XADM: Considerations That Apply When You Search the IFS for Specific Content (811226)

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In certain situations, you may want to search the Exchange 2000 Server information store databases for content that contains a specific keyword or subject line. The default IFS hierarchy is made up of the Domain Name folder that contains the "Public Folders" and "Mbx" subfolders. The Mbx folder is the root folder for all mailboxes on the server. To search the whole contents of the Mbx folder and its subfolders, you must have the appropriate permissions to all mailboxes on the server. For example, you have these user rights if you are a member of the Exchange Domain Servers group.

Use the FINDSTR Command

Use the findstr command to search drive M for specific content. With the findstr command, you can search for exact text or patterns of text. For example, to search the contents of the Mbx folder and its subfolders for all occurrences of the word "hello" (without the quotation marks):

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type cmd, and then click OK.
3. Switch to the M:\Domain Name\Mbx folder, and then run the findstr command. To do so, type the following commands at the command prompt, pressing ENTER after each line:
   
   

   m:
   cd Domain Name
   cd mbx
   findstr /i /s /m hello *.eml

To narrow or broaden your search, or to search for patterns of text, use the findstr command in combination with regular expressions. For more information about the findstr command, including examples about how to use it, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

Hard Disk Space Considerations

Make sure that enough hard disk space is available. Subject lines and keywords are converted to MIME format by IMAIL. Because this type of search converts every e-mail message in the store to MIME format, the .stm files such as Priv1.stm and Pub1.stm become larger. To avoid this behavior, restore the information store databases to a non-production server, and then perform a search of drive M on the non-production server.

For more information about IFS, see "Chapter 26 - Exchange 2000 Architecture" of the Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Resource Kit . To do so, visit the following Microsoft Web site: