Al, Isn't the underlying technology and the recovery of the data essentially the same ?. All of the entries (both in Exchange and AD) are simply records within tables within a database. Exchange basically flags the mailbox record as deleted and then applies the defined mailbox retention settings to allow for recovery. Theoretically, it should be a similar process for AD to allow records to be deleted (a group, a user, an OU), and then apply a retention period to these object and allow them to be recovered.
I for one would like to see this sort of functionality as well, as it would greatly simplify some of our Admin procedures where we have to hang onto a users account who's left for up to 3 months to allow for the instance where they come back. We have to hold these accounts in a separate OU, then have additonal processes to clean the accounts after a period of time. I would love to just delete the account and mailbox on the day they leave, and they have a defined period of time to recover the account before the automatic cleanup process of AD / Exchange finally deletes the objects. Would also help greatly for the finger-fumbles. G. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mulnick, Al Sent: Saturday, 4 December 2004 7:05 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Restore AD I have not heard of anything like that directly from Microsoft. Been asking those same questions, but perhaps too quietly. I can tell you that one reason you won't see the same functionality as Exchange is that you're dealing with different technology underneath. What I mean by that is that you're just wiping out attributes and links based on that for an Exchange user, but the datastore (the users mail data) is still intact. You basically just lose reference to it. AD is the store where those references live. Up-level from Exchange if you will. So if you lose those references, you really have nothing. In order to make something useful for recovery, you'd have to maintain that information somewhere and keep it in relation to the original object. That said, there are third-party apps that can provide this type of functionality for you. That may be enough for many. Just seems it's about time that this functionality gets introduced natively. My $0.02 Al List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
