PC Adm: Effects of Changing Network or Postoffice Names (114246)

This article was previously published under Q114246

Changing either the network or postoffice name in an existing Microsoft Mail postoffice affects the Microsoft Mail system in several ways. If you change names by selecting Config, Password from the Microsoft Mail Administrator program (ADMIN.EXE), the following will be true:

• All mail that was sent prior to the name change contains the old address in the file header. If anyone tries to reply to one of these messages, the mail will not be delivered because the address is no longer valid.
• All sent, unopened, and registered mail no longer contains the information needed to successfully return a confirmation message to the originator because the originator's address no longer exists.
• All Personal Address Lists and Personal Address Books that contain addresses with the old name must be updated by removing and re-adding each user whose address has changed.
• New address lists need to be exported to all external Microsoft Mail postoffices and gateway-accessed mail systems.
• All other postoffices should update their Network/Postoffice lists with the Mail Administrator (ADMIN.EXE) External-Admin, Modify command.
  
  NOTE: If the Network name is changed, there may be additional complications.
  
  
  • If the network name already exists on other postoffices, those postoffices will not be able to simply modify the name; they must delete the old name and add the new postoffice name to the existing network list. These postoffices will then have to get completely new address lists.
  • If the postoffice that changed its Network name was the directory synchronization (Dir-Sync) server, any requestor cannot simply change its external definition for the Dir-Sync server postoffice, but is forced to delete the definition with the old network name and create a new one. The postoffices will also have to re-register the Dir-Sync server on the requestor by issuing a Config, Dir-Sync, Requestor, Registration command.
  • Modifying a network name is an "all or nothing" proposition. If there are multiple postoffices in a network list, you cannot just change the network name for some of the postoffices in the list. If the postoffice with the changed network name is splitting away from a remaining network, you will again have to delete, re-create, re-register, and update the address lists.
• All Microsoft Mail Remote (MS-DOS or Windows) users need new Data disks or they will no longer be able to connect to the postoffice.
• If you are using Schedule+, all user-granted access privileges must be deleted and then re-added because the friendly name will no longer point to a valid user mailbag ID.
• If Schedule Distribution is being used, ALL POF files will have to be deleted also. This file contains Assistant routing information in the specific user's record, if one is designated by the user. If the Assistant's postoffice is renamed, the 10 x 10 x 10 routing information becomes invalid.
  
  This will cause two things to occur:
  
  
  • The assistant will be denied access to the user's calendar file.
  • The assistant will not receive the meeting request/response messages.