Powershell – Distribution Group Owner Management Exchange PowerShell

exchangeexchange-2010powershell

In an Exchange 2010 (version 14.3 Build 123.4) environment, how do you add a new user to the "ManagedBy" attribute and remove another at the same time via PowerShell? (I'll be doing this for multiple lists using foreach)

In this TechNet blog post, http://blogs.technet.com/b/dstrome/archive/2011/05/29/multivalued-properties-in-exchange-2010.aspx the array syntax, (I've tried Add before Remove, same results):

Set-DistributionGroup Sales -ManagedBy @{Remove="David"; Add="Gerald"}

results in the message:

All groups must have at least one owner who manages membership, message approval, and other settings for the group.

What is the correct way to add and remove managers from Exchange 2010 distribution groups?

Best Answer

If the end result is to replace "David" with "Gerald" as the owner, avoid the Add/Replace syntax altogether:

Set-DistributionGroup Sales -ManagedBy "Gerald"

If you must do these two operations atomically (if you have cases where you might not want to replace existing values), split it into two distinct operations:

Set-DistributionGroup Sales -ManagedBy @{Add="Gerald"}
Set-DistributionGroup Sales -ManagedBy @{Remove="David"}

Related Solutions

PowerShell with module vs Exchange Management Shell

I'd never given this much thought, but it appears you're right -- they're different.

Please take a look at this blog post for some more detail. The list doesn't look exhaustive by any means, but it might be a good place to start. The two most interesting points are quoted below --

The Exchange commands using the Exchange Management Shell are implemented as functions. If you load the “Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010″ snapin instead of using the Exchange Management Shell the commands are implemented as cmdlets.

If you want to use the systemvariable $?, it is better to use the loaded snapin instead of the Exchange Management Shell because these commands don´t work properly in the Exchange Managemnt Shell. A second problem is the use of the common parameters because they are not implemented for all functions in Exchange Management Shell.

Powershell – Exchange Powershell – Creating Distribution Groups

I can't test this since I'm not at work today but you're missing the parameters in both the csv and the cmdlet, as far as I can see, so you're just chucking a bunch of data at the cmdlet without specifying what to do with it.

Your CSV file needs to look something like this:

Name, Type
Group1, Distribution
Group2, Distribution

And the powershell command needs to specify the arguments as follows:

Import-CSV "c:\example.csv" | foreach {New-DistributionGroup -Name $_.Name -Type $_.Type}

I actually logged into a test system at work to check my thoughts in response to your continuing problems. Here are the results of running the statement I'm using against my example .csv file for me:

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>import-csv "e:\test.txt" | foreach {New-DistributionGroup -Name $_.Name -Type $_.Type}

Name                          DisplayName                   GroupType                     PrimarySmtpAddress
----                          -----------                   ---------                     ------------------
test1                         test1                         Universal                     test11@example.com
test2                         test2                         Universal                     test21@example.com

There's more information in the technet exchange reference guide if you need it.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

PowerShell with module vs Exchange Management Shell

Powershell – Exchange Powershell – Creating Distribution Groups

Related Topic