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Exchange Server Cookbook
book

Exchange Server Cookbook

by Paul Robichaux, Missy Koslosky, Devin L. Ganger
June 2005
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
464 pages
13h 2m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Exchange Server Cookbook

6.17. Shrinking a Database That Exceeds the 16 GB Size Limit for Standard Edition

Problem

You have the Standard Edition of Exchange 2000 or Exchange Server 2003, and your mailbox database has reached the 16 GB limit so it keeps dismounting.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

  1. Open the Registry Editor (regedit.exe).

  2. Navigate to:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS

    Beneath that key, you'll see a key with the name of your Exchange server; expand it.

  3. Under the Exchange server key, you'll see a key whose name is comprised of the word "Private" plus a long hexadecimal number.

  4. Add a new REG_DWORD value named Temporary DB Size Limit Extension; give it a value of 1. This temporarily increases the size limit for the mailbox database to 17 GB.

  5. Optionally, stop the SMTP service to keep new mail from being delivered from the outside world and pushing your store over its new limit.

  6. Mount your mailbox store, as described in Recipe 6.7.

  7. Remove unneeded or unwanted data from the mailbox database. This usually involves emptying the Deleted Items folder and throwing away old mail, and it normally has to be done by your users. You can cheat and use the Mailboxes node in ESM to figure out which mailboxes are the largest and focus on cleaning them first. A better way to perform this sort of maintenance is to use the Mailbox Manager, discussed in Recipe 5.26.

  8. Open the Properties dialog box for the mailbox store and switch to the Limits tab.

  9. Enter 0 into the Keep deleted items ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596007175Errata Page