title: Easiest way to programatically add aliases to Exchange 03/07 mailboxes?
body: <p>We currently have a specific format for how our email addresses are defined, based upon name. This system originated some time ago and is beginning to become a bit of a hindrance. </p>
  
  <p>We would like to move to a new format, based along the line of </p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;first name initial&gt;&lt;second name initial&gt;&lt;last name&gt;@organisation.com
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, we dont just want to rename the mailboxes etc, instead we're opting to keep the existing email addresses for all current users, but using the new form for new users. In addition, we want to add a mail alias to all of the mailboxes using the legacy format.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone suggest a relatively straight-forward way to add these aliases via code? Pulling the user's name details is not an issue, moreso just adding the alias to the mailbox. We're currently running exchange 2003 for most users, but are on the verge of a 2007 migration, and so have the odd user on 2007 also (the two servers are running side by side at present).</p>
  
  <p>I've read that all exchange 2007 management should be done using the 2007 tools and not active directory as was previously the case, so can all of this be performed via the exchange 2007 APIs, even for 2003 "legacy mailboxes" (as termed in exchange)?</p>
  
  <p>Basically I'm just looking for a good direction to go here; I've never really done any coding for exchange. Thanks!</p>