Upgrade Exchange Address Lists from 2003 to 2010

As mentioned in a previous blog post the end-of-life deadline for Exchange 2003 looms on the horizon. That being said, I discussed last time the process and syntax for upgrading the Recipient Update Policies in Exchange 2003 to the new Email Address Policies in Exchange 2010. Following a similar theme, this post will discuss how to upgrade the Address Lists in Exchange 2003 to 2010.

Like before this process is conducted in the Exchange Management Shell and like before if you tried to edit those Address List in the Exchange Management Console you would receive an error that the Address Lists were created in a legacy version of Exchange and need to be upgraded.

The specified address list could not be edited. Address lists created by using legacy versions of Microsoft Exchange must be upgraded by using the "ForceUpgrade" parameter of the "Set-AddressList" cmdlet.

Typically these are the commands you would need to run.

WARNING: These scripts are very simplistic! They are only designed to convert the default ‘out-of-the-box’ Address Lists. If you have made any customizations to these Address Lists do not use these scripts. If you have created additional Address Lists you will need to update these as well. Be sure to test in a lab setting first!

 C:/> Set-AddressList "All Users" –IncludedRecipients MailboxUsers

This command updates the “All Users” Address List. The filter adds all Users in your environment that have a mailbox to that Address List. You will be prompted to confirm the change.

 C:/> Set-AddressList "All Groups" –IncludedRecipients Mailgroups

This command updates the “All Groups” Address List. This filter includes all Distribution Groups.

 C:/> Set-AddressList "All Contacts" –IncludedRecipients MailContacts

This list is for any mail contacts you may have created. Typically, a mail contact is an object that contains an external SMTP address that your Exchange server is not authoritative for.

 C:/> Set-AddressList "Public Folders" -RecipientFilter { RecipientType -eq 'PublicFolder' }

Note: Sometimes cutting and pasting this command can change the single quotation marks around all the filter objects. If this command fails, remove and retype the single quotation marks.

This one updates your Public Folders address list. It adds any email addresses from mail-enabled folders in the Public Folders database.

 C:/> Set-GlobalAddressList "Default Global Address List" -RecipientFilter {(Alias -ne $null -and (ObjectClass -eq 'user' -or ObjectClass -eq 'contact' -or ObjectClass -eq 'msExchSystemMailbox' -or ObjectClass -eq 'msExchDynamicDistributionList' -or ObjectClass -eq 'group' -or ObjectClass -eq 'publicFolder'))}

Note: Sometimes cutting and pasting this command can change the single quotation marks around all the filter objects. If this command fails, remove and retype the single quotation marks.

This last command updates the Global Address List.

Once converted, the Address Lists allow you to update and open them from the Exchange Management Console. There is one exception. The Global Address List can not be opened from the Exchange Management Console.

If you double-click nothing will happen. If you right-click you will only see “Help” from the context menu. Any further modifications to the Global Address List have to be conducted through the Exchange Management Shell.

Once converted these Address Lists can no longer be managed from 2003.