You receive a "The object is no longer available" message when you expand Public Folders in Exchange System Manager in Exchange 2000 or in Exchange 2003

After you join an Exchange 2000 Server computer or an Exchange Server 2003 computer to an existing Exchange Server 5.5 site, several Exchange 2000 services or Exchange 2003 services do not start, and your public folder view does not appear correctly in Exchange System Manager. When you start Exchange System Manager, expand Administrative Groups, expand Folders, and then expand Public Folders, you may receive the following error message:

This issue occurs if the Exchange organization directory name or the Exchange site directory name contains characters that Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 do not support.

Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 do not support directory names that contain the following characters:

• ~ (tilde)
• ` (grave accent)
• ! (exclamation point)
• @ (at sign)
• # (number sign)
• $ (dollar sign)
• % (percent)
• ^ (caret, circumflex)
• & (ampersand)
• * (asterisk)
• ( (opening parenthesis)
• ) (closing parenthesis)
• _ (underscore)
• + (plus sign)
• = (equal sign)
• { (left brace)
• } (right brace)
• [ (left bracket)
• ] (right bracket)
• | (pipe or vertical bar)
• \ (backslash)
• / (slash mark)
• : (colon)
• ; (semicolon)
• " (quotation mark)
• ' (apostrophe)
• < (left angle bracket)
• > (right angle bracket)
• , (comma)
• . (period)
• ? (question mark)

To resolve this issue if the prohibited characters exist only in the display name of the organization or the site, change the display name of the organization or the site by using the Microsoft Exchange Administrator tool so that the organization name or the site name does not contain these characters. If this issue persists after you modify the display name of the organization or the site, push a replica of the public folder data to the Exchange 2000 computer or to the Exchange 2003 computer.

If the directory name of the organization or the site contains the prohibited characters, Microsoft recommends that you not install Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2000 to join this organization. If you do install Exchange 2000 or Exchange 2003, this issue will persist in your public folders. Instead, consider migrating to a new Exchange organization that does not contain the prohibited characters.

In Exchange 5.5, all objects have both an internal directory name and an external display name. The directory name is used to create the distinguished name of the object. A sample distinguished name is /o=Contoso/ou=Redmond. The display name is the name that you see when you run the Microsoft Exchange Administrator tool. You cannot change the internal directory name of an existing object, but you can change the display name of that object. Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 limit the common name value of objects that are stored in the Active Directory directory service.

An Exchange 2000 organization name or an Exchange 2003 organization name can contain all the following characters:

• Uppercase letters A through Z
• Lowercase letters a through z
• Numbers 0 through 9
• Space
• Dash or hyphen

An Exchange 2000 organization name or an Exchange 2003 organization name cannot contain the following characters:

• ~ (tilde)
• ` (grave accent)
• ! (exclamation point)
• @ (at sign)
• # (number sign)
• $ (dollar sign)
• % (percent)
• ^ (caret, circumflex)
• & (ampersand)
• * (asterisk)
• ( (opening parenthesis)
• ) (closing parenthesis)
• _ (underscore)
• + (plus sign)
• = (equal sign)
• { (left brace)
• } (right brace)
• [ (left bracket)
• ] (right bracket)
• | (pipe or vertical bar)
• \ (backslash)
• / (slash mark)
• : (colon)
• ; (semicolon)
• " (quotation mark)
• ' (apostrophe)
• < (left angle bracket)
• > (right angle bracket)
• , (comma)
• . (period)
• ? (question mark)

Upgrading to an Exchange 2000 Server or Exchange Server 2003 organization from an Exchange Server 5.5 organization that contains invalid characters in the organization name or the site directory name is not supported.

For more information about characters that are not valid in the display names of an Exchange 5.5 organization, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about issues to consider when you upgrade to Exchange 2000 Server, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about tools to migrate from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about the Exchange Migration Wizard, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Merge program, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: