Moving the Exchange Offline Address Book (OAB) from Exchange 2003 to 2010

We confirmed that we have Exchange 2010 working and all the user mailboxes were migrated, Exchange 2003 had not been uninstalled.

In fact, it turned out that Exchange 2003 (not the 2010 server) was actually hosting the offline address book (OAB).

So, the problem was actually that the OAB needed to be moved.

Here are the steps to move the OAB from Exchange 2003 (or 2007) to 2010:

1. Navigate within the Exchange Management Console (EMC):
   • Login with administrative privileges to your 2010 Exchange server
   • Start the EMC (Exchange Management Console)
   • Expand Organization Configuration | Mailbox
   • Go to the “Offline Address Book” tab
   • Highlight the OAB
   • In the action pane (on your right), click the Move link
   • New wizard starts…
2. Complete the “Move Offline Address Book” wizard:
   • Click the browse button, and select your 2010 Exchange server, then click OK
   • Click the Move button
   • Review the information and click the Next button
   • Click the Finish button
   • Here while moving we might get error message (Failed to generate the content of the Offline Address Book)
   • There is nothing to worry in this there few steps that need to restart.

1. Restart your “System Attendant” service:
   • Open Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services
   • Scroll down to the “Microsoft Exchange System Attendant” service
   • Right-click and select Stop
   • Right-click and select Start

Now, the update command in EMC should function correctly.

Using EMS:

Note : If you have LZX  file generation issues then there are two more services that needs to be restarted

Services : Binary Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) & Encrypting File System (EFS).

For More Info:

http://www.msexchange.org/articles-tutorials/exchange-server-2010/management-administration/offline-address-book-part1.html

http://www.msexchange.org/articles-tutorials/exchange-server-2010/management-administration/offline-address-book-part2.html

http://www.msexchange.org/articles-tutorials/exchange-server-2010/management-administration/offline-address-book-part3.html

http://www.msexchange.org/articles-tutorials/exchange-server-2010/management-administration/offline-address-book-part4.html

Praveen Kumar

MCTS | Exchange Server