Message age limit properties that are used by Mailbox Manager in Exchange Server 2003 and in Exchange 2000 Server

This article describes how the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server versions of the Mailbox Manager feature determine which messages to process. You can configure Mailbox Manager to clean server mailboxes based on message age or size for each folder. Mailbox Manager examines the message age limit for certain properties to determine whether to process a message.

Mailbox Manager is a feature in Exchange 2003 and in Exchange 2000 that runs as part of the System Attendant service. In Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 3 (SP3) and in Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 4 (SP4), the Mailbox Manager feature computes the age of messages in folders differently than the Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2000 versions of Mailbox Manager do.

Note In Exchange 2000, Mailbox Manager is installed on the server after you upgrade to Exchange 2000 Service Pack 1 or to a later Exchange 2000 service pack.

How dates are computed in Exchange 2003 and in Exchange 2000

Mailbox Manager examines the following MAPI properties to determine whether to process a message. If any messages are more recent than the age limit that is imposed by the Mailbox Manager recipient policy, the message is not processed:

Note Mailbox Manager examines the properties by using the "AND" operator. Therefore, all properties must meet the criteria.

• PR_MESSAGE_DELIVERY_TIME
• PR_CLIENT_SUBMIT_TIME
• PR_LAST_MODIFICATION_TIME

Mailbox Manager verifies that all three dates are older than the threshold that is set for cleaning. If all three date properties are older than the age limit that is imposed by the Mailbox Manager recipient policy, the message is processed.

For some message classes, Mailbox Manager examines additional properties. For example, for the IPM.Appointment class, Mailbox Manager examines the following properties:

• PR_END_DATE
• PR_START_DATE
• PR_APPOINTMENT_RECCURENCE == FALSE

For the IPM.Task class, Mailbox Manager examines the following property:

• PR_TASK_COMPLETED == TRUE

For the IPM.Journal task, Mailbox Manager examines the following properties:

• PR_JOURNAL_END_DATE
• PR_JOURNAL_START_DATE

Note If messages, appointments, tasks, or journal entries are missing one or more of the properties that are listed in this article for their specific message type, Mailbox Manager will not process them.

For more information about Mailbox Manager in Exchange 2003 and in Exchange 2000, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about Mailbox Manager in Exchange Server 5.5, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

You can force Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 to emulate the Exchange Server 5.5 message deletion logic. To do this, use the ADSI Edit tool or Ldp.exe to edit the msExchMailboxManagerAgeLimit attribute on the Mailbox Manager recipient policy object.

Warning If you use the ADSI Edit tool, the LDP utility, or any other LDAP version 3 client, and you incorrectly modify the attributes of Active Directory objects, you can cause serious problems. These problems may require that you reinstall Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Windows Server 2000, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, or Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server. Or, you may have to reinstall both Windows Server and Exchange Server.

Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that occur if you incorrectly modify Active Directory object attributes can be solved. Modify these attributes at your own risk.

How to set one of the following values on the msExchMailboxManagerAgeLimit attribute

Important If you configure the behavior of Exchange Server, programs that are built over Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 and that rely on the default behavior (which is to check all three message times before deleting the message) may not work as expected.

To find the msExchMailboxManagerAgeLimit attribute, open the configuration container in Adsiedit.msc, and then obtain properties on the relative mailbox manager policy object: When you set a value of 1, you can expect the following behavior:

You can safely ignore the modified date property on messages and delete messages whose delivery and submitted date property exceed the age limit that is set by the policy setting.

When you set a value of 2, you can expect the following behavior:

You can safely ignore the submitted date property on messages and delete messages whose delivery and modified date property exceed the age limit that is set by the policy setting.

When you set a value of 3, you can expect the following behavior in Exchange 2000 Server: (Exchange 5.5 behavior)

You can safely ignore both the submitted and the modified date properties on messages and delete messages whose delivery date property exceeds the age limit that is set by the policy setting.

Note Even if you set the value of the msExchMailboxMangerAgeLimit to 1, 2 or 3, the following properties are still considered for the IPM.Appointment class:

• PR_END_DATE
• PR_START_DATE
• PR_APPOINTMENT_RECCURENCE == FALSE