GWCheck Support Options

Novell Documentation

for GWCHECK

Hi all: The Novell Knowledgebase doesn't seem to have a single TID covering all the support options available in GWCheck, so I've attempted to gather them all here. Links should open in a companion window.

Not all support options apply to all versions of GWCheck, and some newer versions of GWCheck have some support options that older versions don't. You can download the most recent version of GWCheck from the Novell Product Updates site (but see TID 10011779: Where is the stand alone version of gwcheck?).

There is also a wealth of information on GWCheck in TID 2940100: Things you should know about gwcheck, including checking archives, remote mailboxes, and some of the differences between gwchksrv (running on the Postoffice Agent) and gwchk32.exe. Similar info is in TID10025211: Things you should know about gwcheck.

For GWCheck options specific to Document Libraries see TID 10063853: AppNote: gwcheck Document Management Options.

Finally, many thanx to Andreas Bach at GroupWise dot org and Gert at GWCheck.com for hosting this page!

Please let me know of any omissions, updates or errors...

--Bob.

[Top] Basic Support Options for `GWCheck 6.x` and `GWCheck 7.x`

TID 10074300: Using Support options for Mailbox/Library Maintenance and gwcheck lists the basic support options for GWCheck 6.x. The GWCheck window has a "Misc" tab with a "Support Options" field into which the option keyword is typed. The same information is in TID 10066312: GWCheck special options available in 6.0.1 and later Code

α subjectpurge=subject

α itempurg=subject

Use this switch with GWCheck to remove all messages that have the specified subject. The subject text is case sensitive and must match a message subject obtained using the subjectlist switch. See also:

α subjectlist

Use this switch with GWCheck to list all subjects in message databases (msgnn.db). Message subjects are written out to the subdump file that is created in the same directory with the gwcheck.exe file. Since GWCheck 6.5 SP6 a rich-text file, subdump.rtf is created.

α attclip

Use this option when running Analyze/Fix Databases for a post office. It removes references to lost or orphaned attachment files from message databases, which eliminates QuickFinder indexing errors. Once the references have been fixed the orphaned attachments in offiles will be deleted when GWCheck is run again. See also:

α proxyminreset

Use this option when running Analyze/Fix Databases for a post office. It removes all proxy minimum user access rights. When setting up proxy access in the GroupWise client using Tools > Options > Security > Proxy Access, users might have inadvertently selected All User Access because it always appears at the top of the access list, which would give all users proxy rights to such users' mailboxes without users being aware of the situation. Use proxyminreset periodically to prevent this potential security problem. Note that some people may have set All User Access deliberately so that they can work collaboratively with others, see TID 10068650: Users are getting D124 errors in Multi-User View. When proxyminreset does not work you may need to run proxyfix ( TID 10074647: GWCheck reports a user has set Minimum User Rights to an account) See also:

α checkjoblist

α checkjobs ^[2]

Use this option when running Analyze/Fix Databases for a post office. It lists the contents of the GWCheck database (ngwcheck.db) in the post office directory so that you can see what Mailbox/Library Maintenance jobs are queued for processing.

checkjoblist is not in

GroupWise 7.0 SP1
          IR1

or later; checkjobs is.

α nomsgdb

α nomdb ^[1]

Use this option when running Analyze/Fix Databases for a post office or a user. It saves time by checking user databases (userxxx.db) only and skipping message databases.

Tips and Tricks for Novell GroupWise Administration^[1] says Don't validate pointers to message databases.

α pabonly

Use this option when running Analyze/Fix Databases for a post office or a user. It saves time by checking only personal address books. See also

α pabskip

α skippab

Use this option when running Analyze/Fix Databases for a post office or a user. It saves time by skipping personal address book checks.

[Top] Additional Support Options for `GWCheck 6.x` and `GWCheck 7.x`

The TID for additional support options for GWCheck 6.x is TID 10066312: GWCheck 6.0.1 special options.

α mapicleanup

MAPI cleanup.

α nosubjectpurge

Purge LIN_RECORD if it doesn't have a SUBJECT_TEXT. See TID 10077309: Need to delete mail items with no subject.

α pabfix

Fix bad addresses. See also TID 10027133: Error: "AA02 An error occurred while reading the item"

α pabchangefix

Changes group & all members if another non-case-sensitive group exists.

α proxyfix

Removes all duplicate user from proxy access lists created by GroupWise 5.2 to GroupWise5.5 upgrade. See also:

α resetmove

Check the user store for move in progress flag in VERIFICATION_RECORD and clip.

α setupmode

α setonly

Setup mode.

α verifymode

α vrfixup

Verification mode (force repairing verification record).

Additional info on setupmode and verifymode is in:

[Top] Other Support Options

α attfindpurge

α attachpurge ^[1]

Deletes all messages that have an attachment with a specified filename. This is useful for virus cleanup. Available in GroupWise 6.0 SP4 and later. See TID 2968045: GroupWise 6 Support Pack4 English Only or GroupWise 6 Support Pack 4.

α BoxDelete

From GroupWise 7 SP2 Beta Full Multilingual Win/NLM 7.0.2:

The new BoxDelete support option deletes all items from the user's database except folders.

From TID 2974904: GW 7.0.1 Interim Release 1 EN:

199617 - Added BoxDelete and PABDelete to GWCheck - use with extreme caution

α cleartz

Removes Time Zone fields from user databases to help resolve problems that occasionally arise when switching to and from daylight saving time. These time zone settings pertain to the WebAccess client, not the Windows or Cross-Platform client. Available in

GroupWise
          6.5 SP4

(FTF Rev 1, 7 Dec 2004) and later. See also:

α delallsubscriberecords

Added in GroupWise 6.5 SP5 Rev6, fix number 413529. From information in TID 2972308: GroupWise 6.5 Admin/Client SP5 English Only:

On the Misc tab, you can use the new delallsubscriberecords support option to resolve problems with users' Notify alarms that were not resolved using the delsubscriberecords support option. The new option is more thorough.

TID 2972308 is no longer available. See also TID 2973263: GroupWise 6.5 Admin/Client SP6 English.

α deldupfolders

Fixes thousands of folders named Unnamed_Folder.dupxx in the mailbox. Available in GroupWise 6.0 SP2 and later. See the following TIDs:

α delsubscriberecords

Resolve problems with users' Notify alarms. Available in GroupWise 6.5 SP1a. See also:

α folderreset

α resfldr ^[1]

Resets folder names based on the language of the post office or standalone GWCheck program. Available in GroupWise 6.5 SP2. BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option will clip the system folder so it can be re-created.

α forceclean

Cleans up databases beyond what the standard Expire/Reduce action accomplishes. Available in GroupWise 6.5 SP3 and later.

α pabdelduprec

α pabgroupfix

Use this option when running Analyze/Fix Databases for a post office or a user. This cleans up duplicate personal groups in a personal address group. Available in GroupWise 6.5 SP2.

Kevin Bunn reports that GWCheck v8.02 HP3 displays a message when running PABDELDUPREC that the correct name is PABGROUPFIX.

α PABDelete

From GroupWise 7 SP2 Beta Full Multilingual Win/NLM 7.0.2:

The new PABDelete support option deletes all the information the user's personal address books.

From TID 2974904: GW 7.0.1 Interim Release 1 EN:

199617 - Added BoxDelete and PABDelete to GWCheck - use with extreme caution

α SetMimeEncoding=number

From GroupWise 7 SP2 Linux US and MULTI 7.0.2:

12.1.1 Default MIME Encoding Change

After GroupWise 7 Support Pack 1, the GroupWise client started using
UTF-8 instead of ISO for MIME encoding. This causes occasional problems
in some languages where GroupWise 6.5 clients are being run against
GroupWise 7 post offices. To help with the transition, a Support option
has been added to GroupWise Check (GWCheck) to convert user databases
back to the ISO encoding for your language. 

1. Start GWCheck as described in GroupWise Check in Databases in the
GroupWise 7 Administration Guide. 

2. Under Database Type, select Post Office. 

3. In the Database Path field browse to and select the post office
directory. 

4. Under Object Type, select User/Resource. 

If you want to perform the conversion on all user and resource databases
in the post office, specify ALL in the User/Resource field. 

5. In the Action drop-down list, select Reset Client Options. 

6. In the Support Options field on the Misc tab, type
setmimeencoding=number, where number is one of the following character
set numbers:

Character Set Number	Language
1	Windows default
2	ISO default
7	Arabic (Windows 1256)
9	Baltic (Windows 1257)
12	Central European (Windows 1250)
13	Chinese Simplified (GB2312)
15	Chinese Traditional (Big5)
18	Cyrillic (K018-R)
27	Hebrew (Windows 1255)
29	Japanese (ISO2022-JP)
30	Japanese (Shift-JIS)
32	Korean (EUC-KR)
33	Thai (Windows 874)
35	Turkish (Windows 1254)
3	UTF-8

7. Click Run to perform the conversion of user and resource databases
from UTF-8 to the selected character set.

α resetcreatedates

α resetfuturecreatedates^[4]

Resets with a future date and time to the current date and time. Available in

gwcheck.exe 6.5 post SP6
          Rev1

(8 June 2006) and

gwcheck.exe 7.0 SP1
          Rev4

(30 March 2006) and later. See TID 2973881: FTF GW 6.5 post SP6 gwcheck.exe Rev 1

BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option will reset the create dates for future items to the current date.

resetfuturecreatedates seen in gwenv1.dll from

GroupWise 7.0 SP1
          IR1

, dated 14 December 2006

α resetmaintflag

Resets the maintenance flag (ie. file lock) in a user or message database. See TID 10088755: GroupWise GWCheck will not work with the RESETMAINTFLAG startup option in the Misc tab

α storedrop

α cleansc ^[1]

Removes records in ngwguard.db for Library folders created by running GWCheck for Verify Library on a system without document management. Requires GWCheck dated 15 June 2001 or later. From GroupWise 6 Support Pack 1:

The GWCheck Storedrop option now works correctly. It will remove all user.db, msg.db, dmd*.db and dms*dB database types from the store catalog. (274486)

[Top] Undocumented Support Options for `GWCheck 6.x` and `GWCheck 7.x`

I looked at the gwenv1.dll (GroupWise 6.5 SP4) file with a hex editor to see what other support options there might be. Although these options are clearly visible, I could find no reference to them in the Novell Knowledgebase.

α includeretention: No information available. includeretention is not in GroupWise 7.0 SP1 IR1 or later.
α resetdocauthor: No information available in the Novell Knowledgebase. BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option will reset the document author and creator to the settings in the activity log.
α unhidefolders: No information available in the Novell Knowledgebase. BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option will unhide all the hidden folder records.

[Top] More Undocumented Support Options for `GWCheck 7.x` only

[Top] Seen in `gwenv1.dll` from the `GroupWise 7.0 Beta`, dated 21 June 2005, 6101 MiBytes.

α bypass_retention^[4]
α bypassretention: No information available.
α bypass_smartpurge^[4]
α bypasssmartpurge: No information in the Novell Knowledgebase. BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option will expire items even with the smart purge setting enabled.
α pabpurge: No information available in the Novell Knowledgebase. BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option will delete all the specified personal address book entries.
α resequencefolders
α resequence^[4]: No information available in the Novell Knowledgebase. BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option will re-sequence folders at all levels.
α ressyscat^[4]
α systemcategoryreset: No information available in the Novell Knowledgebase. BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option will reset or clear all the system category names.

[Top] Seen in `gwenv1.dll` from `GroupWise 7.0 SP1 beta Rev4`, dated 30 March 2006

α cfg: No information available.
α clearmoveinventorylist
α clearmove^[4]: No information available in the Novell Knowledgebase. BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option will delete inventory list items that still exist after moving a user.
α cleanupgweventskey^[4]
α deleventsbykey: No information available in the Novell Knowledgebase. BrainStorm Inc.'s GroupWise 7 Admin Quick Start Card^[3] says this option removes event records containing a specified key.
α resetfutureapptcreatedates: No information available. Alias for resetcreatedates? resetfutureapptcreatedates is not in GroupWise 7.0 SP1 IR1 or later, but resetfuturecreatedates is.

[Top] From the documentation in the GW 7.0 SP3 Beta ReadMe file

α clearsig: No information available in the Novell Knowledgebase. From the GW 7.0 SP3 Beta ReadMe file:

The Reset Client Options action of GWCheck now retains user signatures. To reset user signatures as well, use the clearsig support option.
α pabremove: No information available in the Novell Knowledgebase. From the GW 7.0 SP3 Beta ReadMe file:

The new pabremove support option for GWCheck removes duplicate GroupWise user IDs that can occur in personal address books after a user has been moved.

[Top] Alphabetical List of Support Options for `GWCheck 6.x` and `GWCheck 7.x`

attachpurge
attclip
attfindpurge
BoxDelete
bypass_retention
bypassretention
bypass_smartpurge
bypasssmartpurge
cfg
checkjoblist
checkjobs
cleansc
cleanupgweventskey
clearmove
clearmoveinventorylist
clearsig
cleartz
delallsubscriberecords
deldupfolders
deleventsbykey
delsubscriberecords
folderreset
forceclean
includeretention
itempurg
mapicleanup
nomdb
nomsgdb
nosubjectpurge
pabchangefix
pabdelduprec
PABDelete
pabfix
pabgroupfix
pabonly
pabpurge
pabremove
pabskip
proxyfix
proxyminreset
resequence
resequencefolders
resetcreatedates
resetdocauthor
resetfutureapptcreatedates
resetfuturecreatedates
resetmaintflag
resetmove
resfldr
ressyscat
SetMimeEncoding
setonly
setupmode
skippab
storedrop
storelowercase
subjectlist
subjectpurge
systemcategoryreset
testmode
TZChange2007
tzchangefolder
unhidefolders
verifymode
vrfixup
wptest

[Top] Basic switches for `GWCheck 5.x`

TID 10059466: How to use GWCheck with the gwcheck.cfg file has the info for the basic GWCheck 5.x options (called "switches" for GWCheck 5.x). With GWCheck 5.x the switches are invoked by placing them on the first line of a file called gwcheck.cfg. Two examples:

attclip

subjectpurge
Vacation reply to all

The basic GWCheck 5.x switches are:

α attclip

Removes references to lost attachment files, so that QuickFinder won't try to index them and generate errors. Once the references have been fixed the orphaned attachments in OFFILES will be deleted when GWCheck is run again. See TID 10025943: Reduce OFFILES Directory Size or Problem 82 running GWCheckAlso fixes error [8E03] (see TID10026701: Error 8E03)

Note that the attclip option can also be invoked on versions prior to GWCheck 5.5 SP4 by creating a file called attclip.ngw . This can be a 0 byte file.

α cleansc

Causes dependant store files to be dropped from the store catalog if .db file is missing. This will force the .db to be recreated on the next login.

α itempurg

This switch is invoked by creating a text file callled itempurg containing the subject line to be purged. Purges any mail message with a subject field that matches a certain string. The text file should contain the subject line of the message you want to purge from the user's database. It can be partial text, but it must be the starting words (e.g., the first 27 characters of the subject) but everything that begins with the string you type will be purged and will NOT be recoverable. To execute the purge, perform a Contents check and fix on the appropriate user database.

In GWCheck 5.5 SP 4 and later this no longer works; use subjectpurge instead.

α nomdb

To be used for testing when you have been given copies of user databases but not message databases. For contents check of user database, don't validate pointers to message databases.

α pabonly.ngw

This switch can also be invoked by creating a text file named pabonly.ngw in the folder containing gwchk32.exe.

When doing user database contents check, stop check after personal address book verification (updates Frequent Contact List and PAB). See also:

α pabskip.ngw

Skip personal address book check when performing user database contents check.

α resfldr.ngw

Resets system folder names so that the client can come in and replace them. Used when a database gets created with foreign language names for system folders, and you want to reset them to some other language.

α setonly.ngw

α vrfixup.ngw

These switches can also be invoked by creating files named setonly.ngw and vrfixup.ngw in the folder containing gwchk32.exe.

Used for D115: Security Breach errors. setonly.ngw checks verification record and settings changes; vrfixup.ngw forces fixup of verification record. This is a possible security issue, since the error that tells when one database is copied on top of another will be overwritten.

Additional info on setonly.ngw and vrfixup.ngw is in TID 1007474: Error: D115 "Security Breach".

[Top] Other `GWCheck 5.x` switches

The following switches apply to only certain version of GWCheck, and have their own TIDs for documentation:

α pabdupdel: Delete duplicate entries in Frequent Contacts addressbook (only in the fgw5chk.exe, dated 2001/08/31). See TID 2960107: GWCheck with Address Book Cleanup option.
α storedrop: Remove 255 library directories created by a bug in versions prior to GroupWise 5.5.2 (only in GWCheck dated 2001/06/15 or later). Removes records in ngwguard.db for Library folders created by running GWCheck for Verify Library on a system without document management. See TID 10063572: Steps for resolving the 255 library issue. See also TID 10067993: Storedrop Switch not working on 255 Library Issue.
α subjectlist: Creates a SUBDUMP file containing all subject lines in the message store.
α subjectpurge: Removes all messages with a specified subject. Subject line, up to 27 characters, goes in 2nd line of gwcheck.cfg. (subjectlist and subjectpurge are only available in GWCheck from GroupWise 5.5 SP4 and later, GroupWise 5.5 EP SP2 and later, GroupWise 6.0 SP1 and later). See TID 10052747: Removing messages from the message and user database with GWCheck.
α proxyfix: Fixes damaged proxy list, caused by a GroupWise 5.2 client modifying proxies on a GroupWise 5.5 postoffice. (requires fgck555e.exe) See TID 10060722: In EP client, one user name replaces all or almost all of the proxy entries.
α forceclean: Performs extensive cleanup of messages (and attachments) that should not be there. Not supported by Novell. Available in GWCheck from GroupWise 5.5 EP SP4. TID 2960743 had more info, but is no longer available. See this Novell Knowledgebase query for "FORCECLEAN").
α setupmode
α verifymode: Runs a contents check against user database; used to resolve D115 errors. Further information from NTS needed (from a message on NGWList by William D. Large <dennis.large@louisville.edu>)
While not documented for GWCheck 5.x, these are likely aliases for setonly.ngw and vrfixup.ngw, as with GWCheck 6.x.

[Top] Added 20 December 2004

α deldupfolders: Fixes thousands of folders named Unnamed_Folder.dupxx in the mailbox. Available in GroupWise 5.5EP SP5 and later. See TID 10065532: Error:"D11B" selecting Sent Items folder.

[Top] Alphabetical List of `GroupWise 5.x` Switches

attclip
cleansc
deldupfolders
forceclean
itempurg
nomdb
pabdupdel
pabonly.ngw
pabskip.ngw
proxyfix
resfldr.ngw
setonly.ngw
setupmode
storedrop
subjectlist
subjectpurge
verifymode
vrfixup.ngw

[Top] References

Tips and Tricks for Novell GroupWise Administration (12 August 2003, updated 3 October 2005)
Robin Redgrave, Senior Consultant, Novell; Tim Heywood, CTO, NDS 8
("tut330.sxi", OpenOffice Impress file, 133 KiBytes)
Tips & Tricks for GroupWise Administration (3 October 2005)
Robin Redgrave, Senior Consultant, Novell <rredgrave@novell.com>; Tim Heywood, Technical Director, NDS8 <tim.heywood@nds8.co.uk>; Danita Zanre, Caledonia <danita.zanre@caledonia.net>
("tut231.pdf", Portable Document File, 441 KiBytes)
Novell GroupWise 7 Administrator's Reference Quick Start Card (August 2006) NGW7ADM0806
BrainStorm, Inc.
The GroupWise Admin Quick Start Cards can be ordered from BrainStorm Inc.
Information provided by Tony Caras <tonyc@gwava.com>