Exchange 2010 - Filtering the Global AddressList

Been an interesting month in my world, have rolled out Exchange 2010 to our students at the org I work for. We have found an issue where functionality from 2007 has been removed because the practice is un-supported. The fact that MS has deemed it necassary to implement a block to stop users doing this tells me there were obviously plenty of orgs that need this functionality.

Currently in Exchange 2007 I have filtered out all 50k students from our Global Address List. Out clients deemed this amount of accounts making the address book un-workable. The main issue is the lack of Technology Savy the staff have, not being able to easily understand the search function in the address book.

Now when in 2010 we go to open a student from the Student Address List we get an access denied. I have been told that all accounts need to be in the Global address list. This would be fine if Outlook provided the ability to holistically manage the address books from a centralised perspective.

Currently documenting our business drivers that require this functionality but we are disappointed in the denial of a function without any clear reason why other than "Not supported"