I get asked that question quite a lot, usually by a client who has started discussing an Exchange Server upgrade with us.  Most clients are of the impression that there are no longer any public folders in Exchange Server 2010.

There tends to be some confusion around public folders in Exchange Server 2010 mostly due to rumour, misinterpretation, and a failure to consider all of the different scenarios that the question applies to.

To make things clearer you should understand what public folders were generally used for in legacy (ie Exchange 2003) environments.

Legacy Public Folder Usage

Content – the most basic use of public folders was a shared content repository for objects such as email messages, notes, calendars, and contacts.  For example, a public folder could be used to hold a shared list of external contacts, and used as a source for document mail merges.

Free/Busy Data – the public folders were also used by legacy Outlook clients (2003 and below) to publish a user’s calendar free/busy information, and read the free/busy information of other people in the organization.

Applications – public folders could also be used by applications and accessed via programming APIs.  This was fairly uncommon in my experience.

To answer the question in its simplest form, yes Exchange Server 2010 still has public folders.  However they are not mandatory, and won’t be installed by default.  An administrator can add them at any stage if they are still required.

So which scenarios could still require them?

Exchange Server 2010 Public Folder Usage

Content – Public folders as a content repository have not changed.  Microsoft is not mandating that public folders no longer be used in this way, though they do warn that they are a deprecated feature.

The basic recommendation is that if you currently have content and business processes utilising public folders you can continue to do so, but should begin to plan a move away to an alternative platform such as SharePoint.

But if you have no existing use of public folders for content the recommendation is to not start using them, and instead look straight to SharePoint instead. Continue reading Does Exchange Server 2010 Still Use Public Folders?

Exchange Server 2010 ships with eight very useful Powershell scripts that can be used for managing Public Folders.  The scripts perform tasks relating to Public Folder replicas and permissions that are otherwise not easily manageable through the management console or shell.

Each of the scripts is developed for making recursive changes to public folders.  This means that when you target the script at a particular folder, or the root of the public folder tree, it applies the action to all subfolders of that folder.

These scripts only apply to servers running Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010, you can not specify a server running older versions of Exchange Server.

Managing Public Folder Replicas

These public folder replica scripts are used to manage which servers hold replica data for the public folders.  When a script does not specify a server to run against it will default to the nearest convenient server for the public folder being targeted.

AddReplicaToPFRecursive.ps1 – this script adds a server to the replica list for a public folder and its subfolders.

For example, to add EXCH02 as a replica for all public folders on server EXCH01 starting at the root folder of \\ you would run this command.

AddReplicaToPFRecursive.ps1 –Server EXCH01
 –TopPublicFolder \\ –ServerToAdd EXCH02

RemoveReplicaFromPFRecursive.ps1 – this script will remove a server from the list of replicas for a folder and its subfolders.  A server must have all of its public folder replicas removed before it can be decommissioned.

For example, to remove EXCH02 as a replica for all public folders on EXCH01 starting at the root folder you would run this command.

RemoveReplicaFromPFRecursive.ps1 –Server EXCH01
 –TopPublicFolder \\ –ServerToRemove EXCH02

ReplaceReplicaOnPFRecursive.ps1 – this script replaces a server in the replica list of the public folders with another server.  This is useful when public folders are already replicated to more than one server, and one of those servers is being replaced. Continue reading 8 Useful Public Folder Management Scripts in Exchange Server 2010