Public Folder has unvisible owner - no access for other users

Hi,

I'm having problems with my public folders. After a complete SBS 2000
re-install (we had a major server crash last week) I've restored all
mailboxes and public folders. The mailbox restore went ok, but all public
folders now seem to have owners that do not exist on this new system:
instead of a real username, in Outlook it displays 'NT
User:S-1-5-21-32906815...' as the folder contact.

No matter what I try, I cannot get access to the folders. It appears as
though the invisible users have access only. I want to remove these
invisible users and replace them by either an administrative user or one of
our 'power users', like they were in the past. I've tried replacing the
permissions in the Exchange Server Manager, and have 'everyone' having 'all
rights', as well in Public Folders as in the Public Folder Tree, but that
does not seem to change anything.

I've searched Google and this newsgroup and although this question has been
asked, I could not find a suitable answer.

Can you help?

Thanks,

Rudi

Steve
Mon Sep 01 04:27:14 CDT 2003

Rudi Niemeijer wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm having problems with my public folders. After a complete SBS 2000
> re-install (we had a major server crash last week) I've restored all
> mailboxes and public folders. The mailbox restore went ok, but all
> public folders now seem to have owners that do not exist on this new
> system: instead of a real username, in Outlook it displays 'NT
> User:S-1-5-21-32906815...' as the folder contact.
>
> No matter what I try, I cannot get access to the folders. It appears
> as though the invisible users have access only. I want to remove these
> invisible users and replace them by either an administrative user or
> one of our 'power users', like they were in the past. I've tried
> replacing the permissions in the Exchange Server Manager, and have
> 'everyone' having 'all rights', as well in Public Folders as in the
> Public Folder Tree, but that does not seem to change anything.
>
> I've searched Google and this newsgroup and although this question
> has been asked, I could not find a suitable answer.
>
> Can you help?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rudi

The folders are owned by a non-existent account. You need to change
their ownership and remove the non-existent accounts before the
permissions will work properly.

--
Steve Foster [SBS MVP]
---------------------------------------
MVPs do not work for Microsoft. Please reply only to the newsgroups.

Rudi
Mon Sep 01 05:22:13 CDT 2003

"Rudi Niemeijer" wrote:
>>I want to remove these
>>invisible users and replace them by either an administrative user or one
of
>>our 'power users', like they were in the past. I've tried replacing the
>>permissions in the Exchange Server Manager, and have 'everyone' having
'all
>>rights', as well in Public Folders as in the Public Folder Tree, but that
>>does not seem to change anything.

"Steve Foster [SBS MVP]" wrote:
> The folders are owned by a non-existent account. You need to change
> their ownership and remove the non-existent accounts before the
> permissions will work properly.
> --
> Steve Foster [SBS MVP]

Thanks Steve, that is what I'm trying to achive. I want to change ownership
and remove the non-existing accounts. But how do I do that?

I've found one way: copy the folders to a personal folder (there still is
read-access for the Administrator) and copy them back to a new public folder
root as Administrator. In the process, the Administrator becomes a new owner
for the copied public folders. Administrator can then manually remove the
non-existing user accounts and change permissions for the copied public
folders.

However:
- We have about 1500+ folders (about 2 gigabytes) for which to do so
manually, there must be some easier way, yes?
- I still cannot remove the OLD public folders

Regards,

Rudi

Steve
Mon Sep 01 09:18:06 CDT 2003

Rudi Niemeijer wrote:

> "Rudi Niemeijer" wrote:
> >>I want to remove these
> >>invisible users and replace them by either an administrative user
> or one of
> >>our 'power users', like they were in the past. I've tried replacing
> the >>permissions in the Exchange Server Manager, and have 'everyone'
> having 'all
> >>rights', as well in Public Folders as in the Public Folder Tree,
> but that >>does not seem to change anything.
>
> "Steve Foster [SBS MVP]" wrote:
> > The folders are owned by a non-existent account. You need to change
> > their ownership and remove the non-existent accounts before the
> > permissions will work properly.
> > --
> > Steve Foster [SBS MVP]
>
> Thanks Steve, that is what I'm trying to achive. I want to change
> ownership and remove the non-existing accounts. But how do I do that?
>
> I've found one way: copy the folders to a personal folder (there
> still is read-access for the Administrator) and copy them back to a
> new public folder root as Administrator. In the process, the
> Administrator becomes a new owner for the copied public folders.
> Administrator can then manually remove the non-existing user accounts
> and change permissions for the copied public folders.
>
> However:
> - We have about 1500+ folders (about 2 gigabytes) for which to do so
> manually, there must be some easier way, yes?
> - I still cannot remove the OLD public folders
>
> Regards,
>
> Rudi

It's all done on the Permissions tab of the Folder Properties in ESM.
You'll need to go into all three areas - Client Permissions, Directory
Rights and Admin Rights, and ensure the non-existent account is removed
in all three.

Once you've done the top level folders, you can do subfolders by
right-clicking the top level, and using the Propagate Settings option.

--
Steve Foster [SBS MVP]
---------------------------------------
MVPs do not work for Microsoft. Please reply only to the newsgroups.