Here is something new I learnt today. Using powershell scripting can potentially save you a lot of time performing common day to day tasks. In this example I use Powershell to create a new mailbox and Active Directory user object with Exchange 2007 running in my test environment.
1. First off start by opening the “Exchange Management Shell”. This will load a powershell window for you.
2. Now we need to create a password variable and assign a password string to this in the form of a “SecureString”. Issue the following command in your shell window :
$Password = ConvertTo-SecureString -string “TryPassword123” -asPlainText -Force
3. If you now type “$Password” and press Enter, you should get a prompt back saying “System.Security.SecureString”. This means you your plain text password is now stored as a SecureString variable and is ready to use.
4. Next we will run the command to do all the work (That is add the user and mailbox to Active Directory / Exchange 2007). Issue this command next (substituting the values relevant for your situation of course! :
New-Mailbox -Name “John Smith” -Database “First Storage Group\Mailbox Database” -Password $Password -UserPrincipalName John.Smith@youremaildomain.co.uk -Alias John.Smith -DisplayName “John Smith” -FirstName “John” -Initials “JS” -LastName “Smith” -OrganizationalUnit “Home Users”
You should get a prompt back giving you a summary of what has been done.
This screenshot illustrates the above few steps :
5. After you have run the New-Mailbox command successfully, run “Get-Mailbox” to get a list of current mailboxes residing on your Exchange 2007 server. This should now show your new mailbox.
