XADM: Some Non-Delivery Report Messages Are Not Archived When You Configure Message Archiving

After you configure message archiving for a message store on your Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server computer, you notice that certain non-delivery report (NDR) messages are not archived. In this scenario, the message sender receives the NDR, but the NDR message does not appear in the archive mailbox.

You expect all messages to be archived when you click to select the Archive all messages sent or received by mailboxes on this store check box in the properties dialog box of a message store.

This behavior occurs when the NDR message is sent from the local Exchange 2000 computer. By default, messages sent from your Exchange 2000 computer are not archived. However, Exchange 2000 successfully archives NDR messages that are sent from an external messaging system.

To work around this issue, configure the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) virtual server to send a copy of NDR messages to the archive mailbox. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Start Exchange System Manager.
2. Expand Administrative Groups, expand your administrative group, expand Servers, expand your Exchange server, expand Protocols, and then expand SMTP.
3. Right-click Default SMTP Virtual Server, and then click Properties.
4. Click the Messages tab.
5. In the Send copy of Non-Delivery Report to box, type the name of your message archive mailbox or public folder as in the following example:
   archive@example.com
   .
6. Click Apply, and then click OK.