A disabled user mailbox

Disabling a mailbox means disconnecting a mailbox-enabled user account in Active Directory from its mailbox.

When the mailbox is disabled, all the exchange attributes of the user account are removed from Active Directory. The user account associated with the mailbox remains in Active Directory, but is no longer associated with a mailbox.

The adapter uses the registry key DisableMailboxOnSuspend to decide whether to disable the mailbox during a suspend operation.

The mailbox of a user can also be disabled by clearing the value of Mailbox Store attribute on account form. The adapter does not depend on the value of the DisableMailboxOnSuspend registry key.

When a user mailbox is disabled all the exchange properties of the mailbox are removed from the user account on Active Directory. The mailbox is marked in the database for removal. When a mailbox-enabled user account is removed from Active Directory, the mailbox is marked in exchange database for removal.

A disabled mailbox that is deleted remains in exchange database for configured number of days before it is deleted. The default is 30 days. This configuration can be changed through the Exchange Admin Console. When you create a mailbox for a new or existing user, the exchange attributes that are required for a mailbox are added to the user object in Active Directory. When a disabled mailbox is connected to an existing Active Directory user account, that user account becomes the owner of the mailbox. The account has full access to any content within the mailbox