The mailbox remains in the original site after you move a mailbox to a mixed site in Exchange 2003

After you move a user's mailbox from one Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 site to a computer that is in a mixed site that contains both Exchange Server 5.5 computers and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 computers, you experience both the following symptoms:

• The mailbox is not removed from the source Exchange Server 5.5 site.
• The user's original mailbox remains a member of a distribution list in that source Exchange Server 5.5 site, and the user's new mailbox is also added to that same distribution list.

This problem occurs if the user account that is created in the destination site is not replicated back to the Active Directory directory service. This problem may occur if the following conditions are true:

• You have an administrative group in your organization that contains only Exchange 2003 computers or Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server computers.
• The Active Directory Connector (ADC) recipient Connection Agreement was manually configured between the Exchange Server 5.5 site and Active Directory, and the recipient Connection Agreement does not export the recipient container that the new user account was created in.

Note This problem does not occur if you use the ADC Tools tool to create the ADC Connection Agreements.

When you move a user account from an Exchange Server 5.5 site to a mixed site that contains both Exchange Server 5.5 computers and Exchange 2003 computers, the original user account remains in a hidden state in the source Exchange Server 5.5 site until the distribution list membership for that account is cleaned up. This behavior is designed to help prevent the loss of e-mail flow for that user account while the user account information is replicated to the Exchange sites.

If you create the ADC Connection Agreements manually, one Connection Agreement may potentially handle both the local mixed site and the pure administration group that contains only Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2000 computers. In this scenario, if the Export containers for Exchange are not set correctly, the newly created object in the destination site will not replicate back and match to the user account in the AD. msExchADCGlobalNames Exchange attributes for that AD user account are not updated to point to the new mailbox object that is created in the destination Exchange site. Because these attributes are not updated, the Exchange Server 5.5 distribution list membership is not modified. Therefore, the original Exchange Server 5.5 mailbox remains in the original Exchange Server 5.5 site. Additionally, this original mailbox remains as a member of the Exchange Server 5.5 distribution list.

If you create the ADC Connection Agreements by using the ADC Tools, ADC Tools creates separate Connection Agreements for the mixed Exchange sites and the pure administration group(s) that contains only Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2000 computers.

To resolve this problem, use the ADC Tools to create a separate Connection Agreement for the Exchange 2003 administration group. To start the ADC Tools, follow these steps:

Note Because there are several versions of Microsoft Windows, the following steps may be different on your computer. If they are, see your product documentation to complete these steps.

1. On the computer where ADC is installed, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click Active Directory Connector.
2. Click ADC Tools, and then follow the steps in the right pane to create a Connection Agreement.

To work around this problem, modify the distribution group that corresponds to the Exchange Server 5.5 distribution list by using the Active Directory Users and Computers tool. To do this:

1. On a domain controller, start the Active Directory Users and Computers tool. To do this, click Start, click Run, type dsa.msc in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Click the container where the distribution group is located.
3. Right-click the distribution group, and then click Properties.
4. Type a message in the Notes box. For example, type Force AD replication.
5. Click OK.
6. Permit sufficient time for the ADC to replicate the changes to the Exchange Server 5.5 site. To force this replication:
   1. Start the Active Directory Connector Services tool. To do this, click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click Active Directory Connector.
   2. Click Active Directory Connector (ServerName).
   3. In the right pane, right-click the recipient Connection Agreement that is configured between Active Directory and your Exchange Server 5.5 site, and then click Replicate Now.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.