Question : Backfill request emails from Public Folder with winmail.dat attachment

Hi,

I am a newbie Exchange administrator and have much to learn.  Teach me oh wise ones!!!!

Everyday now I am getting emails addressed from Public Folder Store (FEEXC).  The email is addressed to nobody so our Spam system is tagging it as unknown recipient and forwarding the mail to me.  The subject of the email is "[email protected] Backfill Request." It actually says our real domain name instead of "mydomain.com", but I don't want to share that info.  The email has an attachment called winmail.dat.

FEEXC is my Front end exchange server and DC-1 is the backend Exchange server which is also a domain controller (Yes I know it's bad to have exchange running on a DC).  

Any Ideas what is causing these emails and what I need to do to fix it?  Thanks in advance for your wisdom.

Charlie

Answer : Backfill request emails from Public Folder with winmail.dat attachment

1.) OK
2.) You may have replicas on your current front end server. If you go to ESM - Folders - public folder, you can right click this folder and connect to one of your servers. Then you can click through and with the tabs on the right side, you can see, if there is any conten on this server. Befor you disabling anything, you should take care, that your backend server hoists everything, that you can find on the frint end server. If you are sure, that your backendserver in complete, disable the replication to your front end server for the folders as well as for system folders (also right click on the public folders folder in ESM).

If all replication links are deleted, make sure, that the settings are replicated to the front end server / backend server (depends on where you have deleted the link). The target should be, that the replication links for all folders (including system folders) are pointing only to the backend server (check this by connectiong to both servers).  

I assume, that the replication had problems (due to your winmail.dat attachement), that means, that also the replication of the settings make trouble. Theresfore it may be necessary, to delete the links on both servers.

If all links are fine (pointing only to the backend server), you should not see any replication mails anymore. This is the point you can dismount the public folder store. If you get no errors for a while, then you can delete it.

Some Background:
If you simply disable the store, the replica links are still valid and may cause errors. As AD stores a lot of information about exchange, you have to make sure, that the AD information is clean. Therefore, first delete the links to the frontendserver before you disable it.

Simle dismount the store first and wait a while to see, if you get any errors. If you see errors, you can remount the store and correct it.

The clients are connecting to one available public folder store. This need not to be the server, where the mailbox resides. That means, a client can connect to the backend server for the mailbox, and the frontend server for public folders.  Also a reson, why to first clean the AD (replica links) before you dismount the store.