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I'm attempting to restore items located in System Public Folders>EFORMS REGISTRY>Organization Forms. I'm backing up my Exchange Servers with Veeam B&R. I can see the mailbox databases and PF databases in the restore explorer, but only the Default Public Folder is shown. The System Public Folder is missing.

My question now is: Are System Public Folders stored in Active Directory or the Exchange 2010 Public Folders EDB?

Jarrod L. J. Gibson
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3 Answers3

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After opening a support ticket with Veeam, we've discovered that the System Public Folders are stored in the Public Folder Database, but for some reason their software doesn't back it up. There is a size discrepancy between the PFDB in my environment and the PFDB I can restore from after a backup. I'm missing 130MB in the backed up version.

We discovered that the path of the System Public Folders root can be found in EMC by going to the Public Folder Management Console and left-click System Public Folders, then EFORMS REGISTRY. In the right pane, right-click Organization Forms and go to properties. It shows on the General tab the location of the object (Public Folder Database:).

So I know it's in the database, but Veeam doesn't process it during backups. I made a manual backup of my PFDB and used StorageCraft GRE to open the database and the System Public Folders were there.

Jarrod L. J. Gibson
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Here are a couple commands to try in the Exchanged Management Console (EMC) and will help find what you are looking for:

Get-PublicFolderDatabase –IncludePreExchange2010 –Status

That one will display all Public Folders even if you have another version running in your environment.

Get-PublicFolderDatabase –Identity 'System Public Folder' | Format-List

If your database is truly named what you thought then the above code will give a nice list of information including DatabaseName and

  • The first command gives me the names of the public folder databases, which looks right. The second gave me an error: The operation couldn't be performed because object 'System Public Folder' couldn't be found on 'DC1.domain.local'. The DC it ran against is the FSMO role holder and I ran DCDIAG to confirm it has no problems. – Jarrod L. J. Gibson Jan 13 '17 at 21:34
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    Does the list of public folder databases have one called 'System Public Folder' and what is its status? I recommend you check if you have a corrupted public folder database. You can following the steps below to check this. 1. Open ADSI Edit. 2. CN=Configuration -> CN=Services -> CN=Microsoft Exchange -> CN=First Organization -> CN=Administrative Groups -> CN=Exchange Administrative Group -> CN= Databases 3. Check the public folder database. If there are public folder databases that you don't use, you can delete them. –  Jan 13 '17 at 21:47
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    Or try Get-PublicFolderDatabase -Server dc1.yourdomain.local but that will likely give you the same list as the first command. –  Jan 13 '17 at 21:50
  • It's not a public folder database, it's inside the public folder database. When I open Public Folders, there are two Public Folders: Default Public Folders and System Public Folders. Most of our stuff is in Default Public Folders, but Outlook had functions that allowed for static forms to be saved in the EFORMS REGISTRY/Organization Forms library. However, in my Veeam Exchange Explorer, only the Default Public Folders is present. – Jarrod L. J. Gibson Jan 13 '17 at 21:52
  • This site details a MMC snap-in that allows access to the heirarchy of Public folders. I can assume if you find the Public Folder Database that contains the needed System Public Folder then restoring that whole database will get these folders too. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/bb691188(EXCHG.141).aspx –  Jan 13 '17 at 22:17
  • It says the EFORMS Registry should reside in the First Administrative Group, but that group no longer exists since we upgraded from Exchange 2003 to 2010 about 6 years ago. The items within the EFORMS registry still exist and can be updated, however, they are not restorable from Veeam. I have opened a case with Veeam to try to resolve this. I did a comparison of the size of the Veeam backed up PFDB but it is 130MB smaller than the production PFDB. Maybe Veeam needs different permissions to back it up? – Jarrod L. J. Gibson Jan 17 '17 at 13:52
  • @JarrodL.J.Gibson correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't `Public Folders` in `Exchange 2010` just a mean of connecting obsolete Outlook clients (like 2003) to the exchange server? They are just a middle man between the client and the MBX, while all other clients connect to the CAS. I see that they store certain type of data, but ... those public folders can be easily recreated and configured. – 13dimitar Jan 18 '17 at 15:35
  • There are some legacy functions left over, like in the EFORMS registry, there are Organization Forms which are templates of forms that are accessed by going to Outlook, Tools, Forms>, Choose a Form... you can select a form stored in the System Public Folders EFORMs library. I don't like it and would like it to go away myself, but I have to support it for now. Someone updated the form and it stopped working so I had to restore it. – Jarrod L. J. Gibson Jan 18 '17 at 15:40
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This command will list your Public Folder Databases and the EDB they are stored in

Get-PublicFolderDatabase -IncludePreExchange2010 | FL name,edbfilepath
Garrett
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