Tuesday, 29 September 2009

SBS 2003: Recovering Deleted Items in a Public Folder

Short of using ShadowProtect to do a full database restore and utilizing a Recovery Storage Group, there is a little utility that can helps us recover items deleted out of a Public Folder.

But first, we need to verify that deleted items are kept in the first place:

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Keep deleted items for (days): 21 

Once we have verified that there are going to be deleted items waiting for us, we need to go here:

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Download, extract, and run the tool. Follow the instructions to log in to the Public Folders. We used the domain admin account.

Then, make sure to change the radio button to Deleted Contents.

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Then prepare to wait, and wait, and wait. :) The program may seemingly become non-responsive. Do not close it and try again.

It will eventually come up with the deleted items. Highlight the needed ones and then right click and Recover Items.

We know that there will be one relieved person looking at their Public Folders based calendar in the morning.

BTW, this may be one more reason a SharePoint setup would be a better place to have all of the calendars. The Recycle Bin setup would have made this all moot.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer

2 comments:

stryqx said...

Hi Phil,

You can also allow end users to recover Public Folder deleted items using Outlook Web Access. Details can be found here.

Philip Elder Cluster MVP said...

Chris,

There is always a better way! ;)

Thanks for that.

Philip