XCLN: How to Change Location of Offline Address Book Files

The Microsoft Exchange Client can download an Offline Address Book from the Microsoft Exchange Server. This Offline Address Book (OAB) can be used when the client is not connected to the server and is running offline.

The location of the Offline Address Book is not configurable through the Exchange client. By default the Offline Address Book is kept in the Windows directory. The Microsoft Exchange Administrator can use the Microsoft Exchange Setup Editor to specify a new path for the Offline Address Book. This however needs to be done before the clients are installed.

This article describes how to change the location of the Offline Address Book file on the client computer after the Exchange client has been installed.

The path to the Offline Address Book is saved in the user's profile. In order to change the location of the Offline Address Book, a new profile will need to be created. The "Mail & Fax" applet in Control Panel, does not allow the location of the OAB to be specified when creating a new profile. To control where the OAB files will be placed, a new profile must be created using the Automatic Profile Generator (Newprof.exe).

How to Create a New Profile by Using Newprof.exe

Newprof.exe, the Automatic Profile Generator, reads a file (Default.prf) and creates a profile based on the settings in this file. One of the settings in this file specifies the location of the Offline Address Book.

If the Automatic Profile Generator was used to create a profile when the client was installed, the Default.prf file should be present in the Windows directory on the client computer.

1. If the Default.prf file is present, edit the file using a text editor such as Notepad, and complete these steps:
   1. In the [Service2] section, add this entry:
      

            OfflineAddressBookPath= <path to the offline Address Book>
      							

      
      If this entry already exists, modify the path to be what you want.
   2. In the [General] section, change the value of the ProfileName entry to be the name that you want the new profile to have.
   3. Save the file, and exit out of the text editor.
2. If Default.prf is not present in the Windows directory, check the Microsoft Exchange Client installation share point on the server that was used to install the Microsoft Exchange client. If Default.prf does not exist in that share, run the Microsoft Exchange Setup Editor against that share point. From the File Menu, choose Set User Options to bring up the User Options settings. Select the Home Server property page. Set the Offline Address Book Path on this page. Click OK and then exit the Setup Editor. The file, Default.prf, should now be created in the Microsoft Exchange Client directory on the server. Edit this file and change the ProfileName entry to be name of the new profile. Copy Default.prf to the Windows directory on the client computer where you wish to create the new profile.
3. On the client computer, open up an MS-DOS command prompt.
4. Change to the directory where the Microsoft Exchange client is installed.
5. Run Newprof.exe -s to bring up a window.
6. Make sure that the Profile Descriptor File specified is Default.prf in the Windows directory.
7. Click the Execute button. The program should now create a new profile with the name specified in the .prf file.
8. Log into the Microsoft Exchange client with this new profile. The next time the OAB is downloaded, it will be saved in the new location specified in the .prf file used to create the profile.