Greetings! Welcome to issue #4 of Exchange Center Update, an occasional newsletter about Microsoft Exchange, both for users of Windows 95 (and soon NT 4.0!) and for organizations using Exchange Server.
Today's highlights:
Regular features:
FLASH! Schedule+ Address Book Assistant
This is one you've been waiting for! It's a tool to copy address details from the Exchange Personal Address Book to the Schedule+ Contacts List, without the hassle of using Word to create a comma-separated list. Click here to get the Schedule+ Address Book Assistant.
Download Schedaba.exe, then copy it to an empty folder and run it with the -d switch to extract the setup files into subfolders. Switch to the \W95Setup folder and run the Schedaba.exe program you find there. That will install the assistant.
Here's how to use it: Start Schedule+. Now choose File, Import, From Address Book. You'll see the addresses in a dialog box, where you can select any or all to copy to Schedule+.
This is just one of a growing group of interesting programs developed for Exchange and available for free download at the Microsoft Exchange Applications Farm.
ThunderBYTE & VirusEx virus scanners
Two virus checking programs for Exchange attachments are now in beta. From netApps (http://www.netapps.com/virus/home.html ) comes ThunderBYTE, available for evaluation download. Glueck & Kanja GmbH (http://www.glueckkanja.de) are developing VirusEx, which will be available in both German and English versions.
On Monday, August 5, engineers from the Microsoft Exchange team will again be available on the Microsoft Network for a moderated chat.
The next chat will take place 5-6 p.m. PDT. The GO word is MSCHAT_SD. This is a great opportunity to get answers to your burning Exchange Server questions.
If you've looked at my Windows Messaging FAQ, you've seen references to MAPISVC.INF.
This file contains the settings for the Exchange services installed on your machine and governs what you see when you try to add a new services. Learning to read it can tell you a lot about Exchange components. Here's a little primer:
Start with the first section. Under [Services], you'll see all the information services installed on your system:
[Services]
MSPST MS=Personal Folders
MSPST AB=Personal Address Book
MSEMS=Microsoft Exchange Server
(and lots more -- even Bob!)
Now pick one of those names on the left, e.g. MSEMS for Exchange Server. Look for a section that uses MSEMS as it's title. That's where you'll find the rest of the components for that service. This is part of what you'll see:
[MSEMS]
PR_DISPLAY_NAME=Microsoft Exchange Server
Providers=EMS_DSA, EMS_MDB_public, EMS_MDB_private, EMS_RXP, EMS_MSX,
EMS_Hook
Sections=MSEMS_MSMail_Section
PR_SERVICE_DLL_NAME=emsui.dll
PR_SERVICE_SUPPORT_FILES=emsui.dll,emsabp.dll,emsmdb.dll
PR_SERVICE_ENTRY_NAME=EMSCfg
PR_RESOURCE_FLAGS=SERVICE_SINGLE_COPY
WIZARD_ENTRY_NAME=EMSWizardEntry
If you look closely, under PR_SERVICE_DLL_NAME and PR_SERVICE_SUPPORT_FILES are the .DLLs used for the Exchange Server service -- emsui.dll, emsabp.dll and emsmdb.dll. Only those aren't their real names. If you search for emsui*.dll, you'll find that it's really emsui32.dll.
HINT: If any of the .DLLs listed in MAPISVC.INF is missing, then you're going to have a hard time getting the service to work.
Here's a contribution from John "Stingray" Cannata, who first posted this on one of the Microsoft newsgroups. You may have noticed that the WordMail toolbar can't be edited. So, he worked up these instructions for bending the other toolbars to your will, within your WordMail e-mail templates:
WordMail will not allow you to modify its toolbars. Nor will it let you create toolbars... but Word will. The trick is to create an e-mail template using Word (open Word directly -- don't open it through Exchange). [Use one of the templates included with WordMail as your starting point, so you get all the WordMail macros and hotkeys. -- SM] Within that template, create your custom toolbars.
Save the template and exit Word. From Exchange, select that template as your WordMail default template. Open an existing message. While viewing the message, set your "read" toolbar. Close the window.
Compose a new message. While composing, select your "compose" toolbar. Close the window. From then on, whenever you read mail your "read" toolbar is displayed. Whenever you compose mail your "compose" toolbar is displayed.
I'll post the step-by-step description on my web site. And hats off to Stingray for his effort.
Mystery of the missing MSN address list
A couple of months ago, a radical change came over the Microsoft Network address list. Suddenly, the only person on it was the Postmaster. Here's what said Postmaster had to say about the change:
“Recently MSN underwent a change with the current appearance of the MSN Address Book. This will be the new design for the MSN Address Book. The main reason for this change is to prevent people from `mining' through the address book for member names in order to promote their unsolicited e-mail. Another reason for the change is to eliminate the first page full of junk characters.
“You can still search for MSN addresses by going into address book and click on Tools and then Find. You can then enter search criteria to locate the specific MSN address(s) you are looking for. Make sure you make your search as specific as possible, because a limited search criteria may result in finding too many matches and address book will not be able display your search results.”
British spelling for Windows 95
In the original Windows 95 operating system version of Exchange, there was no way to enable the British spelling dictionary on English-language installations.
However, Windows Messaging solves this problem! It allows you to enable the British Spelling dictionary (assuming you have Microsoft Word or Works installed), following the same instructions as the Microsoft Knowledgebase gives for the full Exchange Server client. Those instructions can be found in MSKB article Q148488.
(By the way, lots of people are now finding that Windows Messaging really is faster. Sounds like it's catching on.)
Rate the restaurants at the Exchange Trial Server
If you have an account on the Exchange trial server at http://www.ms-exchange.com (no longer available as of 9/97), then you can have a little fun with public folders. Look under the Add Your Own Public Folders folder for the Restaurant Reviews subfolder.
This folder uses the Culinary Corner application from the Microsoft Exchange Applications Farm. Read any existing review there, and a special form will be downloaded to your machine. Then, you can post your own reviews or critique the ones you find in the folder. If you haven't tried forms and public folders yet, this is a good way to get acquainted with those Exchange Server features.
Why not add Restaurant Reviews to your Favorites folder and keep it synchronized? Given how far this newsletter travels (I don't think we have any subscribers in Antarctica ... yet, but that's the only continent not represented.), you could wind up with an eating-out guide useful around the world.
More great fodder for the Exchange Center Wish List. I'm still compiling these for the web site, so keep 'em coming. The latest and greatest ideas:
Three FAQs are available at my Exchange Center site, dealing with three different clients:
The Windows Messaging and Exchange Server client FAQs deal with basic installation, configuration and bug issues. For the nitty-gritty on how different services like Microsoft Fax, CompuServe Mail, etc. work within Exchange/Windows Messaging, you need the big Windows 95 client FAQ. Most of it is applicable to the Windows Messaging client and the Exchange Server client running under Windows 95 (and even in many cases to the Windows NT 4.0 client).
Since the big FAQ is a Windows Help file, you can easily search it. Exchange Center Update reader Willem Bison decided that it belonged in Exchange itself. He found that, by creating a shortcut to Exchfaq.hlp and dragging it into Exchange, he could have the FAQ available directly from within Exchange. (Make sure you use a shortcut, and not the .hlp file itself.) Thanks for the tip, Willem!
Other FAQs of note:
ISSN 1523-7990
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