Changing Exchange Server 5.5 primary Windows NT account does not update Active Directory group membership

When you change the primary Microsoft Windows NT account for a Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 mailbox to a new user account, the Active Directory Connector (ADC) does not update group memberships in the Active Directory directory service to contain this new user. Instead, groups in the Active Directory will continue to contain the user originally listed as the primary Microsoft Windows NT account until the group is changed in Exchange Server 5.5.

This issue occurs because a change that you make to an Exchange Server 5.5 mailbox does not update the Exchange Server 5.5 distribution lists that the mailbox belongs to. The ADC does not replicate distribution list information if you do not make the change to the distribution list itself.

To work around this issue, force replication to occur by manually changing the Exchange Server 5.5 distribution lists that the mailbox belongs to. The simplest manual change that you can use to force replication is to add a note to the properties of the distribution lists. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type drive:\exchsrvr\bin\admin.exe, and then click OK.
   
   In this step, drive is the hard disk where Exchange Server 5.5 is installed.
2. In the left pane, expand the site that contains the distribution list that you want to change, and then click Recipients.
3. In the right pane, click the distribution list that the mailbox belongs to, click File, and then click Properties.
4. Click the General tab, add a note in the Notes box, and then click OK.

The Active Directory Connector does not replicate mailbox ownership changes to an Active Directory group membership. When you make changes to an Exchange Server 5.5 distribution list, the Active Directory Connector replicates the changes to Active Directory.

For additional information about how to use the Active Directory Connector to synchronize Active Directory with the Exchange Server 5.5 directory, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: