Changing exchange username.

IT_Admin

I am running into a brick wall. I have a user own recently got married, as she has changed her last name. She has asked me to make the changes to both her login account and her exchange account. Is this a simple thing to do? I have no relative experince with exchange.

royal

Exchange 5.0? :P In other words, next time you ask help with a product, include what version you're asking about. Also, there's an Exchange forum for Exchange related stuff.

AD, go into user properties and change all the properties. After you click apply and ok, right click on their username and choose rename and make sure the properties in there are modified.

With Exchange 2003, go into ADUC and remote Exchange attributes. Reapply that mailbox to the user. Now have that user re-create the profile.

With Exchange 2007, you won't have to reapply Exchange attributes, it'll automatically detect the user change. Just let it replicate and tell that user to re-create the profile.

I recently did this with Exchange 2007 in a lab, so I'm 99% sure it'll work.

I haven't done this with Exchange 2003 for a year or so, so do this in a lab before you do it in production.

HeroPsycho

If it's Exchange 2000 or 2003, you can use ADUC with Exchange extensions (on the Exchange server). Change her normal AD information. Then just pull up Proxy Addresses and add the new smtp address you want for the user, and set it to primary. This way, her new address appears on everything she sends, but she'll still receive emails on the old address.

I wouldn't remove Exchange attributes because that would also remove her old email address. If people reply to an email she sent with her old primary SMTP address or they initiate a new email with the old SMTP address perhaps from an outdated entry in the address book, she wouldn't receive it.

You may also need to rebuild your GAL, OAB's, etc. Know what you're doing before you do either of those. Hopefully, no one set you up with a loaded gun scenario with the Recipient Update Service.

royal

The only reason I suggested removing Exchange Extensions, is because if you don't, the alias is never updated in System Manager and will always keep showing up as the old alias. At least that's what I experienced when I did it. So the way I always did it is remove attributes, reapply, and then make sure whatever e-mail addresses they need are there and set the new e-mail address as primary. Then have them create a new profile so it'll update their Outlook client.

But as I said, this was a long time ago, and an updated Exchange SP might have been released or something that fixed that.

As II tested this on Exchange 2007 a few months ago and noticed that Exchange 2007 automatically updated the alias without me having to do anything right after I change the user information within AD.

blargoe

You can change the exchange alias in the ADUC, I think it's on the exchange general tab. Shouldn't have to remove attributes. But the Outlook profile re-creation is necessary if you want the name at the top of their Outlook mailbox folders tree to change.