Exchange 2010 hidden or not be hidden: That's the question.

 

I have had two cases the last couple a weeks were the question was.

Since migrating from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 we notice a change in the way hidden recipients are treated.

In Exchange 2003 we were able to see hidden recipients as members of distribution groups or security groups.

In Exchange 2010 the hidden recipients are not showed at all.

Exchange 2003 Scenario.

Consider the following setup.

An Exchange 2003 Universal Distribution group named:  All Cloud Users

 

The All Cloud Users group have a few members.

The group Cloud Administrators is configured to be Hidden. And have one member added to it.

Ok, so from an Outlook point of view.

I press the + to expand the group All Cloud Users

Notice that we are able to see the hidden group Cloud Administrators.

Exchange 2010 Scenario.

Same scenario as Exchange 2003.

But from an Outlook point of view we see a different result.

I press the + to expand the group All Cloud Users

The group Cloud Administrators is not visible anymore.

Conclusion.

Ideally hidden recipient objects should not be visible to the end users. Since the Administrator or Company policy have decided to hide the group. If we’ll let hidden recipients show, then actually we are exposing them in public and proving a way through which end users are able to use them.

Hidden recipient types are treated as Hidden in Exchange 2010.