14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft will release a new tool aimed at Exchange customers and designed to simplify work with Personal Folders (.pst files). According to Ankur Kothari, from the Exchange Team, the upcoming PST Capture Tool will be provided as a response to user feedback, a solution that IT professionals will be able to leverage in tandem with the existing New-MailboxImportRequest cmdlet.
The software giant did not offer a specific availability deadline for the PST Capture Tool, but the promise from the company is that the new resource will be provided later this year.
When it's launched, the PST Capture Tool will be offered free of charge, Kothari stressed, and it will work with both the on-premises and Cloud flavors of Exchange.
“As more and more of you evaluate and deploy the email archiving, retention and discovery capabilities of Exchange Server 2010 and Exchange Online, we understand that Personal Folders (.pst files) remain a challenge for you,” Kothari noted.
“You have told us that having the ability to search your network to discover and then import .pst files across your environment is critical, and that you need an admin-driven and straightforward tool for doing these things.”
This is where PST Capture will come in according to the Redmond company, streamlining the management of Personal Folders.
“This new tool, PST Capture, will be downloadable and free, and will enable you to discover .pst files on your network and then import them into both Exchange Online (in Office 365) and Exchange Server 2010 on-premises,” Kothari added.
“It doesn’t replace the New-MailboxImportRequest cmdlet that exists already for importing known .pst files into Exchange Server, but instead works in parallel to enable you to embark on a systematic search and destroy mission to rid yourself of the dreaded .pst scourge.”
Microsoft will provide additional details about PST Capture when it gets closer to the general availability milestone for the tool.