As you might be already aware, proper functioning of Duet depends on a correctly configured Exchange account. Duet configuration settings are stored in a special hidden folder in your Exchange account. It is important that users and administrators do not accidentally delete messages from this folder.

If, for some reason, Duet configuration settings in this folder are deleted or corrupt, Duet will not function correctly. But, not all is lost!

We provide a repair tool to help you during such circumstances. You can find the executable Microsoft.OBA.ClientRepair.exe in the Duet installation folder. This is a very versatile tool and can do quite a few things. This blog post will cover two of those capabilities.

The first option is the /CleanupExchangeAccount option. It's important that you use this option only if you see the following message when Outlook starts: "Your Exchange account is corrupted...."

Running ClientRepairTool with /CleanupExchangeAccount option will do the following…

  • Delete the Duet special hidden folder
  • Reset the Duet registry key that points to your outlook profile
  • Mark Duet for re-deployment the next time (by resetting the appropriate registry key)

Run…

 Microsoft.OBA.ClientRepair.exe /CleanupExchangeAccount at the command prompt.

Once the client repair tool successfully runs, you should exit the Duet system tray utility and restart it from the Start menu. This will trigger the deployment (remember that the client repair tool had marked your computer for re-deployment). Deployment will restore the correct values for the stuff that were deleted above and re-create the hidden folder.

The second option I'm going to talk about is the /CheckExchangeAccountConfiguration. Yeah, it's a little verbose! But, that clearly explains what it is going to do, doesn't it? Alright, if you're a Duet 1.0 or Duet 1.5 preview user, you're not going to see this option yet. This is being introduced newly in the next version. Here's a sneak peak at what it is for.

More often than not, it will be desirable to figure out what went wrong before fixing the problem. Though the /CleanupExchangeAccount is a very useful option, you don't want to re-deploy Duet if the issue is something else. To be sure, it's your exchange account configuration with Duet that is corrupt, you can use this option. Here's a sample output from the tool (when Duet is configured properly with your Exchange Account).

    SUCCESS: The Exchange account configuration is correct for the user.
    SUCCESS: Successfully logged on to Exchange using profile: Duet.
    SUCCESS: Successfully logged on to Exchange using profile: Duet.
    SUCCESS: Duet settings configuration message is present in the Exchange user account mailbox.
    SUCCESS: Duet personalization message is present in the Exchange user account mailbox.
    SUCCESS: Duet SDS backup message is present in the Exchange user account mailbox.

The above checks are performed in sequence and printed to the screen. If the tool encounters an error doing any of the above checks it will print a corresponding error message (E.g.: "ERROR: {0} specific properties are missing or unreadable on the settings configuration message.") and exit.

We hope you find these options useful. As I said before, please exercise restraint when using the clean up option of this tool. Your feedback is important. Share it with us. We're listening!

-Sivashankar, Program Manager, Duet Supportability and Tools.