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Migrating from Public Folders

Topic Last Modified: 2007-06-05

Public Folders are used in earlier versions of Microsoft Exchange Server to store free/busy data and files. In Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, free/busy data is no longer stored in public folders. We recommend that you do not store files in public folders in Exchange 2007.

Public folders are included and supported in Exchange 2007; however, future releases of Microsoft Exchange may not include public folders.

Migrating to Exchange Web Services and Windows SharePoint Services

Starting with Exchange 2007,we recommend that applications use the Availability service to provide free/busy data for Exchange mailbox users. Windows SharePoint Services replaces the file sharing functionality that public folders provide.

You must redesign applications that use public folders to use Exchange Web Services. Consider redesigning custom applications as early as possible as future versions of Microsoft Exchange may not contain public folders.