Migration Tools

The Migration Wizard includes the extractor for Microsoft Mail for PC Networks. The steps to the process are:

• (Optional) Use the Migration Wizard to create a user list.
• (Optional) Modify the user list as needed.
• Use the Migration Wizard to create mailboxes and migrate messages and attachments.

When migrating Microsoft Mail (PC) postoffice information to Microsoft Exchange Server, the Windows NT user account used to log on to Windows NT Server must also have permissions on Microsoft Exchange Server. If you attempt to migrate postoffice information and the Windows NT account does not have sufficient permissions on Microsoft Exchange Server, you will receive the error message "Invalid server specified." To migrate postoffice information successfully, you must assign Microsoft Exchange Server permissions for this account or log off of Windows NT Server and log on with an appropriate Windows NT user account.

It is difficult to predict how long it will take to migrate any postoffice, even if you know how many messages are involved. During testing, migrate five average users to get a rough time estimate. For best performance, run the Migration Wizard on the directory server, and migrate mailboxes to that server.

Note   Every postoffice has two special accounts that aren't migrated like the others. In the default administrator account, ADMIN, the directory name changes to match the postoffice name so that multiple administrator accounts aren't migrated into one mailbox. The other special account, Schedule+ version 1.0 administrator, ADMINSCH, is not migrated.

Before migrating mailboxes, you must prepare the server and the postoffice, both of which should not be used by anyone during migration. A complete copy of the postoffice can be made to the Microsoft Exchange Server hard drive if you are moving only a few users and don't want to interfere with the normal operations of the postoffice. This can also decrease migration time by having all the data local instead of reading it across the network.

Before moving users:

• Compare disk space to postoffice volume.

The server should have at least twice as much space as the postoffice volume. If free disk space is less than twice the postoffice volume, check the available space with the Performance Monitor during the process. Stop migration if there is less than 5 MB of disk space available.

• Back up the Microsoft Exchange Server information store and directory.

The Migration Wizard has three ways to migrate MS Mail (PC) mailboxes and data:

• One-Step - Information is extracted from the postoffice and immediately imported into the Microsoft Exchange Server.
• Two-Step - On the first step, the Migration Wizard creates a user list file. The file can be edited, then used in the second step. This is typically used to make changes to the common name of the mailboxes, or configure the associated Windows NT account.
• Batch - The Migration Wizard is started with command-line options. For more information, see Appendix C.

Which method you use depends on how you plan to use the Migration Wizard. This decision is totally independent of other decisions, including single or multi-phased migration, and partial or entire postoffice migration.

Note   When migrating mailboxes from Microsoft Mail (PC) to Microsoft Exchange Server, the following event log message from the Microsoft Exchange Server information store (MSExchangeIS) appears for every user who has been migrated: