I am trying to provide a decent compilation of web pages that I have found useful, and which can be of great assistance when configuring and troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server. I expect this list to grow over time.   I am an MCSE (2003), MCSA:Messaging, MCSE (NT4), MCSA and MCP, with many years of experience of the Windows platform and Microsoft Exchange Server versions 5.5, 2000 and 2003. I have passed my MCP exams in Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, but because I work in the wonderful world of IT, I still need help from time to time.   I have found the linked articles very useful, and I've tried to give an explanation of the situations that caused me to find them where appropriate...  



Exchange Server 2003 Recipient Policies - Recipient policies are not the easiest thing in the world to understand. Luckily, whilst searching for something completely different (can't remember what, it was a long time ago), I found this wonderful page which explains as clearly as possible exactly how to configure your policies, and what the various variables are that you can take full advantage of. In my experience, it's a good thing to use variables in your recipient policies, before the @ symbol. This way, you even have the ability to send all mail for a specific SMTP address space to one individual.

Sharing an SMTP Address space - When a company has disparate offices, or you have just taken over a new company, you will often want to use the same SMTP address suffix, in separate e-mail organisations. This page and the articles referred to on it, explain in great detail how to configure an Exchange organisation to deal with shared address spaces.

Exchange and Anti-Virus - Here's one that caught me out... Anti-Virus software installed on the Exchange server. By default, it scans all files that are accessed, and when it finds a file with a virus in (fairly common in e-mail), it quarantines it. Unfortunately, when it quarantines a particular type of file, the whole Exchange organisation grinds to a halt. This page helped me out of the jam it caused me!!

Universal Distribution Groups - When first installing Exchange Server 2003 in our multi-domain forest, all looked good. So we rolled it out to the company, and settled back waiting for the praise... This time, pride came before a rather large fall. Apparently e-mails sent to one of our distribution groups were getting through some times, but other times just disappearing. There were no mails in the queues, no NDRs, the SMTP logs looked fine, what was happening?? After some extensive searching, I found this simple explanation. We had global distribution groups, but they should always be universal groups in a multi-domain forest. There I was, after a Microsoft training course, passing the Exchange Server 2003 exam (having passed the 5.5 exam a few years before), and never once coming across this useful bit of info. Oh well, we looked good when we told everybody that we'd found and fixed the problem...


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