Turning Off Forwarding in Microsoft Exchange

On a Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 system, to turn off forwarding of email from Microsoft Exchange 6.5 to an external email address, take the following steps:

1. Click on Start.
2. Select All Programs.
3. Select Administrative Tools.
4. Select Active Directory Users and Computers.
5. Under Users, right-click on the appropriate user account and select Properties.
6. Click on the Exchange Advanced tab.
7. Click on Delivery Options.
8. Under Forwarding Address, select None, instead of Forward to.
9. Click on OK.
10. Click on OK to close the Properties window.

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Configuring Microsoft Exchange to Use a Smart Host

If a Microsoft Exchange server doesn't have a PTR record, other email servers may reject email from the Exchange server when they are unable to perform a reverse lookup on the IP address for the Exchange server. A workaround for this problem is to use a "smart host" to route outgoing email from the Exchange server.

[ More Info ]

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Store.Exe Consuming Excessive Memory

On a Microsoft Exchange 2003 server, I've found Task Manager reporting high memory utilization. When I sort the running processes by memory utilization in the Task Manager (click on the Performance tab then click on the Processes column header to sort them), I see store.exe consuming over 500 MB. This is happening at the moment on a Sunday evening when few of the systems in the domain even have Outlook open to check email. The CPU utilization is low, less than 10% at the moment when I am seeing the 500 MB memory usage.

I've been seeing memory utilization jumping up to high values a lot lately. Rebooting the system resolves the problem, but I don't want to be rebooting the Exchange server every day. I can also reduce the memory utilization by selecting Run and typing services.msc to bring up the services list, I can then right-click on Microsoft Exchange Information Store and stop the service and then restart it. I then see store.exe using about 20 MB of memory when I check its utilization with the Windows Task Manager

The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service manages the Microsoft Exchange Information Store, which includes mailbox stores and public folder stores. If the service is stopped, mailbox stores and public folder stores on the computer become unavailable, so it needs to be restarted immediately after stopping it.

References:

1. Store.exe High Memory Utilization
   August 10, 2005
   Tech Support, Manuals & Troubleshooting for Consumers
2. Memory leak in Store.exe - pub1.edb GIGANTIC
   Server Watch Forums

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Viewing Exchange Logs in Excel

The email log files for a Microsoft Exchange server can be analyzed with Microsoft Excel. Exchange stores the log entries in a text file, which can be imported in Excel for analysis.

[ More Info ]

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Determining Version of Microsoft Exchange

To determine what version of Microsoft Exchange is running on a system, you can take the following steps:

1. Click on Start.
2. Select All Programs.
3. Select Microsoft Exchange.
4. Select System Manager. Note: the System Manager is applicable if you have Exchange Server 2000 and later. For Exchange Server 5.5 and earlier, you will need to run Exchange Administrator.
5. Click Servers. You will then see the version displayed. For Exchange Server 2000, the version is 6.0; for Exchange Server 2003, the version is 6.5.

You can also determine the version number, by going to C:\Program Files\Exchsrver\bin, right-clicking on store.exe, selecting Properties, and clicking on the Version tab.

Clicking on Product version will show the version of the Exchange software. In the case shown above, the file version is listed as 6.5.7651.61 while the product version is 6.5. The digits after the 6.5 in the file version don't necessarily match the build version displayed using the first method.

Note: the version number you see using the above methods may not necessarily be the same version number you would see displayed if you telnet to port 25 on the Exchange server. E.g. the above method of determining the version of Exchange running on a system shows it to be 6.5 (Build 7638.2: Service Pack 2), but if I telnet to port 25 on that same Exchange server, I see the following:

220 example.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.3959 ready at
Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:07:30 -0500

I.e. the "ESMTP MAIL Service" version is not the same as the version number for the Exchange server software on the system, so you can't infer that the version number you see displayed when you connect to port 25 on the system is the Exchange server version number.

References:

1. How to tell which software version your computer is using
   Published: June 18, 2004
   Microsoft Corporation

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Forwarding Email to Another Exchange User

For an Exchange 2003 server, If you need to forward email to another Exchange user when an employee leaves, take the following steps.

1. Go to Active Directory Users and Computers.
2. Select the account for the user who left and right click on it.
3. Select Properites.
4. Under the Exchange General tab, click on the Delivery Options button.
5. Click on the Modify button at the Delivery Options window that opens.
6. In the "Enter object name to select" field, type the account name of the user to whom email should be forwarded, e.g. jsmith.
7. Click on the Check names button to verify the account name and then click on OK when it has been verified.
8. Click on OK again to close the Delivery Options window.
9. Click on OK to close the Properties window.

If you need to forward email to an external address instead of an internal Exchange address, see Forwarding an Exchange User's Email to an External Address.

References:

1. Forwarding an Exchange User's Email to an External Address
   November 5, 2006
   MoonPoint Support
2. Redirect mail from old staff and reply to senders with new instructions
   November 11, 2005
   TechRepublic

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Troubleshooting With the Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant

Microsoft provides the Microsoft Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant v1.1 to aid in troubleshooting problems with Microsoft Exchange Servers. I installed and ran the tool today to try to figure out why messages sometimes get stuck in SMTP queues on an Exchange 2003 server running on a Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 system.

[ More Info ]

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Email Stuck in Exchange SMTP Queues

When a user complained that her email was not reaching a mailing list, I checked the Exchange server that handles her email and found messages stuck in SMTP queues on the server. I was able to force Exchange to send the queued messages, but several messages had been stuck in a queue for days with one in a queue for six days.

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Enabling Microsoft Exchange Message Logging

A Microsoft Exchange user reported to me that email she sent from Outlook was not reaching recipients, but Outlook was putting it in the Sent folder indicating it had been successfully sent from Outlook.

I found that message tracking was not enabled on the Exchange server, so I needed to turn it on to try to figure out what was happening.

[ More Info ]

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Configuring Exchange to Check a POP3 Account

If you need to configure Microsoft Exchange on a Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 system to pull email from a user's POP3 account to her Exchange account, you can take the following steps:

1. Click on Start.


2. Select All Programs.


3. Select Microsoft Exchange.


4. Select System Manager.


5. Click on the "+" to the left of Connectors to expand the list of connectors.


6. Right-click on POP3 Connector Manager and select Properties.





7. Click on the Add button.


8. Complete the fields in the POP3 Mailbox window.

   

   .

   E-mail server	The address of the POP3 email server, e.g. example.com
   Port	Most POP3 servers listen on TCP port 110, so in most cases you would have no need to change the default value of 110
   User name	The user name on the POP3 server.
   Password	The password of the user account on the POP3 server.
   Confirm Password	The password of the user account on the POP3 server.
   Log on using Secure Password Authentication	Specifies whether to log on using encrypted authentication credentials each time the Microsoft Connector for POP3 Mailboxes downloads POP3 e-mail. Some ISPs require that you use Secure Password Authentication (SPA). It is recommended that you select this option if your ISP supports it but does not require you use it.
   Mailbox type	For a mailbox that holds an individual's email, the mailbox type should be "User Mailbox"
   Exchange mailbox	The user's exhange mailbox

9. Click on OK.


10. Click on the Schduling tab.



11. The default check interval is once per hour. You can make that more frequent, e.g. 0 hours and 15 minutes to check every 15 minutes, which is the most frequent interval allowed.


12. Click on OK again to close the POP3 Connector Manager Properties window.


13. Click on File then Exit to exit the System Manager window.

References:

1. Connecting Microsoft Exchange Server to a POP3 Account
   Updated: September 6, 2006
   Slipstick Systems
2. Microsoft Exchange Connector for POP3 Mailboxes
   For Small Business Server 4.5
   Updated: May 1, 2001
   Microsoft Corporation

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