The first post in the series is here.
The next post in this series is here.
Before we could start writing the script, we needed a share where Exchange Services had access and was big enough to hold the active queue of PST files. We would be copying the PST files here and then importing them. Luckily, we had a server with 1TB of space and we would put the share there and run the scripts from there.
As I started putting this script together, I realized we needed a queue. One entry in the queue was one PST file, that way a user could have many PST files or a single PST file.
But before anything, first we had to add them to the queue -- Add-PSTImportQueue.ps1
We also need to know information about the user
The first thing I wanted to know was -- what version of Outlook is the user running? The RPC logs have that information. IP address and Outlook version, just need to look for a "connect" then inside that find the user. When i ran this it located the user just fine, their Outlook version and their IP. But it took a long time. And when doing 150 users it would go slowwww... The part that was killing it the most was getting parsing the logs. So i wrote a separate function that just gets all the "connect" entries and Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 and saved them to a file, once per day. So finding these users connects are much faster since the filtering has already been done.
Later I realized the version I find in the log can be incorrect if the user has just been upgraded recently and I haven't saved those logs yet. Another problem was people giving me the wrong names and importing PST for someone who didn't have the right version of Outlook.
So now we get the connect logs and try to find the IP and change the IP to a computer name using DNS. Then go find the Outlook.exe file and get the version. More accurate.
Many trial and errors later - this is what evolved...
Example
Add-PSTImportQueue 'Thompson, Daniel E.'
Pipe a text file of names to be processed:
gc users.txt | %{Add-PSTImportQueue $_}
After we make a backup of the current queue file, then the script will verify the user's mailbox. Using the mailbox information, we glean some connection information from the CAS server logs. Afterwards we know the version of Outlook the user last connected to the Exchange Server and from what IP. Since IPs can change we translate that to a ComputerName, then check for the OS.
We'll need all these things as we progress thru the steps of importing.
Next we determine the Home Share for a user and search the entire share for *.PST. We log each entry noting the size and the last write property. If the file has not been written to in 2 years we will still log this PST file in the queue, but we mark it as skipped. We look at the size in the same way. A size of 256K is an empty shell of a PST and contains no data. It is also marked as skipped. Sharepoint.PST and files with the words "BACKUP" or "BACK UP" in the entire full pathname are also skipped.
All the file entries are added to the end of the Queue.
Lastly we send an email notification to the Person being searched and show the results. This is the "Requested PST Import: Initial Report for <User's DisplayName>" email.
There are options when running Add-PSTImportQueue
- -DisplayName <user name> -- who we are searching, you can use anything that translates to a mailbox
- -Client <14.0.6109.5000, etc.> -- allows you to specify the client version and override what is found
- -IP <IP> -- allow you to override the IP found (sometimes this info is not available)
- -SourceDir <unc pathname> -- allow you to override the HomeShare -- used when you know the directory where the PST files reside. For example: on a computer and not a home share.
- -SearchDays <number> -- search the CAS logs this many days - 14 is default
- -SearchPC <computername> -- Search the computer for PST files starting in the users directory and recurse thru all the remaining directories -- this can take a while.
- -IgnoreClientVer -- This switch is used when you don't care about the Client Version at all and you want to just get the PST files in the queue. This is not preferred, because it causes issues later, but sometimes is the only way. Computer not available and user don’t have a home share, etc.
- -NoNotify -- This switch allows you to discover PST files for a user and not send a notification.
After you Add a PST to the queue, you have to process it ...
That's part 3 ...
Introduction: The Beginings
Part 1: Script Requirements
Part 2: Add-PSTImportQueue
Part 3: Process-PSTImportQueue
Part 4: Some Tools we added
Part 5: Set-PSTImportQueue
Part 6: About PST Capture
Part 7: More PST Import Tools
Part 8: Using RoboCopy
Part 9: Morning Status Report
Part 10: Using BITS Transfer
Part 11: Get the script / Set up
Part 12: The Functions
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