I inherited an Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 4 (SP4) system. The system has several public folders that I want to remove, but I can't find a way to remove them by using the Microsoft Exchange Administrator program. How do I get rid of these folders?
The only way to create or remove public folders in Exchange 5.5 is by using Outlook or Outlook Web Access (OWA). Exchange Administrator lets you see how big public folders are and where replicas exist, and the Pfadmin tool from the Microsoft BackOffice Resource Kit (BORK) lets you set permissions from the command line. To remove your unwanted folders, use Exchange Administrator to remove all replicas of the folder but one. Deleting the replicas leaves you with one instance of the folder on one server. (Make sure to allow time for replication to finish.) When you're down to a single folder instance, log on to Outlook as a user with appropriate permissions, right-click the folder, and use the Delete command to get rid of it.
