How to Connect a Mailbox

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

This topic explains how to use the Exchange Management Console or the Exchange Management Shell to connect a disconnected mailbox. A disconnected mailbox is a mailbox object in the Microsoft Exchange store that is not associated with an Active Directory directory service user account.

Scenarios in which you may want to connect a mailbox include the following:

• You disabled a mailbox and now want to reconnect the mailbox to the Active Directory user account.

• You removed a mailbox by using the Remove-Mailbox cmdlet without the Permanent or StoreMailboxIdentity parameters and now want to reconnect the mailbox to a different Active Directory user account.

• You want to link a mailbox object to an external user account. The resource forest scenario is an example of when you would want to associate a mailbox with an external account. In a resource forest scenario, user objects in the Exchange forest have mailboxes, but the user objects are disabled for logon. You must associate these mailbox objects in the Exchange forest with enabled user objects in the external accounts forest.

Before You Begin

To perform the following procedures, the account you use must be delegated the following:

• Exchange Recipient Administrator role

For more information about permissions, delegating roles, and the rights that are required to administer Exchange Server 2007, see Permission Considerations.

Procedure

To use the Exchange Management Console to connect a mailbox

1. Start the Exchange Management Console.

2. In the console tree, expand Recipient Configuration, and then click Disconnected Mailbox.

3. In the result pane, select the mailbox that you want to connect. By default, the result pane will display disconnected mailboxes from all mailbox databases on the local server. You can view disconnected mailboxes from another server by clicking Connect to Server in the action pane.

4. In the action pane, under the name of the mailbox, click Connect. The Connect Mailbox wizard appears.

5. On the Introduction page, select one of the following to specify the mailbox type for the mailbox you are connecting:

   • User Mailbox   Click this button to connect the mailbox as a mailbox that is owned by a user to send and receive e-mail messages. User mailboxes cannot be used for resource scheduling.

     The Active Directory account that is associated with a user mailbox must reside in the same forest as the Exchange server. To use an account in a trusted forest, select Linked Mailbox.

   • Room Mailbox or Equipment Mailbox   Click one of these buttons to connect the mailbox as a mailbox that will be used as a location resource for scheduling meetings (room mailbox) or a non-location specific shared resource (equipment mailbox). Room and equipment mailboxes can be included in meeting requests as resources and can be configured to automatically process incoming requests.

     Note

     You can connect a room or equipment mailbox only to a disabled user account. Therefore, the Select Recipient dialog box that you use to select a user account in the Mailbox Settings page of this wizard will only display a list of disabled user accounts in the Active Directory forest.

   • Linked Mailbox   Click this button to connect the mailbox as a user mailbox that is accessed by a user in a separate, trusted forest. To store the mailbox information, you must select a user account in the forest in which the Exchange server resides.

     Linked mailboxes may 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.

     To learn more about the resource forest scenario and other complex Exchange deployments, see Planning for a Complex Exchange Organization.

6. Click Next.

7. On the Mailbox Settings page, to select the user to whom you want to connect the mailbox, select one of the following options:

   • Matching User   Click this button to have Exchange locate a matching user object in Active Directory. Click Browse to open the Select User dialog box. If Exchange locates a matching user, it will appear in this dialog box. Select the user, and then click OK.

     If Exchange cannot find a matching user, you must click Existing User. To locate a user account that matches the mailbox object, Exchange will use the LegacyExchangeDN and DisplayName attributes of the Exchange store mailbox object.

   • Existing User   Click this button if you want to connect the mailbox to a user other than the matching user. Click Browse to see a list of users available in Active Directory. The list will contain only users that do not have an associated mailbox.

     Note

     If you are connecting a room, equipment, or linked mailbox, the Select User dialog box will display only users that are disabled in Active Directory. If you are connecting a user mailbox, the Select User dialog box will display only users that are enabled in Active Directory.

8. After you select a user, use the Mailbox Settings page to configure the following settings for the mailbox:

   • Alias   Use this box to type an alias for the mailbox.

   • Managed folder mailbox policy   Select this check box to assign a managed folder mailbox policy to the mailbox. Click Browse to select a policy from a list of available managed folder mailbox policies. For more information about managed folder mailbox policies, see Deploying Messaging Records Management.

   • Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy   Select this check box to assign an ActiveSync policy to the mailbox. Click Browse to select a policy from a list of available ActiveSync policies. For more information about ActiveSync mailbox policies, see Understanding Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policies.

9. Click Next.

10. If you are connecting a linked mailbox, use the Master Account page to configure the following settings for the mailbox:

    • Trusted forest or domain   Click Browse to open the Select Forest dialog box. Select the forest that contains the master account, and then click OK. This will enable the Browse button next to the Linked domain controller check box.

    • Use the following Window user account to access linked domain controller   Select this check box if you want to specify a different user account. To access the domain controller in the linked forest, you can use a user account other than the one you are currently logged on as. Select the User name and Password check boxes to type the credentials of the user account.

    • Linked domain controller   Click Browse to open the Select Domain Controller dialog box. Select the domain controller you want, and then click OK. Selecting a valid linked domain controller will enable the Browse button next to the Linked master account check box.

    • Linked master account   Click Browse to open the Select Master Account dialog box. Select the user account that you want to use as the master account, and then click OK.

11. Click Next.

12. On the Connect Mailbox page, review your configuration settings. All the settings that you configured throughout this wizard are listed in the Configuration Summary section. Click Connect to associate the disconnected mailbox with the Active Directory user that you selected on the Mailbox Settings page. Click Back to make configuration changes.

13. On the Completion page, confirm whether the disconnected mailbox was connected successfully. A status of Completed indicates that the wizard completed the task successfully. A status of Failed indicates that the task was not completed. If the task fails, review the summary for an explanation, and then click Back to make any configuration changes. Click Finish to complete the Connect Mailbox wizard.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to connect a mailbox

• Run the following command:

  Connect-Mailbox -Identity "John Peoples" -Database "Mailbox Database" -User "John Peoples"
  

• To connect a linked mailbox, run the following command:

  Connect-Mailbox - Identity "John Peoples" -Database "Mailbox Database" -LinkedDomainController FabrikamDC01 -LinkedMasterAccount john@fabrikam.com
  

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see the Connect-Mailbox reference topic.

Recommended Next Steps

After the mailbox is connected, we recommend that you consider performing the following tasks in accordance with your organization's needs:

• Configure anti-spam features. For detailed steps about how to configure anti-spam features, see How to Configure Anti-Spam Features on a Mailbox.

• Enable or disable mailbox features such as MAPI, Microsoft Outlook Web Access, ActiveSync, and Unified Messaging.

  • For detailed steps about how to enable or disable MAPI, see How to Enable or Disable MAPI for a Mailbox User.

  • For detailed steps about how to enable or disable Outlook Web Access, see How to Enable or Disable Outlook Web Access for a Mailbox User.

  • For detailed steps about how to enable or disable ActiveSync, see How to Enable or Disable Exchange ActiveSync for a Mailbox User.

  • For detailed steps about how to enable Unified Messaging, see How to Enable a User for Unified Messaging.

For More Information

For more information about disabling a mailbox, see How to Disable a Mailbox.

For more information about removing a mailbox, see How to Remove a Mailbox.