importing a string to all subkeys?

[eyeball]

hi all, i have a problem that i would greatly appreciate help with...here goes

we have 300+ users all connecting to srv1 as their exchange server, pretty soon however they will all need to be pointed to srv2 as their exchange server.

this would be a pain to do manually so i thought that a regsitry import done via login script would solve it, however

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\MS Exchange Settings\CHANGES]

the part iv called CHANGES is different for each users profile but the string i wish to import ( "001e660c"="srv2") is not so my question is...

can i import this string to the key below AND also to each subkey underneath it?

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\MS Exchange Settings]

thanks for any help on this

Edited November 1, 2005 by eyeball

[net_user]

is this a exchange server migration upgrade?

Edited November 1, 2005 by net_user

[eyeball]

indeed it is

5.5 to 2003 lol, not direct though going to go from 5.5 to 2000 then 2000 to 2003 then move all the mailboxes over to a brand new 2003 server.....shouldnt be too difficult, i hope

[net_user]

interesting...we are going through the same migration...we have our new exchange 2003 server up and running...we only have a few mailboxes migrated over...i have to get witih my coworker on the migration of the settings...this is mostly his project....

[eyeball]

ok cool! well please let me know if you find a way to automate the changing of the exchange server on each individual machine. like i say the only way i can see is via that registry key, but since each users profile has a different value it looks like its going to be harder than i thought..

thanks net user

[cluberti]

You may wish to use EXMERGE to move the mailboxes. Since you say that all of your users have profiles for the 5.5 server, in differing locations, this may be a viable option. If you don't HAVE to migrate their profiles (just their mailboxes), use EXMERGE to export the user's mailbox from the 5.5 server, import it into the new mailbox you've created for them on the 2003 server, then via a logon script wipe out their previous Outlook profile and populate it with a new one (you can create a default Outlook profile with the Resource Kit).

I've done this also with ScriptLogic, and find it to be the easiest way to go about it.

[eyeball]

thanks cluberti

ill look into creating a default outlook profile with the resource kit if i cant do it with the reg key, but imho i think this reg key is the way to do this

thanks

EDIT: so does anyone have any ideas as to how to add this string to each subkey of the path i specified above?! it has to be possible..please say it is! lol

Edited November 1, 2005 by eyeball

[chilifrei64]

Its been about a year and a half since my last exchange 5.5 to 2003 migration... but if I can remember correctly.. all the 2000 or XP machines with either Office 2000 Office XP or Office 2003, they changed the settings automatically.. That is.. pending you have both servers running at the same time..

The client will look to srv1 for the mailbox.. srv1 will know that that mailbox is stored on srv2 and will transfer it to it and outlook will reconfigure the settings..

Weather or not this is the case.. I neither imported new registry settings or wiped out an outlook profile(i think I would have remembered 300 pc's or so) I has a few problematic ones but those were mainly windows 98 machines

The other thing you can do is use the resource kit for office 2003 and use the license for Outlook 2003 that comes with Exchange 2003.. deploy Outlook 2003 to all clients with a customized outlook profile. This way everybody is on outlook 2003 and can take advantage of some of the advanced features. If I had to do it all over again this is what I would do.. I ended up doing it later anyways and had no problems(except for the people who had their delivery location as a pst file instead of their exchange mailbox)

[eyeball]

hey chilifrei64

so if i get the exchange 5.5 server upto 2003 and then migrate all the mailboxes over to the new 2003 server, and then just delete a few mailboxes off the old server as a test and see what happens?

if this works you are my saviour

thanks

Edited November 2, 2005 by eyeball