Mike H. - Another Geek In Need...

Hi Mike,

very nice syntax coloring. How did you write it into your blog? I always have problems when posting code snippets from VS to Word and then into an html editor and from there into the blog tool.

Yours,
Alois Kraus

Thanks very much for this post. It demystifies a number of things about manipulating the proxyaddress attribute. I just wanted to point out a possible typo in the code, however, as I found a change to your code to be necessary in order to get it working in my envirnoment. Here it is:

I had to change...

// Update AD…

userEntry.Properties[“proxyAddresses”] = proxyAddresses;

to...

// Update AD…

userEntry.Properties[“proxyAddresses”].Value = proxyAddresses.Value;

Very good catch Mark, and thanks for pointing that out. When I'm throwing out code off the top of my head it's too easy to forget the nuances between languages.

Thanks again...

Hi Mike, it's me again. I wonder if you might answer a couple of questions?

I've been adapting some of your code here as well as the concepts in order to do a fairly simple task: change the contents of the proxyAdresses AD attribute to reflect a change in a user's primary email address when their name changes. So if I change my last name to Smith, my email address will change from myoung@example.com to msmith@example.com. Of course this means that my primary proxyAddress needs to change from SMTP:myoung@example.com to SMTP:msmith@example.com. Now we also use a secondary proxyAddress, and this needs to change as well.

What I'm finding is that I cannot find a way to gracefully do this programmatically. The code you've posted is tremendously helpful, but it will not change the primary proxyAddress. It will replace any secondary, and using a variation on your code, I can add as many secondaries as I want, and replace them at will.

When I try to replace the primary proxyAddress, however, it simply doesn't work. With your code, I simply get the original primary address, the new secondary proxy, and the new pager address. If I try a variation that should just replace the primary, the primary is not replaced, as if I had done nothing.

One variation that partially works is the following:

public static void MakePrimaryProxyAddress (DirectoryEntry userEntry, string newproxyaddress)
{
System.DirectoryServices.PropertyCollection properties = userEntry.Properties;
PropertyValueCollection proxyAddresses = userEntry.Properties["proxyAddresses"];
if (proxyAddresses != null)
{
bool found = false;
for (int j = 0; j < proxyAddresses.Count; j++)
{
string proxyadd = proxyAddresses[j].ToString();
if (proxyadd.StartsWith("SMTP:"))
{
found = true;
Console.WriteLine("Found existing primary: " + proxyadd + "at index " + j.ToString() +", setting to secondary...");

string[] proxyparts = proxyadd.Split(':');

proxyAddresses[j] = "smtp:" + proxyparts[1];

}
}
if (found)
{
Console.WriteLine("Adding new primary proxy: " + newproxyaddress);
proxyAddresses.Insert(0, newproxyaddress);
for (int j = 0; j < proxyAddresses.Count; j++)
{
Console.WriteLine(proxyAddresses[j].ToString());
}
// Update AD…
userEntry.Properties["proxyAddresses"].Value = proxyAddresses.Value;
}
}
}

This code sets the original primary proxyAddress to be a secondary, by replacing the "SMTP:" prefix to "smtp:", then adds the new primary proxy. After this subroutine runs, I can see in ADCU that the primary address is now the new address, and the original primary is now a secondary:

Before:

SMTP:originalprimary@example.com

After:

SMTP:newprimary@example.com
smtp:originalprimary@example.com

Great. But, if I look in the mail attribute, it is still loaded with the original primary address. I can remedy the situation manually through the ACDU mmc one of two ways:

1) clear the mail attribute, this results in the mail attribute automatically updating to the new primary address

2) delete the original primary address (now changed to a secondary), this results in the same thing

This led me to believe that I could get to where I wanted to go by deleting the original primary address in a separate step. So I tried that. That resulted in my new primary proxy being deleted.

I know this a lot to process. I guess I'm asking: what am I missing? It looks as if when dealing with the primary proxyAddress, there are additional constraints that need to be met. So far from what I've seen, one is that you cannot replace the primary directly. What are the others?

If you can shed any light on this, I would be very grateful. If not, don't worry - I wouldn't even be this far along without your posted code!

Hey Mark... Real quick... Check your variable usage in the nested if's... Are you using 'j' in each loop? Also, double check the code you copy/pasted to me - it shows the j< - but does not show j<0;

Let me know before I dig in deeper.

I am using j in each for loop, but the for loops are not nested. I apologize, what I posted is hard to read. I did change the looping variable in one of the for loops to k. This did not change the result.

I'm not sure what you mean by your second question. I've got the for loop definitions:

for (int j=0; j<proxyAddresses.Count; j++)

Hi Mark, sorry it took me so long to respond again - it's been a long week :(

If I understand what I've reviewed, you 'are' successfully updated the proxyAddresses property, but not the mail property.

From my experience, I do not remember the 'mail' property automatically reflecting the SMTP: primary from the proxyAddresses - I have not reviewed this recently, but I remember having to update the 'mail' property via code.

If you can change the SMTP: successfully, and you are checking for that in your code, when you find the SMTP: and realize it's the primary, simply branch into an if loop and update the 'mail' property at that time - that is how I believe I did it.

Please let me know.

Hi Mike,

You're right about the mail attribute not automatically updating when changes are made directly to AD. When you change things with the ADCU GUI, the GUI is enforcing some constraints via proxy-sync, which I believe is provided by the inproxy.dll, the proxy generation DLL for SMTP addresses. So if you go in and clear the mail attribute, the GUI will call something that will refill it with the primary proxyaddress. I found that here: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/01/10/350132.aspx

Yes, I've tried explicitly setting the mail attribute. One example of my efforts is shown below. This is a modification of the if (found) clause from the snippet i posted above. I just added the line

userEntry.Properties["mail"].Value = addressParts[1];


which should set the mail attribute as you suggest. Unfortunately, it doesn't. I end up with the same situation as if I never tried to set the mail attribute.



if (found)
{
Console.WriteLine("Adding new primary proxy: " + newproxyaddress);
proxyAddresses.Insert(0, newproxyaddress);
string [] addressParts = newproxyaddress.Split(':');
userEntry.Properties["mail"].Value = addressParts[1];
for (int k = 0; k < proxyAddresses.Count; k++)
{
Console.WriteLine(proxyAddresses[k].ToString());
}
// Update AD…
userEntry.Properties["proxyAddresses"].Value = proxyAddresses.Value;
}

One other observation, for what it's worth. you'll notice that I chose to put the new primary proxy in with an insert call, placing the new primary in at index 0. After the changes are committed, however, the new primary is not at index 0 (I can see this by looking at the entry with adsiedit, or by reading back the propertyValueCollection in a program.) - the old primary proxy address is at index 0 (it's always the first proxyaddress). I don't know what this means, but it seems significant.

Hi Mark... I have been away on vacation for 10 days - and I apologize for not responding sooner.

I have not had a problem setting the primary "mail" property via code. In fact, I cannot reproduce what you are describing and I'm perplexed here. I am curious what is in the addressParts[1] when you attempt to set the property in your code?

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