How to Disable Conflict Message notification in Microsoft Exchange

Authored by: Support.com Tech Pro Team

1. Introduction

How to Disable Conflict Message notification in Microsoft Exchange

Two users edit the same message in a public folder. Then, they save their copies of the message. In this scenario, the saved messages are in conflict. Conflicts can occur when a concurrent save operation is made on the same public folder server or if the message is edited on two servers that contain replicas of the same public folder. This article discusses the situation in which the conflict occurs during replication between two servers.

When a conflict occurs, the owners of the public folder receive an e-mail message from the server that's running Exchange Server. The message notifies them about the conflict. The owners can then open the message for which the conflict occurred, and decide which changes they want to keep. If the owners keep all changes, two messages are generated in the public folder.

The method that the Exchange server uses to resolve these conflicts is determined by the value of the PR_RESOLVE_METHOD property in the folder. This property is identified by the 0x3FE70003 MAPI property tag. The following are possible values for this property:

• 0: RESOLVE_METHOD_DEFAULT - Default handling of message conflicts.
• 1: RESOLVE_METHOD_LAST_WRITER_WINS - The last writer will win the conflict.
• 2: RESOLVE_METHOD_NO_CONFLICT_NOTIFICATION - Same steps as the RESOLVE_METHOD_DEFAULT, except that the contacts that are defined on a folder and the modifiers of a message are not notified.

By default, the value is set to 0. If you do not want a notification message to be sent during a conflict, change the value to 2.

You can change this value programmatically, or you can use one of the tools that are described in this article. For more information, contact the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN), or use a tool to change individual folder property values. For example, use the ExFolders tool to change folder property values.

Changing the value of the PR_RESOLVE_METHOD property does not resolve existing conflicts. 

2. Resolution

How to use ExFolders to change the value of PR_RESOLVE_METHOD

To obtain the public folder name, open one of the conflict messages, and then note the name in the From field. If conflict messages are generated by more than one public folder, you must do this for every public folder that generated the conflict messages.

The account that is used for authentication in the ExFolders tool must have the right to change public folder attributes. We recommend that you run the ExFolders tool from a workstation.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Start the ExFolders tool.
2. On the File menu, select Connect.
3. Enter the names of the Exchange server and the global catalog.
4. Select the Authenticate as currently logged-on user check box, or manually enter another account that you can use for authentication.
5. On the Connection tab, select Public Folders, and then select OK.
6. Expand the Public Folders item, locate the public folder that contains the conflict, and then right-click the folder to disable the Conflict Message notification.
7. Right-click the folder again, and then select Property Editor.
8. In the Property text box, type PR_RESOLVE_METHOD: 0X3FE70003.
9. Select Set, and then type the desired value. Legitimate values are 0, 1, and 2.
10. If you want to make this change to all subfolders of the selected folder, select the Perform this action on all subfolders of the selected folder check box.
11. Select Execute. You should receive confirmation that the change is successful.
12. Repeat steps 1 to 11 for other folders that have conflicts.
13. If a subfolder is created within a parent folder that has a changed value, the subfolder does not inherit the changed value. By default, the subfolder is created to have a value of 0 for the property. 

How to remove conflict messages from a user's mailbox

Conflict messages are assigned to the IPM.Conflict.Message class. You can use the Search-Mailbox command to delete conflict messages from a user's mailbox. However, Search-Mailbox cannot be configured to filter messages according to the message class. When Search-Mailbox is used together with subject keyword filtering and sender keyword filtering, only messages from a specific public folder that contains the subject "Conflict Message" are deleted. But if users can send messages from this public folder, and have sent messages that use the same subject line to user mailboxes, those messages will also be deleted.

The following example command shows how to use Search-Mailbox to delete conflict messages:

Search-Mailbox -Identity "April Stewart" -SearchQuery 'Subject:"Conflict Message:" And From:"PublicFolderName" -DeleteContent

To obtain the public folder name, open one of the conflict messages, and then note the name in the From field. If conflict messages are generated by more than one public folder, you must do this for every public folder that generated the conflict messages.