Recovering a user's emails from an archive copy

[sylvaing1]

Hi, back in 2011, we switched from Groupwise 8 to Exchange 2010 (even to this day, I say "In Groupwise you couid do this" when confronted to Exchange/Outlook idiocity) and last week, we got a request to recover a user's emails from an archive copy stored on a DVD 😕 Back then, when a user left the company, we logged in as the user in Groupwise and created an archive copy of his/hers emails and stored that copy on a DVD. Knowing we no longer have a license/copy of Groupwise running, what would be the easiest way to get the emails back? Are there firms that specialized in such a thing?

Thanks for your help

A former Groupwise admin.

[laurabuckley]

Hi,

As far as I am aware you will need a running GroupWise system with a user created with the identical FID as the deleted user in order to access the archive. Perhaps someone else will come along with a better idea.

But I will do some further investigation and if I find anything I'll report back.

Cheers,

[laurabuckley]

Hi,

Ok, so I've done some digging and some thinking - the two main GroupWise to Exchange migration tools that I am aware of are Quest and Transend. They both can migrate archives to .pst files. HOWEVER, from what I have read, both of them require a live GroupWise system to authenticate against.

So here's suggestion B - download the evaluation copy of GroupWise 2014 from the Novell Downloads site. Setup a VM or test server using SLES [Linux] as the OS as you won't need to license that as it's provided "free" for a period of time with GroupWise - at least as far as I know. GroupWise 2014 does not require eDirectory or any sort of directory to manage the user accounts. Create a GroupWise user with the identical FID which can be determined by looking at the archive directory name. Here's how to create a user in 2014 with a specific FID: https://www.novell.com/support/kb/doc.php?id=7014868

Install the GroupWise client, it doesn't matter that it's 2014, unless you have an older version hanging around, on a workstation. Copy the archive directory to the local workstation. Login to GroupWise as the user you've just created. In the GroupWise client go to Tools | Options | Environment | File Location and enter in the location of the local archive. Then see if you can access the archive.

Once you've got a "live" server you can, of course, use the tools mentioned above to migrate the archive to a .pst file. Alternatively, if you don't want to spend that kind of money, install and configure a GWIA on your GroupWise system and configure a route.cfg to automatically send all mail to your Exchange system. On Exchange you will need to configure a Receive Connector to accept mail from the IP address of your GWIA with anonymous access. Then unarchive the mail, and then forward/send to a mailbox in your Exchange system.

Please do let us know how it goes or if we can be of further assistance.

Cheers,