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Exchange System Manager for Vista

We recently released a downloadable Exchange System Manager (ESM) for Exchange 2003 which can be installed on Vista machines. Part of what made this possible was the changes we did recently to allow Exchange's implementation of the MAPI client binaries to run on Vista.

Some interesting tidbits from the Release Notes:

Enjoy!

Published Monday, August 25, 2008 12:04 PM by Stephen Griffin

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# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

Hi,

Does this imply that the MAPI/CDO web download, apparently for Exchange 2007, is fully and officially supported for use with Exchange 2003 in other versions of Windows?

That is, there is no reason now to install the Exchange 2003 ESM and its updates on a (server) machine if all that is needed is MAPI/CDO?

Thanks.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 10:08 AM by JP

# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

I'm not aware that we've ever said the download isn't supported connecting to Exchange 2003. Of course, you can't install the download on an Exchange 2003 box - but that's simply because MAPI's already on the box. Do you have any references indicating the download shouldn't be used to connect to Exchange 2003?

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 10:43 AM by Stephen Griffin

# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

No, not a explicit "shouldn't".  But neither is there an explicit "should" ;)

For example, the MAPI/CDO web download page does not explicitly state that this version fully supports Exchange 2003 or earlier.

Every Exchange server comes with its own flavor of MAPI/CDO and the practice I am aware of has always been to match the versions of MAPI/CDO and Exchange.

There have been enough differences, such as the no public folder flag issue, and the vista change, where the Exchange version of MAPI/CDO did matter.

So, the question is, for functionality and MS support calls, is the web MAPI/CDO download equivalent to the latest Exchange 2003 MAPI/CDO version?

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:18 PM by JP

# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

The MAPI download is built out of an Exchange 2003 branch. So it *is* Exchange 2003's MAPI, with an installer wrapped around it.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 2:22 PM by Stephen Griffin

# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

I was able to trick the installer into installing the ESM along with Outlook.

<Steve here> I've excised the rest of this comment. It doesn't matter if you *can* force the ESM to install alongside Outlook. What matters is that if you do it, there *are* conflicts and there *will* be problems. I've debugged too many issues that turned out to be caused by this to condone helping people shoot themselves in the foot.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 1:59 PM by Mike

# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

I'd never heard of problems running ESM along with outlook on an XP box, and never had any myself, though some tasks with public folders didn't work that well.

Is there any work around for those of us using a Vista station to manage a 2003 Exchange system more directly than remote desktop?

Wednesday, October 08, 2008 10:07 AM by Bill Fry

# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

So you've never heard of problems - except the problems you actually experienced. Interesting. :)

We've never supported ESM on a machine with Outlook, so no, there are no Vista specific workarounds to offer.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008 10:35 AM by Stephen Griffin

# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

The issues we had were minor.  Nothing to indicate the "shoot yourself in the foot" kind of issues inferred above.  

As to my question, it was less of "how to make esm work with outlook", but more is there any alternative. Point being, many of us admins are reluctantly switching over to Vista, and losing access to things we use regularly from our desktops.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008 3:08 PM by Bill Fry

# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

You can put the ESM on another machine and remote to it, or put the ESM in a virtual machine and use the VM to manage Exchange.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008 3:24 PM by Stephen Griffin

# re: Exchange System Manager for Vista

Will there be a version of this that can be installed on Windows 2008 server?  

I would like to be able to manage the Exchange 2003 that is running in a virtual machine without having to fire up the Hyper-V console every time.  

So I guess that would be Server 2008 x64 to be specific.

Saturday, November 15, 2008 7:47 AM by Mike D

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