Windows server email issue

Question

I am not very good with Windows stuff, spend most of my life with Cisco routers, I have situation where i am the only one implementing Active Directory on small network of 20 computers. The staff use Outlook on those computers Mac and PC. Some of the systems are share. I need to configure and email client outlook express so when a user login onto a machine regardless of which machine with the login the system should load its outlook settings, emails etc. And the email should not store on local pc but store on server it self for each email ID. Keep in mind i don't have any Exchange server implement and we are currently using POP3 to get email from web server in data center. Please advise if you know the way to do this.

Answer 1

What are you using for email now if Exchange isn't already deployed?

You can use Exchange which will, while it pains me, integrate much nicer with AD than most other solutions. If you're setting everything up from scratch you can get SBS with Exchange and AD functionality and work with that.

From there, you can either get the licensing for Outlook's full client (and use the Exchange protocol) or configure Exchange to use IMAP protocol and you can use just about any mail program you want (Thunderbird, for example). IMAP and Exchange protocols both keep messages on the server. Use both if you have users that want to use Outlook and other that use their own program of choice; personally I find Outlook quite bloated if you're just doing email (since it has scheduling, email, notes, etc. etc. built in. It's like the EMACS of mail programs...)

Configure roaming profiles in your active directory setup for the user accounts so their workstations cache the mail folders along with desktop settings and application settings. If you run into troubles with space issues and/or backup policies, experiment with settings for folder redirection for sub-trees of the profile. Keep in mind Outlook (and other Office applications) do NOT like working over a network, though, so don't redirect .pst files unless you like corrupted files.

Answer 2

Outlook Express isnt going to do what you want. You would need the full version of Outlook to do this. Reason being is that outlook express is 1. OE wont store data over the network and 2. Its discontinued so support for its going to be minimal at best.

Answer 3

I need to configure and email client outlook express so when a user login onto a machine regardless of which machine with the login the system should load its outlook settings, emails etc.

This sounds like a typical use case for a roaming profile.

This would allow users to login using their Active Directory Credentials, and the client would copy down their profile, say from a network share. When the user logs off, their profile is copied back.

This usually works well enough for almost all applications that store data and settings as part of a user's profile. Outlook Express most likely stores all of the offline mail and user settings in profile.

If all you are trying to do is solve the problem of having access to email everywhere, I might suggest going with an IMAP solution instead. If your mail is hosted, most email providers these days offer IMAP as a solution.

Answer 4

Agreed with Ernie, although this isn't the best setup, the more simplistic and manageable solution would be to install SBS (that has built-in Exchange) and then purchase CAL licenses for full Outlook client.

As for short term solution, you need to use a registry log-on script to provide automatic settings of Outlook Express - here is the details you need - http://www.iopus.com/guides/oe-backup.htm

(PS - as one of the other post says, roaming profiles would do the trick too)

Reply to comment

A common setup is to have a hosted mail server and also have the emails received by the local Exchange server. This way you have a fail-over to an extent, and if need to, then users can access via online portal (your current hosted mail server).

If you have a Hosted Exchange solution, you can nicely integrate it directly using Outlook without the need of local Exchange server. But saying that, you just mentioned its a hosted mail server so ideally at a minimum SBS 2008 would be good.

The Outlook profile is pretty straightforward once the autodiscovery is setup correctly. The most the user need to do is click 'Next, Next, Finish' (Outlook 2007/2010).

Unfortunately installation of SBS and configuration of Exchange is out of the scope here. There are plenty of 'how-to' guides, but seriously if i was a solid networking guy (like my colleague here).... I'd get some additional help.