Alexander’s Blog

Have you run into a situation where your users are getting an unexpected login prompt? If your Outlook 2007 users are configured to use NTLM authentication yet they are receiving a login prompt, which they shouldn’t, you need to modify Outlook Anywhere settings for the Autodiscover service. More specifically, you need to use the Exchange Management Shell and modify a server-side setting for Outlook Anywhere. This should be done on the server that is running the Client Access server role. For the Autodiscover service, you should set the value for the Server attribute for the EXPR OutlookProvider object to $null for the Outlook Anywhere configuration settings. Here’s how.

Make sure you have the proper permissions to modify the settings on the Exchange 2007 Server. For example logon as an account that has the Exchange Organization Administrator role. Start the Exchange Management Shell and run the following command:

Set-OutlookProvider EXPR -Server $null

In order for the changes to take effect, you should either restart Internet Information Services (IIS) or recycle MSExchangeAutodiscoverAppPool on the Exchange server that’s running the Client Access server role.

Restarting IIS is simple but if you decide to recycle MSExchangeAutodiscoverAppPool, you need to go to Application Pools container in the IIS console. Right-click MSExchangeAutodiscoverAppPool and select Recycle. You will not expect any messages confirming your action but the application pool will get recycled. If you have any doubts whether the recycling of the application pool took place then you can restart IIS instead, which will also accomplish the same thing.

TechRepublic’s blog has a nice posting by author Rick Vanover called 10 cool things you can do with Windows PowerShell. The article lists the following cool things to do with Windows PowerShell.

#1: Report all of the USB devices installed
#2: Perform your favorite CMD tasks in PowerShell
#3: Kill a process in PowerShell instead of Task Manager
#4: Use PSDrive to view more than just drives
#5: Export NTFS folder permissions — recursive or not
#6: Play with PowerShell 2.0
#7: Work from the keyboard in Graphical PowerShell
#8: Background a time-consuming task
#9: Insert timestamps into PowerShell outputs
#10: Stop and smell the roses

Check out this link for more details on how you can benefit from these cool tips. Considering the fact that Windows PowerShell is now a core part of Exchange 2007, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008, you will find these tips handy while you work with Windows PowerShell.

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 supports both American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and UNICODE personal folders (.pst) and offline folder (.ost) files. You can use the following four registry entries to limit the size of both the .pst and the .ost files:

• The MaxFileSize registry entry
• The WarnFileSize registry entry
• The MaxLargeFileSize registry entry
• The WarnLargeFileSize registry entry

Note The WarnLargeFileSize and WarnFileSize registry entries do not enable Outlook to warn you before the file size limit is reached.

Thew default values for these entires are:

MaxLargeFileSize = 20 GB

WarnLargeFileSize = 19 GB

MaxFileSize = 1.933 GB

WarnFileSize = 1.816 GB

The policy location for the registry entries is located in the following path in Registry Editor.

Outlook 2007

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\PST

The user preference location for the registry entries is located in the following path in Registry Editor:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\PST

Outlook 2003

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\PST

The user preference location for the registry entries is located in the following path in Registry Editor:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\PST

Check out Microsoft’s KB article 832925 for more details on this topic.

Check out these MSDN Virtual Labs and TechNet Virtual Labs if you haven’t already. These are a series of guided, hands-on labs which can be completed in 90 minutes or less. The best part is these labs don’t require any installation and are available to you immediately for FREE. Here are the topics that are currently available to you.

MSDN Virtual Labs

ASP.NET 2.0
ASP.NET
BizTalk Server
Commerce Server
Fritz Onion’s Intro to ASP.NET
Internet Information Services (IIS)
JPlusN (J+N)
Microsoft Expression
.NET Framework 3.0
Soup to Nuts
Visual Studio
Visual Studio 2008
Visual Studio Team System
Visual C#
Visual J#
Visual Basic
Visual C++
Connected Systems
Data Access and Storage
Office
Security
Smart Client
SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2005 Upgrade
Visual SourceSafe
Web Services
Windows Embedded CE 6.0
Windows Live
Windows Mobile
Windows Vista
Windows XP Embedded
TechNet Virtual Labs

TechNet Virtual Labs

Antigen
BizTalk Server
Configuration Manager
Enterprise Search
Exchange Server
Forefront Security
Groove Server
Identity Integration Server (MIIS)
Internet Information Services (IIS)
Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server
Office Communications Server
Office System
Operations Manager
SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2000
SharePoint Server
Systems Management Server (SMS)
Windows Mobile
Windows Rights Management Services (RMS)
Windows Server 2003 R2
Windows Server 2008
Windows SharePoint Services
Windows Small Business Server
Windows Vista

To configure Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) in Exchange Server 2007 you need to take several steps on the server as well as the client. This article details steps that are required to configure POP3 service.

Server-Side Configuration
The POP3 service is not started by default in Exchange Server 2007. You need to first configure the POP3 service and make sure that the user is allowed to use POP3 service.

1. Configure POP3 Service
You can use the Services snap-in (services.msc) or the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) to set POP3 service to start automatically. If you are using the EMS then you can run the following two commands to set the service to start automatically and then start the service.
Set-service msExchangePOP3 -startuptype automatic
Start-service -service msExchangePOP3

2. Enable POP3 Access
You configure POP3 on your server by using the Exchange Management Console (EMC).
a) Expand Server Configuration in EMC and then click Client Access.
b) In the work pane on the right-hand side, click the POP3 and IMAP4 tab. If you don’t have this tab then you have not installed Exchange Server 2007 SP1.
c) Double-click POP3 and then configure the options.
d) Click Apply and then click OK.
e) Restart the POP3 service after you make any changes to the configuration.

You can enable or disable POP3 access for individual users by using the Exchange Management Console (EMC), as described below.
a) Expand Recipient Configuration in EMC and then click Mailbox.
b) In the work pane on the right-hand side, double-click the user and click the Mailbox Features tab.
c) Click POP3 and then click Enable.
d) Click Apply and then click OK.
e) Restart the POP3 service after you make any changes to the configuration.

If you want to use EMS, then use the following command to enable the user. Make sure you are using the command in EMS and not at the Command Prompt.
Set-CASMailbox -Identity CAS01 -PopEnabled $true

You can get more information about the Set-CASMailbox cmdlet here. The Set-CASMailbox cmdlet sets client access-related attributes for Exchange ActiveSync, Outlook Web Access, POP3, and IMAP4 for a specified user.

For example, to enable POP3 for user billg@microsoft.com use the following command in EMS:
Set-CASMailbox -identity BillG@microsoft.com -POPEnabled:$true

If you want to enable the change password user interface and also enable POP3, use the following command in EMS for user BillG@microsoft.com:
Set-CASMailbox -identity BillG@microsoft -OWATasksEnabled:$true -POPEnabled:$true

To see all the users that have POP3 enabled use the following command in EMS:
Get-CASMailbox | Select Name,PopEnabled

In addition to the changes mentioned above, you also need to make sure that your Exchange Server is configured for proper authentication. The default selection is SecureLogin, which is the most secure option and it’s best not to change that option. The two additional options are PlainTextLogin and PlainTextAuthentication. TO chagne the default selection, use the set-popsettings –logintype followed by the option you want. For example, to change the default setting of SecureLogin to PlainTextLogin use the following command.

set-popsettings –logintype PlainTextLogin

The PlainTextLogin option allows passwords to be transmitted over the network in plain text and allows connection to the standard (non TLS) port used for POP3, which is 110.

The PlainTextAuthentication options also allows connection to the standard port but it also requires the use of secured passwords. This is configured on the client by selecting the option Secure Password Authentication.

NOTE: Restart the POP3 service after you make any changes to the configuration.

Client-Side Configuration
If you are using SecureLogin, which is the default option, then the server requires secure SSL/TLS connections. For POP3, when using SSL use port 995 for inbound connections and 587 for the outbound connections. In EMC, go to Server Configuration, Hub Transport and double-click the ClientServerName in the work pane on the Receive Connectors tab. Click on the Network tab and you will notice that the port listed is 587. Yes, that’s not a typo.

Rather than using the default port 25 for SMTP communications used between servers, Exchange 2007 uses port 587 which is the standard port for SMTP mail received from the clients . If you double-click the DefaultServerName, you will notice that port listed is 25. I am pointing this out because if you are using Outlook Express 6 or earlier as a client, it can only negotiate explicit TLS over port 25 and therefore you can’t use port 587. A simple solution in that case is to take advantage of the Default receive connector which uses SMTP port 25. In other words, use the following ports when you configure the e-mail clients.

Outlook Express 6 or Earlier

Incoming Mail (POP3): Port 995
Outgoing Mail (SMTP): Port 25

All Other Clients

Incoming Mail (POP3): Port 995
Outgoing Mail (SMTP): Port 587

By the way, everything in this article also applies to IMAP4. The only exception is that when you use SSL, IMAP uses port 993 for incoming mail, instead of 995.