Entourage, Removing Attachments and synchronizing with Exchange

[Lennert Dorman]

In our office we are using an Exchange Server 2003, SP2 as our
Mailserver and Entourage 11.2.1 as our mail client. When we delete an
attachment from a message in Entourage it doesn't remove that same
attachment from the Exchange Server. For our users
that's an essential tool in managing the size of their inbox. On
http://www.its.uiowa.edu/cs/exchange/entourageissues.html I found a
description of the same problem:

"Microsoft states that: Entourage was not designed to provide support
for attachment removal from Exchange based account as it just mirrors
what you have in your mailbox on Exchange server. It caches all data in
local Entourage database so when you go and remove an attachment from a

message in one of your folders inside mailbox on Exchange Server, it
simply removes that attachment from locally cached copy of that
message. The attachment remains intact in the original message in
mailbox on Exchange server as Entourage does not sync that change
(attachment removal) back to server."

Does anybody else have this problem and/or has anybody heard anything
from Microsoft when this will be fixed? For me synchronization means a
100% synchronization. Not syncing back to the server when you delete an
attachment doesn't make sense to me.

Lennert Dorman

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

In our office we are using an Exchange Server 2003, SP2 as our
Mailserver and Entourage 11.2.1 as our mail client. When we delete an
attachment from a message in Entourage it doesn't remove that same
attachment from the Exchange Server. For our users
that's an essential tool in managing the size of their inbox. On
http://www.its.uiowa.edu/cs/exchange/entourageissues.html I found a
description of the same problem:

"Microsoft states that: Entourage was not designed to provide support
for attachment removal from Exchange based account as it just mirrors
what you have in your mailbox on Exchange server. It caches all data in
local Entourage database so when you go and remove an attachment from a

message in one of your folders inside mailbox on Exchange Server, it
simply removes that attachment from locally cached copy of that
message. The attachment remains intact in the original message in
mailbox on Exchange server as Entourage does not sync that change
(attachment removal) back to server."

Does anybody else have this problem and/or has anybody heard anything
from Microsoft when this will be fixed? For me synchronization means a
100% synchronization. Not syncing back to the server when you delete an
attachment doesn't make sense to me.

Lennert Dorman

This is correct - when you 'remove attachments' it only removes the
attachment from the local cache - entourage has no way to edit the message
on the server.

One work-round would be to remove the attachment locally, then copy that
edited message to another folder on the exchange server, then delete the
original.

Not sure that it is something the MacBU can fix - I suspect it needs input
from the exchange team.

 

[Lennert Dorman]

Still having a hard time understanding why Entourage has no way to edit
the message. Is that because Entourage is an HTTP client with a
different GUI on top?

And as far as I can remember we only had this problem after SP2 for
Office 2004 was released. But that might be a lapse of memory on my
side. Still having a hard time explaining this to my users. They first
need to move the message to their local folder. Do their thing with the
attachment and then move it back. It's just not a clean solution and I
can't imagine that's the way it was intended to work.

Lennert

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

Still having a hard time understanding why Entourage has no way to edit
the message.

It can, as explained previously, and as you declare later in your message.

Is that because Entourage is an HTTP client with a
different GUI on top?

No. Entourage is far more than an HTTP client. If I am not mistaken it does
use HTTP for Hotmail accounts, but if so, they are the only ones.

And as far as I can remember we only had this problem after SP2 for
Office 2004 was released. But that might be a lapse of memory on my
side.

There was no change in this functionality at that time.

Still having a hard time explaining this to my users. They first
need to move the message to their local folder. Do their thing with the
attachment and then move it back.

That's the way to do it.

It's just not a clean solution and I
can't imagine that's the way it was intended to work.

Well, that is the way it works, and was designed to work. Exchange accounts
_are_ server based acocunts, but editing any sort of a file over a network
connection is not always the best thing to do. There are arguments that
would prevent you form doing any sort of editing to a received message (and
some clients do not have any way of editing received messages).

Unfortunately (for you), that's the way things are, and you just need to use
the work-round you are already aware of.