Exchange 2007: Life Without ExMerge?

If you’ve been working with Exchange for any length of time, no doubt you've become accustomed to the Exchange Server Mailbox Merge Wizard (ExMerge). ExMerge originally shipped in 1997 as part of Exchange Server 4.0 and has evolved over the years to include more and more functionality. (You can download ExMerge at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx? familyid=429163ec-dcdf-47dc-96da-1c12d67327d5&displaylang=en.) Of all the tools I’ve seen come out of the Exchange team over the past decade, none has had ExMerge's passionate following.

With the release of Exchange Server 2007, you might wonder whether ExMerge still exists. Although the familiar ExMerge UI is indeed gone, many of the most frequently used features in ExMerge have actually been rewritten as part of Exchange Management Shell—a powerful command-line scripting environment that's based on Windows PowerShell technologies and is a core part of Exchange 2007. That said, export-to and import-from personal folder file (PST) capabilities are completely gone from the release to manufacturing (RTM) version of Exchange 2007. The Microsoft Exchange team has stated publicly that it will introduce PST support in the Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) timeframe. Microsoft won’t block ExMerge access to Exchange 2007 until at least that time (if ever), so companies will be able to use ExMerge for Exchange 2007 operations as long as ExMerge isn't installed on the Exchange 2007 server itself. Nevertheless, Microsoft is no longer investing in ExMerge, and the tool's days are numbered. I'll review the most common scenarios for using ExMerge in pre–Exchange 2007 versions, then explore to what degree the Exchange Management Shell functionality in Exchange 2007 supports these uses. . . .