Macintosh and Exchange: maybe no longer the horror it has been

If you've ever worked with us you know we want to deal with the Macintosh about as much as we want to spend our vacation at Chernobyl where we consider the radioactive waste level lower.

However, anecdotal evidence from some of our calendar buddies (Hi, Vince!) has given us indication of light at the end of the tunnel. Herewith is what we learned:

• If you want to use Apple mail, you should upgrade to OS X 10.6. Earlier versions were not all that good in terms of calendaring and mail. 10.6 has MUCH better mail handling.
• If you want to stay with Entourage, adopt the mantra "patch Entourage to the max" (12.2.3) then install the EWS patch: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/itpros/entourage-ews.mspx
• Go to Exchange 2010 (NOT 2007). OWA is MUCH better for Macintosh users in Exchange 2010. http://www.macworld.com/article/140257/2009/04/exchange2010_mac.html
• Finally, check out this link to the Mac 2011 Road Show: https://microsoft.crgevents.com/OfficeMac2011/Content/Home.aspx

This gets us as giddy with excitement as is possible given that we want to suffocate the whole Macintosh platform in the first place.

There's a few other places migrating Exchange Admins should check out if your Windows-phobic execs conform to Jobsian non-conformity.

Exchange 2010: OWA has a good summary of Outlook Web Access via Safari on a Mac.

Entourage Mac for Exchange Servers: Tips and Reports has the most comprehensive list of Entourage / Exchange issues I've seen (and while there are a LOT of them most are for previous versions).

Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Update Rollup 7 due 3/24/09

Microsoft is scheduled to release Update Rollup 7 for Exchange 2007 SP1 today (3/24/09). Based on our review of what's fixed, if you have Entourage clients, expect to do a migration in the next month, or use calendaring, then you should apply this. We will apply this and let you k now if we find anything (if you find anything please post comments!)

Here are some of the calendar-related fixes in the update:

• OWA and Exchange Web Services (EWS) do not correctly display a monthly/yearly recurring meeting or appointment (KB# 960291)
• Customized properties of a recipient's calendar are removed (KB# 949464)
• Can't read calendar items when some IMAP4/POP3 clients (esp. mobile devices) connect to exchange (KB# 951341)
• Messages Queued for Submission performance counter increases when Domino meeting requests are delivered (KB# 953094)
• You do not receive an NDR after a meeting request was sent after a change to the recipient's LegacyDN (KB# 957124)

And for Entourage:

• The Info store may crash when Entourage client synchs (KB# 957947)
• Unexpected modified instances of recurring meeting (KB# 949113)
• Duplicate Calendar entries (KB# 949114)

Again, this is just a few of the fixes in the update. Read the full KB 960384

Russ

Entourage adds spice to recurring meetings in Exchange 2007

This has been the week to report about Entourage and its unusual calendar behavior. The day after our blog about Entourage seeing double, Microsoft released another KB article about Entourage and problems with calendaring. We are thrilled to share the spice of life that Entourage has added to our jobs. Brace yourself folks:

"Unexpected modified instances of a recurring meeting may appear when you use Entourage to access a calendar on a computer that is running Exchange Server 2007". This will happen after modifies one or more instances of a recurring meeting. Please see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949113. We have not come across this issue, so we don't know the version of Entourage......

Seeing double with Entourage and Exchange 2007

One of Sumatra's academic clients has a significant Mac user base. They use Entourage to access their Exchange 2007 calendars. The Mac users have reported that after a few days of use, they saw duplicate items in their calendar. We suspected Entourage (OWA or Outlook 2003 did not create dupes when accessing the same calendars), but we couldn't pinpoint the root cause of the duplicates.

Microsoft reported the duplicates are an Entourage problem. The problem occurs whenever users edit an appointment with a subject line that is identical to other calendar items. Come on... That has to be rare....you're more likely to find a four-leaf clover. Anyone have "Weekly Staff Meeting", "Lunch", "Vacation" on their calendars?

See the KB article: Duplicate calendar items may appear when you use Entourage to access a calendar on an Exchange 2007 server (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949114)

Note: They were using Entourage 10. The KB article didn't specify the version.

Yet another significant Entourage / Outlook discrepancy

If some of your users have Entourage clients and create recurring meeting requests (and if they're not creating recurring meeting requests what are they doing with an Exchange account anyway?), then please check out this recent KB article (number 933093):

You receive a message that states that your meeting request was declined when you use Entourage for Mac to send a recurring meeting request to an Exchange 2003 resource mailbox

Outlook and Entourage in Exchange 2007

Quick note on the difference between Entourage and Outlook in Exchange 2007 environments:

Outlook clients need to point to the CAS. See: The Exchange 2007 Client Access Server (CAS) role

Entourage clients need to point at the back end 2007 servers. See: Using Entourage with Exchange 2007