Free Microsoft tool accesses Exchange, Outlook MAPI stores
Exchange administrators are familiar with MAPI,
Windows’ messaging API for making programs mail-aware. Because Microsoft Outlook and Exchange
Server rely heavily on advanced MAPI features, admins and developers can benefit from a tool that
works in the same way.
Microsoft’s free MFCMAPI tool -- now
in version 6 -- lets you use a graphical user interface (GUI) to open message stores that are
exposed through MAPI and navigate through them. The tool has a fairly long history, according to
its chief developer, Microsoft engineer Stephen Griffin, who considered its first three versions to
be toys. Several revisions later, though,
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This was first published in December 2010
MFCMAPI seemed a suitable replacement for another
Exchange tool -- Microsoft Exchange Server Information Store Viewer.
MDBVU is still available, but is no longer being developed; the last revision
was in May 2004.
MCFMAPI, which is available as open-source software under the terms of the Microsoft Public License, offers
more functionality. To use the tool, you need the program and a locally running instance of either
Microsoft Outlook or Exchange
System Manager. MCFMAPI is self-contained and can run from any directory.
Launch the tool and select Session -> Logon and display store table to connect to the
local MAPI store provider. After doing so, you can view the available message stores.
Users can also perform logon/logoff operations with passed flags. Like most items exposed
through MFCMAPI, you must know the consequences of using those flags before taking advantage of
them. The default logon process should be sufficient for those just getting started with the
tool.
Program submenus let you explore the Address Book, the various message stores -- including public folders -- and the
current profile. You can double-click on each item you have explored to expose a deeper hierarchy
of properties or view full properties for the item within the property editor.
Do not directly edit properties unless you know exactly what you’re doing. You can
potentially ruin everything you explore with this tool, so tread with caution.
A slew of auxiliary functions are also available in MFCMAPI. The contents of the currently
selected store or the entire server can be dumped out to text; however, this is a slow process. You
can also launch the Profile wizard using a number of different flags, compute the store hash for a
specific store entry ID, dump the contents of any viewed table to text and convert messages between
.eml and .msg formats.
Figure 1: MFCMAPI lets you explore the range of MAPI functions that are related to message
stores.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Serdar Yegulalp has been writing about computers and information technology for more than 15
years for a variety of publications, including InformationWeek and Windows Magazine.
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