Alexander’s Blog

Microsoft Exchange Team Blog has recently posted the following information:

“We have learned of and analyzed the problem where the Exchange 2007 SP2 installation can fail during the prerequisite check stage. The installation can fail for both the upgrade or for new installation of Exchange 2007 SP2.

In the Exchange Setup log you can see that setup is failing with the following error:

[ERROR] Cannot find at least one domain controller running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 or later in domain ‘DC=DCName,DC=com,DC=DCName’. This could be the result of moving domain controller objects in Active Directory. Check that at least one domain controller running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 or later is located in the ‘Domain Controllers’ organizational unit (OU) and rerun setup.

This can happen in the following scenarios:

* You are installing or upgrading to Exchange 2007 SP2 in an Active Directory forest that has only Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controllers,

OR

* You are installing or upgrading the Exchange 2007 SP2 in an Active Directory forest that has windows server 2008 R2 Domain Controllers as well Windows Server 2003 domain controllers that are not updated to at least Windows Server 2003 SP1.”

To read the rest of this post, click here.

Neetu Rajpal, the Group Program Manager for the Forefront Sever Security team at Microsoft recently wrote this article on Forefront Security for Exchange Server. In her article she describes some of the capabilities of the next generation Forefront Security for Exchange Server. With multiple scanning engines and filtering capabilities, the product protects e-mail while allowing you to take performance into consideration. You can also handle configuration and management as you prefer, using either the administration console or Windows PowerShell.

Check out her article on TechNet here.

Microsoft doesn’t offer POP3 service in Windows Server 2008. For those of you who want to test e-mail functionality in a Virtual PC environment or with MOSS 2007, installing Exchange server could be too taxing as far as resources are concerned (not to mention the cost) for just using SMTP in a development, testing or training environment. Here are a couple of solutions.

Solution #1

One option that some people have utilized is a freeware mail server. ArGoSoft Mail Server Freeware might be worth looking into. You can download the freeware mail server from ArGoSoft.

Windows VISTA and Windows Server 2008 Users: If you are going to install the Web interface, make sure you keep this document handy.

I should point out that I have not used this server and can’t give you any insights at this time. It is a freeware product so use it at your own risk. Obviously, it would not be wise to use this freeware version in a production environment.

Solution #2

Another solution, which might even work better, is to use Visendo SMTP (POP3) extender for Windows Server 2008. You can download the x64 and x86 versions from Visendo’s Web site. This is ideal for a development, training or testing environment.

http://www.visendo.com/download/visendosmtpextender/VisendoSMTPExtender_x64.msi

http://www.visendo.com/download/visendosmtpextender/VisendoSMTPExtender_x86.msi

I haven’t had a chance to test this solution either but I hope to give this option a try as soon as I get a chance. If you have had experience with either of these solutions, I would love to hear from you.

If you are using Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, you are in good shape. The integration between the two products makes your life easier. Here’s how you can add a SharePoint Document Library to Outlook 2007.

1. Go to the SharePoint Document Library that you want to add to Outlook.

2. On the Actions menu click on Connect to Outlook (if you’re using IE) or Connect to Client (if you are using Firefox), as shown in the graphic below.

3. In IE you will see a dialog box that asks you if you want to connect the library to Outlook. In Firefox, first you see the Launch Application dialog box from which you can select Microsoft Office Outlook and then you see the same option as in IE.

4. Click Yes and your Document Library will show up under a SharePoint Lists folder in Outlook.

Now you can read and edit files, use Outlook search to locate documents just like you do with Outlook e-mail messages, work with your documents offline, etc.

You can right-click and remove the offline copy, or download the document again. If you open the file, it will be opened as Read-Only. You can edit it by clicking on Edit Offline button, as shown in the screenshot below.

When you click on Edit Offline, a dialog box will show you where the document will be stored on your computer (in a SharePoint Drafts folder in your default documents folder). You can click on SharePoint Drafts link and change the location if you want.

The Offline Editing Options link gives you some additional customization options. Once you’ve made your modifications, you can save the file. By default, it will save it in SharePoint Drafts folder on local computer. When you try to close the document you will be given the option to update the server with your offline changes.

If you want to switch back to your SharePoint Library, you do not need to leave Outlook. Simply right-click the folder in the left hand pane and select Open in Web Browser. If you add a List, such as a Calendar, it will be added under Other Calendars and will be visible alongside your personal calendars.

This brief overview gives you an idea of some of the capabilities of Outlook and SharePoint integration. Although I showed you how to use both IE and Firefox browsers to connect to Outlook, I should point out that unfortunately Firefox does not work very well when it comes to SharePoint. Some of Microsoft’s blogs give you the impression that Firefox is supported but in the real-world you will run into several limitations, even if you use the IE Tab add-on for Firefox.

Based on what I see in various forums, there is a lot of confusion on setting up POP3 on Exchange Server 2007 in general. One common error that is mentioned a lot is:

550: 5.7.1 Unable to Relay

This is not the only scenario that you will see the above error. There are a lot of other scenarios as well. However, I will address one particular situation here.

Problem:

Users are unable to use Outlook 2007 or Windows Mail to send out messages (or reply to the messages they have received). They get the above error.

Explanation:

Here is the scenario:

You have a single Exchange Server 2007 running on a Windows Server 2003 Domain Controller. All the latest service packs and updates have been installed.

1. EXTERNAL USERS: You are able to receive e-mails sent to your POP3 accounts from the external users but you cannot send out e-mails to them, or reply to their messages. You get the “Unable to relay” error.

2. INTERNAL USERS: You are able to send & receive e-mails to other users on your internal network using POP3 from Outlook 2007, Windows Mail and OWA.

You are able to send & receive messages to internal & external users when using OWA because you are not using POP3 when you use OWA. This may be the temporary workaround that you are using because you can ‘t use POP3 to send out messages to external users.

Solution:

1. Go to Hub Transport under Server Configuration in Exchange Management Console.

2. On the Receive Connectors tab double-click the Default connector.

3. On the Permission Groups tab make sure that your Exchange Server has the following boxes checked:

- Anonymous users
- Exchange users
- Exchange servers

4. On the Authentication tab, make sure that you uncheck the box under Basic Authentication that says “Offer Basic authentication only after starting TLS.”

5. Restart Hub Transport service.

6. On the Outlook 2007 client go to the properties of the POP3 account. Click on More settings. On the Outgoing Server tab check the box “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication”.

If you are using Windows Mail then the option is available on the Servers tab. Go to the properties of the POP3 account and check the box that says “My server requires authentication.”

Again, keep in mind this is not the only solution to this error. There are too many other possibilities and it’s almost impossible to cover them all but I am addressing one particular situation that you may find helpful.