $True

Other Tasks

After you create the mailbox with archive enabled, you may also want to configure archive quotas to limit the size of the personal archive. For details, see Configure Personal Archive Quotas for a Mailbox.