Convert OST file to PST file

I still see questions in the forums from time to time where someone is asking if it is possible to convert an OST file to a PST file.  This is usually due to a mailbox being deleted, but the OST file remains.

Microsoft does not provide any mechanism to convert an OST file to a PST file.  However, if you can open up the OST file when you open Outlook, you can create a new PST file and just export email to it or drag-and-drop items in to the PST file.

There are a few third party tools that will do this, but I have not tested any of them.

http://www.convertost.com/
http://www.brothersoft.com/convert-ost-to-pst-68529.html
http://www.windowsreference.com/ms-exchange-server/how-to-convert-ost-to-pst-format-for-outlook/
 

.NET Framework 4 application issues on fresh Windows 2008 R2 installation

A bit of frustration with Windows Server 2008 R2 and the .NET Framework 4.0.  Just because you use the Add-WindowsFeature Application-Server option to add the .NET Framework, the 4.0 Framework may not be properly registered with IIS.  This seems to be true when you install the 4.0 Framework first and then later add Web-Server and Application-Server options to Windows later.

I installed the prerequisites, then installed my 4.0 Framework application and got this error:

HTTP Error 500.21 - Internal Server Error

Handler "PageHandlerFactory-Integrated" has a bad module "ManagedPipelineHandler" in its module list

This implies that the ASP.NET managed handler is incorrect, but in reality the 4.0 Framework is not properly registered.

Open up a command prompt as an administrator, then change to this folder:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319 

Run this command:
aspnet_regiis.exe -iru 

  There are a couple of different installation/registration options for aspnet_regiis.exe, but the -iru option is the safest since it only registers the 4.0 Framework and does not change/update any existing applications or web sites.  That is helpful if you have web applications that are still using the 2.0 Framework.

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Convert user mailbox to linked mailbox in Exchange 2010

A few weeks ago, someone enabled the user accounts for a bunch of our Exchange 2010 linked mailboxes.  One of the workflows in our FIM system saw this as an indication that they should be user mailboxes rather linked mailboxes and thus converted them all from linked mailboxes to user mailboxes.

I did a bit of research and was somewhat heartbroken to find this TechNet article
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201694%28v=exchg.141%29.aspx

This article implied that converting user mailboxes back to linked mailboxes was not possible using the EMC. 

After a bit more research and an email from Jason Sherry, I fortunately found out this article is wrong.  (I'm hoping Microsoft updates this.)

It is pretty simple to convert a user mailbox with E2K10 SP2 or E2K10 SP3 back to a linked mailbox.

Set-User <userID> -LinkedMasterAccount  AccountDomain\UserID  -LinkedDomainController AccountDomainControllerFQDN

Here is an example:

Set-User jim -LinkedMasterAccount Contoso\Jmcbee -LinkedDomainController dc01.contoso.local