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Summary

This article contains a brief description of how Imanami OProfile can smooth the migration process in an org-to-org Microsoft Exchange migration.

More Information

Microsoft offers several ways to migrate from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000. Two methods, the ExMerge method and the Migration Wizard method both use what is commonly referred to as the "Org2Org" method because they involve creating a new Exchange 2000 organization as opposed to migrating or upgrading the existing Exchange 5.5 organization to Exchange 2000.

Both the ExMerge method and the Migration Wizard method break Outlook client profiles, requiring a new profile be created by a technician or the end-user them self. Alternatively you can use OProfile to migrate the existing Outlook profile. OProfile preserves the user's settings, eliminates the need for a desktop visit and provides a seamless migration experience to the end-user.

While OProfile preserves most of the user's settings, there are some capabilities that even OProfile is not able to preserve. A specific list of the setting preserved and not preserved are as follows:

OProfile Preserves

• Personal Storage Files (PST)
• Personal Address Book (PAB)
• Signatures
• Most Outlook client settings (spell check, default message format, etc.)

OProfile Does not Preserve

• Off-line storage files (OST)
• Server-side rules
• Outlook bar shortcuts
• Client-side rules

To put OProfile in Org2Org mode first complete the OProfile Administration Wizard as normal specifying the a home server in the destination Exchange organization. Once you have completed the wizard and selected your deployment method you must manually modify the oprofile.ini file created by the wizard.

Locate the OProfile.ini in the deploy folder you specified and double click it to open it in notepad. Located near the beginning of the file you will find the "Mode" setting. It should be set to the default, which is Normal. You need to change Normal to Org2Org as in the example below.

;OProfile modes of operation
; Normal - Default OProfile behavior
; Org2Org - Exchange Organization to Exchange Organization Migration
; Commandeer - Use existing default profile
Mode=Org2Org

Click File->Save to save your changes and exit notepad.

Note: If you selected a web deployment method you will need to recompile the cabinet file before copying the files to the web server. You can do this by double clicking the compile.cmd file located in the OPAW directory.

Now you simply deploy OProfile to your clients using any of OProfile's deployment methods. The "Web - Run Once" deployment method is very popular for migrations because you can simply instruct the user to visit a web page to configure their mail client.

Reference

327928 XADM: Description of Exchange Server Migration Methods