How long does it take (or how) to update local outlook cached addresses after updating an email in exchange active directory?

Question

I had a user in Windows Server 2003 active directory that had 2 "smtp" email addresses (exchange 2003). I deleted one of them so there is now only one.

If I log in to web mail and do a lookup for that user it works fine - I see the single, proper email address for that user.

However, on machines running outlook (2003) (possibly cached mode) that have emailed this user in the past, they still show the old addresses (and the bad one was set as primary).

How long (or will it ever) until it updates the local copy of the address?

Is there a way to force it to update for people?

Solution 1

The default update interval for the OAB is once every 24 hours at 5 AM. You can force a rebuild by right clicking the Default Offline Address List in ESM and selecting "Rebuild". Then as Coding Gorilla stated you can initiate a download of the OAB from the Outlook client.

Solution 2

If you're talking about the "auto complete" feature (which I find a lot of people actually mistake for an address book), those are local and are never updated by the server. Although there is a file in the profile that contains that data and you can delete it to clear it out (and in newer versions anyway, you can highlight an auto complete entry and hit delete).

If you are indeed talking about the global address list, then (again in newer versions, I haven't used Outlook 2003 in a long time), there is an option on the "Send/Receive" button/menu to download the "Address Book". Also, the OAB is updated on certain intervals on the server, so you might want to go to the server and initiate an update manually just to be sure.