XADM: Two-Way Connection Agreement Modifies Add-Ins Container in Exchange Server 5.5

After you create a two-way Connection Agreement between an Exchange Server 5.5 site container and a Microsoft Windows 2000 organizational unit (OU), the Add-Ins container in Exchange Server 5.5 may be empty and the Add-Ins container may be displayed with a Recipients container symbol.

This problem can occur because when you create a two-way Connection Agreement between a Windows 2000 OU and the Exchange Server 5.5 organizational container or an individual site container, any recipient objects and those objects' container structures are replicated. The only exception to this is that empty containers are not replicated.

If there are any Recipients objects in the Add-ins container under the Configuration container, those objects are replicated to Active Directory with the objects' corresponding Exchange Server 5.5 container structure. These objects can include the Exchange Server Mailbox Manager object and third-party add-ins.

NOTE: Only objects that have associated mailboxes are replicated, no extension objects are replicated.

Active Directory cannot interpret the Add-Ins container correctly and treats the Add-Ins container as a Recipients container. The newly created OU replicates back to Exchange Server 5.5 and turns the Add-Ins container into a Recipients container, which corrupts the Add-Ins container.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

Component: Active Directory Connector

To work around this problem, change the container info property back to the correct value.

WARNING: If you use the raw mode of the Exchange Server Administrator program (admin /r) incorrectly, serious problems may occur that may require you to reinstall Microsoft Windows NT Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, or both. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that result from using raw mode incorrectly can be solved. Use raw mode at your own risk.

1. Start the Microsoft Exchange Server Administrator program in raw mode by typing the following at a command prompt:
   c:\exchsrvr\bin\admin /r
2. Open the raw properties of the Add-Ins container.
3. Change the value of container info, which identifies the container as a Recipients container, to 4096, which is the correct value for the Add-Ins container.
4. Restart the Directory service.

NOTE: As long as the two-way Connection Agreement exists, the container update back-synchronizes to the Exchange Server environment. Perform one of the following procedures to ensure that the problem in the "Symptoms" section of this article does not occur again:

• Remove any mailbox-enabled recipients from the Add-Ins container (for example, uninstall Mailbox Manager).
• Ensure that there are only one-way Connection Agreements in place from the Exchange Server site container to ensure that the Add-ins container under the Configuration container cannot replicate back to Exchange Server 5.5.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server.

This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 1.