XADM: Search Permissions Can Prevent Access to the Offline Address Book (221598)

SYMPTOMS

When a user tries to download the offline Address Book, that user may receive the following error messages:

An error occurred while opening the Microsoft Exchange Offline Address Book file on the Microsoft Exchange server. See your administrator.

Unable to download the Offline Address Book. The Offline Address Book could not be accessed.

CAUSE

This issue can occur if the user cannot gain access to the directory because access to the directory has been limited with search permissions (on the Permissions tab on either the Organization, Site, or Configuration container).

WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, either remove the search permissions from the container or grant permissions for the container to the Microsoft Windows NT account of the user.

MORE INFORMATION

If you set search permissions, you may inadvertently limit access to information in the Exchange Server directory. Before you apply any search permissions, make sure that you understand the ramifications of this action.

If incorrect search permissions are set and the client downloads the offline Address Book, there may not be any Address Books displayed to choose from under the Address Book section.

For additional information about search permissions, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

182902 XADM: How To Setup Container Level Search Control

173760 XADM: User's GAL Displayed Differently Based on Search Control

196187 XADM: Cannot View Recipients in the Global Address List