Outlook 2003 Uses Incorrect Addressing When Forwarding

[E. L. Wimett]

Since moving to Office 2003 and specifically Outlook 2003 last week to test
it before deploying widely at our museum, I have discovered a problem with
forwarding messages received from the internet. This is enough of a problem
that it will be a show-stopper for wider deployment unless I can find a fix
or a workaround.

We are currently a single Exchange 5.5 server shop. The internet mail
connector is not active on the server and the few folks with internet mail
access are set up a corporate users with Exchange Server as primary and the
internet mail account separately specified. (Yes, I know that Microsoft has
had some issues with that in the past, but it has worked solidly for five
years and for hardware reasons we are not planning to activate the internet
mail connector until we can upgrade and go to Exchange 2000 later this
year.)

If I send a regular message to someone on the Exchange Server global address
book, there is no problem. It goes directly to their mailbox.

If I forward an internal message to someone on the Exchange Server global
address book, there is no problem. It goes directly to their mailbox.

However, if I forward a message received from the internet, Outlook 2003
uses my internet return address and tries to send the message as an external
SMTP message to the internet rather than to the Exchange Server, even if I
have carefully used the global address book drop down to address it. In
other words, it uses the dummy SMTP address created by Exchange Server and
throws it outside the firewall, where it of course bounces back as an
unresolvable address. This behavior occurs whether the local server address
is a cc or bcc or one of a series of to addresses or the only to address.

This is definitely an issue with Outlook 2003 rather than the Exchange
Server since when I go to another machine on which my identical profile
resides and open the same Exchange message store with the version of Outlook
that ships with Office XP and perform the same send on the same message to
the same recipient, this does NOT happen.

Can anyone help on this? Obviously, we do not want local mail having to go
out to the internet for delivery even if the mail connector was active!!!

E. L. Wimett
Director of Information Systems
Patriots Point Development Authority

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

If I understand the problem correctly, Outlook 2003 is trying to send the
message on the internet account, to people on the Exchange server. This is
expected, since outlook uses the account the message arrived on. You'll need
to select the Exchange account from the account dropdown.


--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)


Search for answers: http://groups.google.com
Most recent posts to the Outlook newsgroups:
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_ugroup=microsoft.public.outlook.*&num=30

 

[Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]]

Note that there was a change in Outlook 2003 that is causing this to happen.

In Outlook 2002, forwarding a message received from an Internet account to
an Exchange address would still have first tried to send the forward through
the Internet account. However, the Internet account would have seen the
Exchange address and said "I can't deliver to that type of address" and
passed the forward along to the Exchange account. We received numerous
complaints about this, though - people were complaining that even when they
told Outlook explicitly to send through their Internet account, an Exchange
address was delivered through the Exchange account.

In Outlook 2003, the Internet account now opens the address book entry for
an Exchange (or any other non-SMTP) recipient and tries to find an SMTP
address for the recipient in the entry. If it does, it will send to that
address. Thus, forwarding a message received from the Internet to an
Exchange recipient will go through the Internet unless you explicitly change
the account to be used as Diane says.

Another option for your case would be to remove the SMTP addresses from the
entries in your GAL, as they are useless unless you have the Internet
connector installed. That would prevent Outlook from finding an SMTP
address for an Exchange recipient.

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

If I understand the problem correctly, Outlook 2003 is trying to send the
message on the internet account, to people on the Exchange server. This is
expected, since outlook uses the account the message arrived on. You'll need
to select the Exchange account from the account dropdown.


--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)


Search for answers: http://groups.google.com
Most recent posts to the Outlook newsgroups:
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_ugroup=microsoft.public.outlook.*&num=30

Since moving to Office 2003 and specifically Outlook 2003 last week to
test
it before deploying widely at our museum, I have discovered a problem with
forwarding messages received from the internet. This is enough of a
problem
that it will be a show-stopper for wider deployment unless I can find a
fix
or a workaround.

We are currently a single Exchange 5.5 server shop. The internet mail
connector is not active on the server and the few folks with internet mail
access are set up a corporate users with Exchange Server as primary and
the
internet mail account separately specified. (Yes, I know that Microsoft
has
had some issues with that in the past, but it has worked solidly for five
years and for hardware reasons we are not planning to activate the
internet
mail connector until we can upgrade and go to Exchange 2000 later this
year.)

If I send a regular message to someone on the Exchange Server global
address
book, there is no problem. It goes directly to their mailbox.

If I forward an internal message to someone on the Exchange Server global
address book, there is no problem. It goes directly to their mailbox.

However, if I forward a message received from the internet, Outlook 2003
uses my internet return address and tries to send the message as an
external
SMTP message to the internet rather than to the Exchange Server, even if I
have carefully used the global address book drop down to address it. In
other words, it uses the dummy SMTP address created by Exchange Server and
throws it outside the firewall, where it of course bounces back as an
unresolvable address. This behavior occurs whether the local server
address
is a cc or bcc or one of a series of to addresses or the only to address.

This is definitely an issue with Outlook 2003 rather than the Exchange
Server since when I go to another machine on which my identical profile
resides and open the same Exchange message store with the version of
Outlook
that ships with Office XP and perform the same send on the same message to
the same recipient, this does NOT happen.

Can anyone help on this? Obviously, we do not want local mail having to
go
out to the internet for delivery even if the mail connector was active!!!

E. L. Wimett
Director of Information Systems
Patriots Point Development Authority

 

[E. L. Wimett]

Thank you.

In the heat of a week installing two new servers, resuscitating the Exchange
Server after a blow-up during an upgrade to Windows 2000 SP4 and upgrading
the last five Windows 95 workstations while everyone was off for Christmas,
I missed the accounts button and was puzzled by the difference in defaults.

This certainly resolves the issue, but whether having to select an account
is going to be a viable option for our users is an issue for me. When
responding to an outside correspondent, I KNOW that nobody is going to want
to have to remember to manually change their email account address or to
send a separate message to cc folks inside the shop.

And, if I understand you correctly, this would happen even after IMS is
installed if the system detected the inbound address was SMTP formatted. . .

E. L. Wimett
Director of Information Systems
Patriots Point Development Authority

 

[Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]]

Yes, even after the IMS is installed replies and forwards to a message from
an Internet account will go through that Internet account - the difference
being that they'd now reach the recipients on the Exchange server. Once you
have the IMS in place, though, can't you just drop the Internet accounts and
route all mail through your Exchange server? That not only gets around the
problem, it gives you a single point for virus/spam control as well.

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Thank you.

In the heat of a week installing two new servers, resuscitating the Exchange
Server after a blow-up during an upgrade to Windows 2000 SP4 and upgrading
the last five Windows 95 workstations while everyone was off for Christmas,
I missed the accounts button and was puzzled by the difference in defaults.

This certainly resolves the issue, but whether having to select an account
is going to be a viable option for our users is an issue for me. When
responding to an outside correspondent, I KNOW that nobody is going to want
to have to remember to manually change their email account address or to
send a separate message to cc folks inside the shop.

And, if I understand you correctly, this would happen even after IMS is
installed if the system detected the inbound address was SMTP formatted. . ..

E. L. Wimett
Director of Information Systems
Patriots Point Development Authority