How to export and import data with the help of Exmerge?

Exchange server is a server program developed by Microsoft for the purpose to be used as mail server, calendaring software and contact manager. In Exchange directory you can see various database files: .edb,.log,..chk, .jrs etc. The .edb files are the Exchange data base files where an Outlook user mailbox data is stored. In EDB file the data is stored in B tree structure.

Microsoft provides Exmerge.exe if an administrator requires extracting user mailbox data from EDB database. With the help of this utility the user mailbox can be extracted from the Exchange database and then merge this data into the same mailboxes on another computer that is running Exchange Server.

• For The Exchange Server 4.0, 5.0, and 5.5 version of Exmerge, Go to Microsoft BackOffice Resource Kit, Second Edition. The Exchange Server 4.0, 5.0, and 5.5 version of this program only runs on Windows NT Server 4.0 or later.
• For The Exchange 2000 Server version, go to the Exchange 2000 Server CD in the Support\Utils\I386\Exmerge folder. The Exchange 2000 Server version of this program can only be run on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or later versions.

If you want to run Exmerge utility:

• Firstly you need to copy the Exmerge.exe and Exmerge.ini files from the CD to on the server's hard drive in the ExchSrvr\Bin folder
• After that double click to run the .exe file from ExchSrvr\Bin folder.

These steps will make a copy of the source server data into personal folder (PST) files and then personal folders data is merged into the mailboxes on the destination server.

Additional Info: Exmerge can’t be used on servers that do not have a mailbox store such as front-end servers. Emerge can’t be used on a recovery storage group that is mounted on a front-end server.

The mailbox on the destination server must have the same mailbox name and the same container path. The Distinguished Name (DN) of the mailbox on the destination server is obtained by replacing the Organization and Site names in the DN of the mailbox on the source server with the Organization and Sites names of the destination server.

Exmerge program operates in two modes of operation: One Step and Two Step modes.
One Step mode: In this mode of operation, the data is copied from the source mailbox to a PST file and then merge the data in the PST file into the same mailbox on the destination server.

Two Step mode: In this mode the user can only copy data to PST files or merging data from PST files into a server.

C:\Exmerge.log contains all the history of the operations and the errors that are encountered during Exmerge operation.

Pre requisites before running Exmerge:

• Before running this program you must be logged on to Microsoft Windows NT with the Exchange Service account or the current Windows NT account must have permissions on all mailboxes selected to be merged.
• Before running Exmerge you must ensure that the computer which is running Exmerge.exe must have Microsoft Outlook Client and the Microsoft Exchange Administrator program installed. Do not install Outlook on the Exchange server as Microsoft does not support installing Exchange Server components and Outlook on the same computer

How to use Exmerge to recover a mailbox?

• First Download Exmerge
• Then install and configure Exmerge on your system so that the utility itself, running in the logon context of the user, can open the mailboxes itself.

You can set the appropriate rights on the recovery mailbox store by following the given steps:

• Log in your Exchange account with Exchange Administrator rights.
• With Exchange Server 2003 an Exchange Administrator has no rights to open mailboxes
• Go to the security tab of the mounted mailbox store in the recovery storage group.
• There you can find the Exchange Administrators Group with explicit deny rights for “send as” and “receive as”. This has to be overwritten by giving them full access and inheriting these rights down to each mailbox itself.

After installing and configuring Exmerge Now, you can run it:
Steps to recover a single mailbox:

• Start ExMerge and logon to your Exchange server.
• Now choose the user's mailbox that is to be recovered.
• Select the location of your .PST file on your computer to which the mailbox is to be exported.
• Then click next to export the user mailbox to extract to the selected PST

Note: You can also recover a single Mailbox Item. To do so, Import the PST file into Outlook Then, “drag & drop” the desired items from the PST file to the appropriate folder in Outlook.

How to import PST files back into Exchange server by using Exmerge:
Firstly, Place all of the PST files that you want imported into a single Folder after that follow the given steps:
1.First ensure that you have properly started the Exchange Information Service.
2.Login to your account with administrative privileges and all access permissions are properly set so that you can read the Exchange Mailboxes.
Steps to set the correct permissions are:
a.Create a Windows Security Group.
b.Add your current Windows account to this Windows Security Group.

Note: remember that your windows account  be having all Exchange administrator privileges as well as local administrator permissions that would be required on the Exchange server for mailbox merge process.

3.Select the target database from Ex

change System Manager and open its Properties.
4.Then, Go to Security tab and add the Exchange Recovery Administrators group and allow this group to have full access and Control permissions on the database.
5.Now Copy the Exmerge setup file (Exmerge .exe) as well as Exmerge.ini file to your Exchange Bin directory.
6.Run Exmerge.exe
7.Click Next
8.Choose Extract or Import (Two Step Procedure) Microsoft  Exchange mailbox merge wizard and Click Next
9.Choose Import data and click Next
10.Enter your exchange server name on the Destination Server page
11.You have three options on the Import Procedure tab(copy, merge, replace)
a.Copy : It will make  duplicates copies of data if it already exists
b.Merge: It will check for duplicates copies before copying the data again
c.Replace: It will replace the duplicates with data from the PST.
12.You can skip some folders by selecting only the desired ones from the Folders tab
13.You can also choose messages on basis of a date range from the  Dates tab 
14.Enter the server name then,  click Next
15.Now choose the desired to be imported in the Mailbox Selection option of  Microsoft  Exchange mailbox merge wizard
16.You can also choose the desired option from the Locale Selection(by default it is default English) and click Next
17.Browse to the folder containing your PST files and click Next
18.You can choose the 'Save Settings' option if you want to save the settings into Exmerge.ini file for later use.
19.Click Next. After the process is completed click Finish
20.You can check the Exmerge.log and ExMerge-(Thread[n]).log files to know if some errors encountered during the merge process.

Issues with Exmerge:

• If the permissions aren't set currently then, it may fail to export data. To fix this issue you need to recreate a new service account.
• If Information store is dismounted then, it may fail to export data
• If the User account associated with the mailbox is disabled then it may fail to export data
• Less disk space can also cause issues while saving the exported data into the .PST files.
• If the mailbox size is more than 2GB then, it may fail to export data
• If the mailbox items are corrupted then, ExMerge cannot export those corrupt items.

Though, you can easily extract data from an EDB file to PST format with the help of ExMerge but sometimes, it fails to perform an efficient EDB to PST conversion. In such case you will require some powerful and proficient EDB to PST conversion software that provides you an easy to use interface and powerful algorithms that let you accomplish the EDB to PST conversion process within few minutes.