Users who use Outlook 2003 cannot publish their free/busy data in Exchange Server 2010 or in Exchange Server 2007

Users who use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 cannot publish their free/busy data in Exchange Server 2010 or in Exchange Server 2007. Only hash marks appear in the free/busy data for these users. Additionally, the following event is logged in the Application log:

Event ID : 8207
Category : General
Source : MSExchangeFBPublish
Type : Error
Message : Error updating public folder with free/busy information on virtual machine <Exchange2007ServerName> . The error number is 0x80004005

When you run the Outlook /cleanfreebusy command, you receive the following error message: This issue will generally only occur in an environment that is pure Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2007. You can experience this issue if you migrated from a previous version of Exchange or if you installed a new Exchange Server 2010 or Exchange Server 2007 organization.

This problem occurs because there are no replicas of at least one Free/Busy folder in the Exchange Server 2010 or Exchange Server 2007 organization.

To resolve this problem, follow these stepsL

1. In the Exchange Management Shell, run the following command:
   get-publicfolder -Identity "\NON_IPM_SUBTREE\SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY" -Recurse | fl name,Replicas
   Notice that at least one of the SCHEDUE+ FREE BUSY folders is missing an Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2007 server listed as a replica. For example, the output may appear as follows:
   Name : EX:/o=contoso/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT) Replicas : {}
2. In the Exchange Management Shell, run the following command:
   set-publicfolder -Identity "\NON_IPM_SUBTREE\SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY\<Name of Folder>" -replicas "<Target PF Database>"
   For example, type:
   Set-publicfolder –identity "\NON_IPM_SUBTREE\SCHEDULE+ FREE BUSY\EX:/o=contoso/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)” –Replicas “Server\Storage Group\Public Folder Database”
3. Verify that the public folder group now has a replica using the command from step 1. In the following example, the folder now has a replica object.
   Name : EX:/o=contoso/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT) Replicas : {Public Folder Database}

Note All users whose free/busy data is not populated must accept or decline a meeting request to populate the free/busy data.

The legacyExchangeDN attribute of a mailbox is set when that mailbox is created, and it depends on the Administrative group that the server belonged to at the time of creation. As long as you have Outlook 2003 clients, you must maintain a replica of all Free/Busy public folders that have existed in the organization to make sure that these clients can access Free/Busy information. Outlook 2007 clients use the availability service to get their Free/Busy information and are not subject to this limitation.