XADM: How to Remove Orphaned Public Folders

After you stop replication between two or more sites, folders are still shown in the Public Folder Hierarchy but they are not accessible from Microsoft Exchange clients or the Microsoft Exchange Administrator program.

For Exchange Server 4.0, from the Microsoft Exchange Administrator program, the following message will be encountered: From a Microsoft Exchange client, the error message will be: In Exchange Server 5.5, you receive the following error message:

To remove these orphaned folders, follow these steps:

Warning: The orphaned folders should not be deleted if site replication is ever going to be re-established. This is because once a folder is removed from a site, and replications is re-established, the remove action will be backfiled to the server were the folder belonged to originally. This means that if a folder that used to belong to site A is removed while on site B, and sites A and B are rejoined through replication, the folder will eventually be also deleted on site A.

1. Start the Microsoft Exchange Administrator program and go to the Server container.
2. Double-click on the Public Information Store.
3. Look for the Public Folders on the left hand side of the Instances Property page and add them to Folders on This Information Store on the right hand side of the Instances Property page. This has to be done for every orphaned folder.
   
   NOTE: If the folders do not appear on the right hand side, you must follow these steps:
   
   WARNING: If you ever plan to re-join the sites, do NOT go through this procedure.
   1. Go back to the server object and display the properties.
   2. From the Advanced tab, go to the DS/IS consistency adjustment.
   3. Choose to adjust all inconsistencies and click on Adjust.
4. Go to the Organization's Public Folder tree on left hand side of the window.
5. Double-click on the folder in question.
6. Click the Client Permissions button on the General tab and give Owner rights to an administrator account.
7. Start a Microsoft Exchange client, log on as the administrator above, and remove the orphaned folders.

The Offline Address Book and Schedule+ Free Busy folders from other replicated sites cannot be removed from the hierarchy using this procedure. These folders should disappear from the System Folder hierarchy a week after replication has been broken. The Information Store will mark the folders for deletion the first time it is restarted after replication has been broken between the sites. The next time that the Information Store is restarted, after the 7 day waiting period, the orphan folders will be removed from the hierarchy. This is done to avoid recreating the system folder hierarchy if the sites are re-connected within a week. These folders are completely harmless because they are not visible from the clients and have no effect on any other store task.

If you plan on setting replication back up again, DO NOT take ownership of the public folders and delete them in the manner described in this article, as this will cause the public folders in the original site to be deleted once the replication connector is re-established.

Only take ownership of these orphaned public folders if you NEVER want to setup replication again with the site that actually contains the public folders.