Migrating to Exchange

Primary Files

The primary files contain one or more sections; each section may be of type DIRECTORY, PAB, or MAILMESSAGE:

Directory information. In a directory information section (DIRECTORY), each line of data can create or modify any mailbox, contact, or group in Active Directory.
PAB entries and personal distribution lists. In a PAB entries and personal distribution lists section (PAB), each line of data creates a PAB or personal distribution list entry. There is one section for each mailbox. A mailbox must be created before entering this data.
Messages and public folders. In a messages and public folders section (MAILMESSAGE), each line of data creates a message or an item in a mailbox or public folder. Each section holds entries for one mailbox or for any number of public folders. Sections must be separated by a blank line. Messages can be imported to create a mailbox.

Although you can organize your files as you want, one method is to create a file called Directory.pri to hold directory information, and a .pri file for each user you migrate to hold the other section types.

How to Create Primary Files

Each line of data has one or more comma-separated values. If any of these values has a carriage return or line feed character, put it into a secondary file. (The same parsing rules apply to the secondary file—strings with special characters need to be in quotes.)

Replace the value with a pointer to the secondary file and an offset to where the header of the data begins. For example: #SalesPO2.sec(43232). The # sign indicates that the data is stored in another file, the SalesPO2.sec secondary file. The data is located 43232 bytes from the beginning of that file, and this offset counts end-of-line characters such as carriage returns and line feeds.

Note It is important that transferring the secondary files from another platform or system does not introduce new characters. If this happens, the offsets in the primary file could be inaccurate.