11-27-2013 09:00 PM
Hi Folks,
I've got a bunch of user mailboxes account that I need to delete from the Exchange Server 2007. I'm now using EV 9.0.4 and I'm not sure how to delete the archived content as well ?
do I have to go to EV console manually and then right click to delete the Vaulted archive or can I do it smartly with a script ?
Because with the Exchange Server mailbox, I can do the mailbox delete with Powershell.
Solved! Go to Solution.
11-29-2013 04:12 AM
I think the IDEA is already logged in the Ideas section of the forums ... i.e. to be able to do deletes from a command line.
11-27-2013 09:07 PM
Refer to the below forum thread
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/need-delete-multiple-archives-enterprise-vault
11-27-2013 09:16 PM
11-27-2013 10:45 PM
Agreed with Jesus, deleting archives via SQL/script is not good idea, however you disable archiving for mailbox those are deleted/disable in exchange/AD.
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/how-disable-bulk-users-archiving
In future, if these user’s return then it would be easy for you relink with existing archives.
11-27-2013 11:13 PM
I would also suggested to delete it from admin console..
Once you delete it from admin console the archive will go fin "Marked for deletion".
And when storage expiry runs next it will go head and delete all items associated with that archive from the Database and Physical Vaultstore Partition.
This is the safest way to do it, and will not cause any issue with EV Databases.
I hope this hepls.
11-28-2013 12:27 AM
If retention of the item is not a concern , you can delete the archive from Vault admin console. But I would suggest you to export the archive to a PST before deleting it from EV , because in case if you have to restore the deleted archive , you would need to do a disaster recovery of EV i.e. need to create a Similar EV test setup , restore the vault store and SQl databases and then extract the information you need.
The recommended way to Optimize the storage would be configuring Storage Expiry So once the retention period is over the Data gets deleted without any manual intervention.
Admins Ideally Archive the mailbox before deleting it from exchange, so that if needed mailbox can be searched for ediscovery purpose. So when deleting the archive be sure if you really want to deletion of the data.
11-28-2013 05:56 AM
Hello John,
Unfortunately, you can't use a PS script to delete archives from Enterprise Vault, since is not available. At this point, the only way to delete archives is from the VAC, one by one. Marking archives for deletion from SQL is not supported and you can end deleting archives that you don't want to.
However, if you are deleting the AD user account as well, in the VAC, you can sort the archive's list by 'Bill usage to' and look for the account that just display the SID. Then, you can delete the archives you need.
Also, if you want to delete archives to get more free space in the storage, keep in mind that if you have sharing enabled at the Vault Store level, you might try to delete an archive that is 1 GB on size but at the end, you might get less than 1 GB of free space back in the storage due to the sharing.
I hope this helps.
11-28-2013 02:35 PM
Many thanks for the clarification people, however my storage policy item was set as forever :\
11-28-2013 02:36 PM
Hm.. I guess in this case the only way to delete it is by right clicking it manually one by one.
Do I need to set something before I right click and delete the archive ?
11-28-2013 10:21 PM
Hello John,
That doesn't matter because you are deleting an archive which is considered as a force deletion and the archive will get deleted.
The only exception is if in the retention policy if you have "Prevent deletion of items in this retention category" selected then the archive will reamin Marked for deletion and will not get deleted.
Uncheck this option "Prevent deletion of items in this retention category" if it is checked before deleting the archives.
check the screenshot
I hope this helps !!!
11-29-2013 04:12 AM
I think the IDEA is already logged in the Ideas section of the forums ... i.e. to be able to do deletes from a command line.
11-29-2013 05:41 PM
Ah.. so I'll vote than one up as well :)
12-04-2013 09:30 PM
Hi John,
Please mark the post that best solves your problem as the answer to this thread.
01-02-2019 01:33 PM
Old thread, I know, but I couldn't find a better solution to this out there. Any way - I ended up using nircmd.exe to script out the keystrokes to delete archives in the VAC. Deleted over a 1000 in about 20 min. And saved some serious tendenitous from all of those clicks. Basically, I kick off the cmd below. You'll notice there's a little delay in the first line. This gives me time to click on the correct archive in the VAC. Crude, but effective.
set counter=0
nircmd wait 5000
:loop
nircmd wait 1000
nircmd sendkey delete down
nircmd sendkey delete up
nircmd sendkey tab down
nircmd sendkey tab up
nircmd sendkey enter down
nircmd sendkey enter up
nircmd sendkey down down
nircmd sendkey down up
set /a counter=%counter%+1
if %counter% ==7 (GOTO :exit) else (GOTO :loop)
pause
:exit
pause