Still Another Exchange/Outlook SNAFU

Problem: We recently had to "rename" a Windows userid for a user who got married. After going through this I can now understand why one of my colleagues always tries to talk them out of it (not the marriage, changing their userid ... ;o). Changing the userid is bad enough, but when Exchange is also involved, watch out! Above, I used quotes when I said rename. This is because the rename function doesn't work all that well. It looks simple enough, but it doesn't change a whole lot inside of Active Directory. Even if you go through the user's entire set of properties, changing everything you can see, there are some things deep down in the code that this doesn't fix.

Solution: What my wary colleague suggested was to delete the old userid and create a new one with the new name (and he promised me that the old Exchange Mailbox wouldn't go away). When you create the new userid, don't create an Exchange Mailbox. Connect the user's old Mailbox to the new account; do this by going to Exchange Server Manager, and associate the old (disconnected) Mailbox with the new userid. Then right-click the disconnected Mailbox and connect it to the new userid. After all this, the "renamed" user is back in business. HOWEVER, you might not be done yet; I wasn't. If you have Outlook users defined to use Cached Exchange Mode, they might see the old Exchange user in the Global Address List, and not see the new userid. If so, they can refresh their view of the Global Address List either by turning off Cached Exchange Mode, or:

1. Open Outlook
2. Select the Tools menu
3. Choose Send/Receive
4. Choose Download Address Book...

This last procedure comes from my tireless friends on the web who are much better at finding solutions than I am. So, if it doesn't work for you, please call them. I won't be much help ....