XADM: Identifying and Removing Large Numbers of Orphaned Objects

ID: Q183739

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Exchange Server, versions 4.0, 5.0, 5.5

SUMMARY

This article describes a semi-automated method for comparing two large global address lists from different sites to determine which objects are orphans, and then to delete those orphaned objects. There are several ways to remove orphaned objects depending on the situation and the number of orphaned objects involved. For a description of orphaned objects and how to deal with one or two orphans, please see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Q152614 XADM: Removing Objects Whose Tombstone Expired Before DirRep

For a more thorough discussion of how orphaned objects are created, including several options for dealing with them, please see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Q179573 XADM: Orphaned Objects and Exchange Server Directory

Article Q179573 is useful if the number of orphaned objects make it impractical to deal with them one at a time and if removing and recreating the Directory Replication connector between sites is not an option, as would be the case in extremely large organizations with large global address lists, slow links, and many orphaned objects.

MORE INFORMATION

It is possible to have mailboxes, custom recipients, or other objects in one site that no longer exist in the site where they were created. These are called orphaned objects. More common ways that orphaned objects are created include the following:

Changing the Tombstone lifetime to an interval that is shorter than the amount of time it takes to replicate that tombstone throughout the organization.

Using MTACheck to delete replication messages, and then the Tombstone message never replicates to some other site.

If there is a large number of orphaned objects, the reason for the orphaned objects should be determined, and the issue resolved before beginning this process; otherwise, it will not fix the problem.

One way to rid the organization of these orphaned objects, is to recreate the objects in their original site/server/container and then make enough changes to the object so that the newest version of that object replicates to the site where it is orphaned. Then the object can be deleted in the original site and the delete can be replicated out properly. That is the approach that this article takes.

Overview

First, assume that site 1 has orphaned objects. The global address lists from site 1 and site 2 need to be exported into CSV files and compared. The names that appear in the global address list from site 1, but not in the global address list from site 2, are saved into a new CSV file. This is done by exporting the global address lists with the Exchange Administrator program and loading them into Access 97. You then need to do the comparison and save the results in an Excel 97 spreadsheet. Modify the list and save it to two separate CSV files, one to create the objects and one to delete them. Finally, the first CSV file is played into site 2 multiple times to create the objects and then increase the object-version numbers. Once that has replicated, the second CSV file is played into site 2 one time to do the delete.

If a different version of Access or Excel is used other than Access 97 and Excel 97, the steps may be slightly different, but the concept is the same.

Detailed Steps

First get exports of the global address lists from Site 1 and Site 2

Perform a Tools/Directory export of the entire global address list on both sites. It is best to do this with a predefined header file. The last header should be "Object-Version." If you are unfamiliar with exporting to CSV files, try the following:
1. From the Exchange Administrator program, select Directory Export from the Tools menu.
2. Set it to export to a file that does not exist, for example, Test.CSV. It will create Test.CSV in the directory that you specified and export the mailboxes.
3. Then use Excel to look at the Test.CSV file. You will see that the first row is all headers. There should be 13 headers with the last column reading "Hide from AB."
4. Select rows 2 through the end of the file, and delete them so that you only have the first row, which is the headers.
5. Then go to column N (the 14th column right after "Hide from AB") and enter "Object-Version."
6. From the File menu, select Save As and save the file as a CSV type named GAL1. Save it again the same way with the name GAL2.
7. Close Excel and do NOT save the file in Excel format.
8. Finally, use the Exchange Administrator program and export the mailboxes, custom recipients, and distribution lists to the GAL1 file or GAL2 file, depending on your site. Then go to the other site and export to the other file.

Next import the global address lists into Access. To do this, create a table definition before doing the import to prevent truncation errors with particularly large fields. The text field size defaults to 50 characters, which may not be large enough for some fields, particularly the "Email addresses" and "Members" fields, which are defined as Memo fields. If the fields are not declared as Memo fields, the records that exceed the 50 character limit will register an error in a third table that is generated by Access.

Use Access to generate a new database.

In the new database, design a table named GAL1 with fields that match the fields exported.

Assuming the global address lists were exported based on the directions in step 1, the fields will be as follows:


      OBJ-CLASS                        Text
      First Name                       Text
      Last Name                        Text
      Display Name                     Text
      Alias Name                       Text
      Directory Name                   Text
      Primary Windows NT Account       Text
      Home server                      Text
      E-mail Address                   Text
      E-mail Addresses                 Memo
      Members                          Memo
      OBJ-CONTAINER                    Text
      Hide from ab                     Text
      Object-Version                   Text

Otherwise, match the fields in the table with the fields in the CSV. Any field that has data exceeding 50 characters should be set to Memo.

Copy the design (by selecting "Structure Only" when pasting) to a second table called GAL2.

From the main menu, select File and choose Get External Data and then Import.

In the window, under Files of Type, select "Text (csv,...)" and choose the first exported global address list.

In the Import Wizard, on the first screen, leave the default format as "Delimited" and click Next.

On the second screen, leave "Comma" as the delimiter, and check the First Row Contains Field Names box to enable it. Set the Text qualifier to the double quote (") character and click Next.

On the third screen, select "In an existing Table" and select GAL1 from the drop down list.

On the last screen, leave the "Import to Table" as the default and click Finish.

Repeat steps 5 through 10, using the second exported global address list and the GAL2 table.

On the Queries tab in the Access database, click the New button, select design view, and add the tables GAL1 and GAL2. Close the Show Table window.

In the top half of the Select Query window, you should see two windows, GAL1 and GAL2. Position the scroll bars so that you can see the Directory Name field in both windows, and then click and drag the Directory Name field from the GAL1 window and drop it in the Directory Name field in the GAL2 window. A line should now be joining the two fields.

Right click on the center of the adjoining line and select "Join Properties." In the Join Properties window, select option 2, which says, "Include all records from 'GAL1' and only those records...."

Perform steps 14 and 15 with the OBJ-CONTAINER field.

Drag the OBJ-CONTAINER field from the GAL2 window to the first column in the table below. Uncheck the Show button. Enter "Is Null" in the Criteria row.

Repeat Step 17 with the Directory Name field from GAL2 into the second column.

Select all of the fields from GAL1 except the "*" "E-Mail Addresses," and "Members" fields, and drag them into the table. They should default to having the Show row checked.

Select Query/Make-Table query... from the main menu.

Give it a Table name of "Records in GAL1 but not in GAL2" and click OK.

Close and save the query.

Open the query. It will create the new table listed in step 21.

Open the new table.

From the File menu, select Save as and choose Export.

Save the table to an external file.

Make the save type "Microsoft Excel 97" and save it as "Records in GAL1 but not in GAL2.xls"

Use Excel to open the "Records in GAL1 but not in GAL2.xls" file.

WARNING: This should now be the list of orphaned objects in GAL1. Note that any objects that were recently created in GAL1 or a site that it replicates to which have not yet replicated to GAL2 will also be in this list. It is very important that this list is reviewed. Remove any line that has an object that is still valid and verify that every object in this list is to be deleted.

Search through the Object-Version column and note the highest value. If the Object-Version field was never exported, this value can be checked by hand through the Administrator program in RAW mode. Select a sampling of the orphaned objects and look at the values of the Object- Version for each. From that sample, make a reasonable estimate as to the highest value for all of them.

Guarantee that the last column has data in it. If it does not, move the OBJ-Container column so it is the last column. If this step is skipped, you will get an error during import that the number of fields did not match the number of headers.

From the File menu, select Save As and save it as a CSV file named "Add2GAL2.CSV."

Insert a new column B. This should be right after the Object Class column. Name the column "MODE," and populate every record with the word "Delete" in this column.

From the File menu, select Save As and save it as a CSV file named "DelGAL2.CSV."

Close any open Excel files and do NOT save any of them in Excel format if prompted.

Use an editor like Notepad to create an "Add2Gal2.BAT" file. Enter the following and save the file:
```
      start /wait admin /i Add2Gal2.csv
      start /wait admin /i Add2Gal2.csv
      .
      .
      .
      start /wait admin /i Add2Gal2.csv
   
```
Determining how many admin /i commands is based on the object-version numbers of the orphaned objects. You want at least one more command than the highest version number as noted in step 29. Each time the admin /i command is run, the object-version number will increase by one on the object. The goal is to create the object on GAL2 and make it's object- version number higher than that of the same object that already exists in GAL1.

Place the "Add2Gal2.CSV" file and the "Add2Gal2.BAT" files in the Exchsrvr\Bin directory on Machine2.

Run the Add2Gal2 batch file.

You should now see the objects in the GAL2 on Machine2 and the Object- Version number should equal the number of times the import command was entered in the batch file in Step 35.

Replicate the GAL from Site 2 to Site 1 and verify that the Object- Version numbers on Site 1 now match those on site 2 for a sample set.

From the command prompt in the Exchsrvr\Bin directory on the server in Site 2, run the command: admin /i DelGal2.csv

The objects should be deleted from GAL2. Replicate the GAL from Site 2 to Site 1.
BR/> If some of the objects are not deleted, check their Object-Version numbers in the GAL in Site 1. If they are higher than the number used in step 35, then this process will need to be repeated from Step 1 with the reduced set of orphaned objects. Otherwise, if there are only a couple of orphaned objects, follow the steps for manually removing orphaned object as described in the Knowledge Base article Q179573, Orphaned Objects and Exchange Server Directory."

Keywords : XADM
Version : WINDOWS:4.0,5.0,5.5
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo