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Advanced find issues when using Outlook 2003 and Exchange 2007

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KC

unread,
Jun 13, 2009, 6:53:13 AM6/13/09
to
Hello.

Has anyone come across the following issues when using the advanced
find in Outlook 2003 when their mailbox is moved from Exchange 2003 to
Exchange 2007?

We have an Exchange 2007 SP1 server installed into an existing
Exchange 2003 SP2 environment. Users are running Outlook 2003 client
(no plans to go to Outlook 2007 yet), online.

A user has a message residing in their inbox with the message subject
containing a reference code of 0001111.

When the mailbox is hosted on the Exchange 2003 server, the user can
either search the full reference code 0001111, or perform a part seach
for just the 1111 element of the reference code, missing out the
leading zero’s and find the message ok.

However, when the mailbox is moved to Exchange 2007, and performs the
search again, the user search finds the search only works if they
enter the full reference of 0001111. If the user just searches for the
1111 part of the reference code, it no longer returns any results.

I've performed some tests using Test-ExchangeSearch etc, all checks
out ok

Did a few forum searches, and didn’t find anyone else reporting the
same issue.


KC

unread,
Jun 14, 2009, 6:35:00 AM6/14/09
to
Hi all.

The following is a quick update following more testing (this was also
replicated on a test system)....

Tried moving mailbox back to Exchange 2003 find started to work
correctly was able to search for subject of 1111 and it found 001111
ok.
Tried moving mailbox again to Exchange 2007, and ran into the issue
again, search for just 1111 and can't find the email with 001111
Rebuilt the search index, still didn’t work
Created a new AD user and mailbox on 2007 (so rules out an issue with
mailboxes originally on 2003), same issue.
Did further searching in rollup bug fix lists, nothing indicated.
Ensured that test system is fully patched up with latest patches for
Outlook 2003 (SP3), and Exchange 2007 (SP1 with rollup8), still not
working
Tried with cached mode off (logged out \ in), didn't work
Tried with cached mode on (logged out \ in), it worked!

Looks like you need to have cached mode on for this type of search to
work.... HOWEVER...... there is a gotcha...... this doesn't work if
you're accessing a shared mailbox.
Therefore tried moving the shared helpdesk mailbox back to Exchange
2003, and did a search for 1111 and it picked up the email with the
subject of 001111 ok.
Then tried moving the shared mailbox again to Exchange 2007, and did a
search for 1111 and it didn't find the email with the subject of
001111.

There was one weird result...
I also tried searching for an email with the subject of Helpme.
When I searched for the whole word of "helpme" I found the message ok.
When I searched for the first part of the work "Help" I found the
message ok.
BUT when I tried to search for just "me" part of the work it didn't
work!

In conclusion what I've found so far is....
Advanced search doesn't work correctly for partial searches when
looking for text at the middle or end of a word\number etc (such as
searching for "me" in "helpme"), it only works from the beginning
(such as searching for "help" in "helpme")

Work around:
If you are using Outlook 2003 and your mailbox is on Exchange 2007
working within your own mailbox...
Advanced find will only work properly if you turn on cached mode
(might need to de-activate, log out \ in, then re-enable, log out \
in).

BUT if you're accessing a shared mailbox on Exchange 2007 with Outlook
2003, it is not as compatible as you might think!
You' can't search on the first part of a word like you used to be able
to! Advanced search will only work if you enter the whole word\number
or the first part of the word\number

So like a lot of organisations if you're uses are accessing a shared
mailbox such as a helpdesk, sales, finance etc and they search for
part of a reference number (for example search 1234 within a reference
in a subject line of 0001234) it won't work and will be a pain if
people provide only part of a reference number to search against!

Has anyone else found this or know if this a bug?

Rich Matheisen [MVP]

unread,
Jun 14, 2009, 2:55:22 PM6/14/09
to
On Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:35:00 -0700 (PDT), KC
<karl.c...@talk21.com> wrote:

>Hi all.
>
>The following is a quick update following more testing (this was also
>replicated on a test system)....
>
>Tried moving mailbox back to Exchange 2003 find started to work
>correctly was able to search for subject of 1111 and it found 001111
>ok.

So, does your E2K3 server maintain full-text indexes of the mailbox
database's contents?

Exchange 2007, unless you've turned that off, does.

Unless you're going to compare the same configuration on both servers
you're never going to have a good understanding of whether things work
"the same" or not.

>Tried moving mailbox again to Exchange 2007, and ran into the issue
>again, search for just 1111 and can't find the email with 001111
>Rebuilt the search index, still didn�t work

1111 isn't a word, 001111 is. 1111 is a substring within a word (and
at the end, too).

>Created a new AD user and mailbox on 2007 (so rules out an issue with
>mailboxes originally on 2003), same issue.

Rules have nothing to do with this. :-)

>Did further searching in rollup bug fix lists, nothing indicated.
>Ensured that test system is fully patched up with latest patches for
>Outlook 2003 (SP3), and Exchange 2007 (SP1 with rollup8), still not
>working

It's working.

>Tried with cached mode off (logged out \ in), didn't work
>Tried with cached mode on (logged out \ in), it worked!

Sure. When you're in cached-mode the Outlook software is scanning
through the .OST file, just as it does with your mailbox when it's on
E2K3 and there's no full-text index.

>Looks like you need to have cached mode on for this type of search to
>work.... HOWEVER...... there is a gotcha...... this doesn't work if
>you're accessing a shared mailbox.

Welcome to the screwed up mess that is MS desktop search. Have you
installed MS Search 4.0 on the desktop? Have you deployed the desktop
GPO to allow search to index those types of mailboxes?

>Therefore tried moving the shared helpdesk mailbox back to Exchange
>2003, and did a search for 1111 and it picked up the email with the
>subject of 001111 ok.

Again . . . full-text indexing.

>Then tried moving the shared mailbox again to Exchange 2007, and did a
>search for 1111 and it didn't find the email with the subject of
>001111.
>There was one weird result...
>I also tried searching for an email with the subject of Helpme.
>When I searched for the whole word of "helpme" I found the message ok.
>When I searched for the first part of the work "Help" I found the
>message ok.
>BUT when I tried to search for just "me" part of the work it didn't
>work!

That's not surprising. It's the same thing you noted with looking for
1111 vs 001111.

>In conclusion what I've found so far is....
>Advanced search doesn't work correctly for partial searches when
>looking for text at the middle or end of a word\number etc (such as
>searching for "me" in "helpme"), it only works from the beginning
>(such as searching for "help" in "helpme")
>
>Work around:
>If you are using Outlook 2003 and your mailbox is on Exchange 2007
>working within your own mailbox...
>Advanced find will only work properly if you turn on cached mode
>(might need to de-activate, log out \ in, then re-enable, log out \
>in).
>
>BUT if you're accessing a shared mailbox on Exchange 2007 with Outlook
>2003, it is not as compatible as you might think!
>You' can't search on the first part of a word like you used to be able
>to! Advanced search will only work if you enter the whole word\number
>or the first part of the word\number
>
>So like a lot of organisations if you're uses are accessing a shared
>mailbox such as a helpdesk, sales, finance etc and they search for
>part of a reference number (for example search 1234 within a reference
>in a subject line of 0001234) it won't work and will be a pain if
>people provide only part of a reference number to search against!
>
>Has anyone else found this or know if this a bug?

This really isn't an Exchange problem. It's Outlook and it's "Instant
Search" and the O/S and it's desktop search.
---
Rich Matheisen
MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

KC

unread,
Jun 20, 2009, 6:05:45 AM6/20/09
to
Hello.

Regarding..


> So, does your E2K3 server maintain full-text indexes of the mailbox
> database's contents?

> Exchange 2007, unless you've turned that off, does.

> Unless you're going to compare the same configuration on both servers
> you're never going to have a good understanding of whether things work
> the same" or not.

.... Correct, and also full text is not turned off on 2007.

>"1111 isn't a word, 001111 is. 1111 is a substring within a word (and
> at the end, too). "

Not sure if you follow what I am trying to convey.... if you have a
reference code in the subject (say for an invoice) of KCUK1111, and
you search for just the 1111 it will not find the email when the
mailbox is on Exchange 2007. Can't seem to be able to perform partial
searches when using Outlook 2003 in non-cached mode, and with Exchange
2007 full text turned on.

>Rules have nothing to do with this. :-)

.... lol, yes I know.... I was saying "rules out an issue with..". as
in to say "confirms that is not an issue with... " ;)

>It's working.

... so you were able to get Outlook 2003 with cached mode turned off,
and the mailbox on Exchange 2007 to perform the search the examples I
gave (i.e search for just 1111 and it returns the 001111)? Did you
leave it about 5 mins following the mailbox move and then try?


>Sure. When you're in cached-mode the Outlook software is scanning
>through the .OST file, just as it does with your mailbox when it's on
>E2K3 and there's no full-text index.

.... true, also came accross one other posting where someone else had
the same issue, the fix was to use Outlook 2003 with cached mode.
Tricky part is if the mailbox is a shared mailbox where this work
around cannot be used.


>Welcome to the screwed up mess that is MS desktop search. Have you
>installed MS Search 4.0 on the desktop? Have you deployed the desktop
>GPO to allow search to index those types of mailboxes?

lol starting to see that ;)

Works fine with Outlook 2007 with or without MS search 4.0 on the
desktop, it's just Outlook 2003.
On a test vanilla system we set up to test, did not deploy GPO.

>That's not surprising. It's the same thing you noted with looking for
>1111 vs 001111

.... so does this mean there is an issue with searching using Outlook
2003 in non-cached mode with Exchange 2007?

>This really isn't an Exchange problem. It's Outlook and it's "Instant
>Search" and the O/S and it's desktop search.

.... I suspect that is the case as Outlook 2007 works fine (as you
would expect!), it's just Outlook 2003 with Exchange 2007 where the
problem resides.

So is this a configuration issue, or is this a limitation of using
Outlook 2003 with Exchange 2007? I've had a few friends try and
they've found the same issue on their systems.

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