Outlook 2007 receives Emails as OPENED

[Brij Mohan]

Hi,

I am using Outlook 2007 at client end and the server is Microsoft Exchange
2007. Outlook receives the incoming mails as Unread but it suddenly changes
it to Read in a few minutes without opening those emails. This problem is
going on with only one user profile so I am sure that it would not be a
problem at mail server.

Please advise.

Thanks,
Brij Mohan

 

[Kathleen Orland]

Is the user using the preview pane? Is the mail set to be marked as read
after X seconds? That would be the problem.

 

[Brij Mohan]

The user is using the preview pane but since he has not opened the mail,
that should not be unread till that time. So, I would like to know how an
Email is set to be marked as read after X seconds in Outlook.

Thanks for your answering.

Sincerely,
Brij Mohan

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

The user is using the preview pane but since he has not opened the mail,
that should not be unread till that time. So, I would like to know how an
Email is set to be marked as read after X seconds in Outlook.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP052426951033.aspx

 

[Brij Mohan]

Hello guys,

I just figured out that email issue with my user where emails mysteriously
open is being caused by pop3 connection to his Blackberry device. When
device downloads emails they open the email on the exchange server. Tested
this multiple times all with same results. Can you find out if there is a
setting which will override this? Thx, Brij.

 

[VanguardLH]

I just figured out that email issue with my user where emails
mysteriously open is being caused by pop3 connection to his Blackberry
device. When device downloads emails they open the email on the exchange
server. Tested this multiple times all with same results. Can you find
out if there is a setting which will override this? Thx, Brij.

Is there an add-on installed into Outlook for the Blackberry? Or do the
Blackberry merely makes its own separate POP connection to the mail server?

For multiple e-mail clients to share the same mailbox, each must have the
option "leave message on server" enabled. The default behavior of POP is to
issue a RETR (retrieve) to get the message followed by a DELE (delete) to
cleanup the mailbox. "Leave message on server" eliminates the DELE command
so the message remains in the mailbox.

Whether an item is old or new is not tracked in a POP account. The new/old
status of a message is tracked in the e-mail client. So an e-mail client
that retrieves all "new" e-mails is retrieving e-mails that are not
currently in its UID (unique identifier) list (i.e., "new" is an e-mail
found on the server that hasn't yet been retrieved by that particular e-mail
client). A different e-mail client will still those messages as new that
were retrieved by some other e-mail client. E-mail clients don't magically
share their UID lists. What's new to an e-mail client is based solely on
what items are NOT in its own list of previously retrieved items. By
leaving messages on the server (no DELE command after the RETR), multiple
POP e-mail clients can retrieve the same messages whether or not they have
been also retrieved by other e-mail clients.

If you enable the "leave messages on server", well, they're left on the
server in your mailbox. Since you have a quota for how large your mailbox
can grow, you will need to periodically use the webmail interface to your
account to delete the old garbage out of your mailbox (which shows as the
Inbox folder in the webmail interface) to prevent consuming all the disk
quota for your account. If you don't do the manual cleanup, eventually your
mailbox fills up and further incoming e-mails will get rejected as there is
no longer any space to store them. Some e-mail clients, like Outlook, have
an option to "delete after N days from when retrieved". This helps to
cleanup your mailbox so its disk quota doesn't get all eaten up. Specify an
interval that is more than long enough to account for multiple e-mail
clients accessing the same mailbox, like 15 or 30 days. With "leave
messages on server", multiple e-mail clients polling the same mailbox can
retrieve the same e-mails (because the other e-mail clients didn't delete
those messages after retrieving them). With "delete N days after retrieve",
you have that long for all your e-mail clients to grab a copy of an e-mail
before one of those e-mail clients deletes it from the mailbox.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

There is no setting that controls this. When pop downloads mail, it will
always make the mail on the server as read.

If this is a serious problem for the user, you either need to move them to
BES or set up a second, BB only mailbox and configure the first mailbox to
copy everything to the second mailbox.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]

Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com/

Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
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Poll: What version of Outlook do you use?
http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=27072

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

There is no add-in for the BB - it's a straight pop connection. The BB has
its own POP client and it always leave mail on the server. (Which you'd
know if you ever used a BB against a POP acct.)

Depending on the provider, he may be able to connect to the mailbox using
owa. I don't think this marks the message read (although I never tried, as I
use BES. I'll set it up and test it next.)

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]

Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com/

Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
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Poll: What version of Outlook do you use?
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Is there an add-on installed into Outlook for the Blackberry? Or do the
Blackberry merely makes its own separate POP connection to the mail
server?

<snipped a ton of pointless dibble that has nothing to do with the problem>

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

In a quickie test, when the BB is set to access OWA, the messages are not
marked read just from downloading (they will still be marked read in the
mailbox when read on the BB, because they were *read*).
Instructions are at
http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB03133



--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]

Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com/

Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

Poll: What version of Outlook do you use?
http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=27072

There is no setting that controls this. When pop downloads mail, it will
always make the mail on the server as read.

If this is a serious problem for the user, you either need to move them to
BES or set up a second, BB only mailbox and configure the first mailbox to
copy everything to the second mailbox.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]

Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com/

Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

Poll: What version of Outlook do you use?
http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=27072

 

[VanguardLH]

There is no add-in for the BB - it's a straight pop connection. The BB has
its own POP client and it always leave mail on the server. (Which you'd
know if you ever used a BB against a POP acct.)

Which is why I posed those statements as questions.

Depending on the provider, he may be able to connect to the mailbox using
owa. I don't think this marks the message read (although I never tried, as I
use BES. I'll set it up and test it next.)

"When device downloads emails they open the email on the exchange server."
If the Blackberry only uses POP then the company must be using the POP
connector to their Exchange server. I'm not an Exchange or domain admin but
I do know that roaming profiles can be enabled in a domain. So I'm thinking
that using Outlook on one workstation to read e-mails will show that same
state when you move to another workstation. That is, on one workstation you
read an e-mail then you roam to another workstation and that e-mail read on
the first workstation will show as also read on the second workstation.

Yet there is nothing in POP that relays the status of an e-mail. New, old,
unread, and read are statuses tracked within an individual POP e-mail
client. The Blackberry is polling the Exchange server through its POP
connector. The Outlook client is probably going direct to Exchange. Since
the Blackberry somehow "opened" a new e-mail then I suppose that status gets
reflected in the Exchange mailbox which the Outlook client sees. That's
probably why the message gets marked as read some minutes later because
that's when the Blackberry (when left on) happened to poll the same Exchange
mailbox but through the POP connector. Sounds like the user needs to power
off his Blackberry or kill its mail polling when he switches his interface
to his mailbox to be through Outlook.

I'm thinking that this discussion needs to move to a newsgroup that
discusses Exchange. Those folks would know how to administer and configure
the Exchange server along with its POP connector.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

There is no "pop connector" involved - the BB internet service (BIS) pulls
in the mail using the POP3 service. When any client pops exchange mail, its
marked as read in the mailbox on the server (it works the same way on my
non-exchange account - when I log into web mail, everything I downloaded is
marked read).

This can be avoided by using the OWA URL method instead of POP3. BIS
connects to the OWA URL as as web service and gets the mail without marking
it read. It syncs changes back to the mailbox too.

Other than its limited to mail only, it works pretty good. I was avoiding
moving my main mailbox to Exchange 2010 because BES (blackberry enterprise
server) doesn't support Ex2010 yet but I might reconsider. I can use it to
get multiple exchange mailboxes too.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]

Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com/

Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

Poll: What version of Outlook do you use?
http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=27072

 

[VanguardLH]

There is no "pop connector" involved - the BB internet service (BIS) pulls
in the mail using the POP3 service. When any client pops exchange mail,

But you cannot POP the Exchange server. POP and Exchange are different
e-mail protocols. Hence the need for the POP connector to the Exchange
server. If BIS is using POP, they are not connecting direct to the Exchange
server. They are connecting to the POP connector that goes to the Exchange
server.

There is no command in the POP protocol for setting, unsetting, or
recognizing the status (read, unread, new, old) in the mailbox. So it isn't
POP that is causing the problem. It is Exchange marking the item as read
when the POP connector retrieved a copy of the item from the Exchange
mailbox.

You show me in the RFCs for Post Office Protocol v3 just where the status of
a message can be set, unset, or reported.

STAT: Status of the maildrop (not of a message).
LIST: Number of messages and their total size in the maildrop.
RETR: Retrieve the specified message.
DELE: Delete the specified message.
NOOP: Does nothing except get a response from the server.
RSET: Unmarks the delete-marked messages.
QUIT: Abort session establish or end mail session.
TOP: Returns headers for a message (optionally return first N lines)
UIDL: Returns unique identifier assigned to a message
USER: Username for login credential
PASS: Password for login credential
APOP: Uses MD5 hash to thwart replay attacks.

Nothing about marking a message as read.
Nothing about unmarking a message as read.
Nothing about marking a message as new.
Nothing about unmarking a message as new.

The POP e-mail *client* normally tracks read/unread/new/old status for
e-mails based on what it has retrieved previously and how the user changed
tags in the message store used by that e-mail client. However, in this
case, the POP server that BIS is connecting to also goes to an Exchange
server. Something outside of POP is changing the server-side status of the
message because POP doesn't have a server-side status for messages.
Apparently when you yank an e-mail from the POP connector to Exchange, the
Exchange server marks the item as read in the mailbox (since it got
retrieved and POP has no way to convey or modify message status). The OWA
interface, as you mention, does not behave the same way.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Huh? What do you mean you can't pop exchange? Exchange server supports both
POP and IMAP protocols.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]

Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com/

Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

Poll: What version of Outlook do you use?
http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=27072

 

[VanguardLH]

Huh? What do you mean you can't pop exchange? Exchange server supports both
POP and IMAP protocols.

Yes, through a connector where the POP service is the mail server that
communicates to the Exchange server. As with many servers, they run as a
service under Windows. Since POP clients are connecting to it, they can
only issue commands within the POP protocol but none of which can effect the
read/unread/new/old status of a message. The interface between the POP
service (aka POP Connector) and Exchange does not obviate the POP
Connector's interface dictated by RFCs between it and the POP e-mail client.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124934.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa997475.aspx

The POP Connector of which I speak is the POP service that interfaces on one
side with Exchange and on the other side with POP clients. The long name is
"Microsoft Exchange Server Connector for Post Office Protocol 3".

http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/8/8/188e03df-a3cf-4705-ad6a-3f7eb4e0eaf9/getstart_EN.doc

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

<sigh> And you had the nerve to complain about someone saying a 4 yr old
post fixed their problem. The document you referenced is 10 yrs old and
applies to Exchange 5.5/SBS 4.5 running on NT4. Those suckers are obsolete
and long out of support.

That aside, the document relates to using the pop connector to grab mail
from a pop account at an ISP and drops it into mailboxes in Exchange:
"The POP3 Connector can retrieve e-mail from a single ISP-provided POP3
mailbox or from multiple, per-user POP3 mailboxes. "
ie, Exchange is acting as a mail client, grabbing the mail from a mailbox on
another mail server.

Blackberry uses POP3 to get mail FROM Exchange using the POP3 protocol so it
can deliver it to the handheld device, just as it would if you had a pop
account from an isp running linux. Blackberry acts as the mail client,
Exchange is the server.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]

Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com/

Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

Poll: What version of Outlook do you use?
http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=27072

 

[VanguardLH]

The document you referenced is 10 yrs old and
applies to Exchange 5.5/SBS 4.5 running on NT4. Those suckers are obsolete
and long out of support.

You're saying the POP interface to Exchange no longer runs as an NT service?
And that docs for Exchange 2007 are 4 years old. From what I read from
Microsoft on Exchange 2007, "you must first start the POP3 and IMAP4
services on the computer that is running Exchange 2007." I started at
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996058.aspx but didn't bother
looking under the Exchange 2010 node but at the 2007 node.

Exchange Server
Exchange 2007
Operations
Managing Client Access
Managing POP3 and IMAP4

Managing Client Access is about *client* access to Exchange via OWA (Outlook
Web Access), Exchange ActiveSync, Entourage, POP3, and IMAP4. Everything
under here talks about running POP and IMAP *services*. These are just
front-end servers to support those particular e-mail protocols for
conversion to access an Exchange mailbox.

As yet, neither you nor I know what version of Exchange is being used.

using the pop connector to grab mail from a pop account at an ISP and
drops it into mailboxes in Exchange

As I recall, that is *one* role you can setup for those connectors. If
those connectors/services were only to yank messages from other POP servers,
explain the purpose of the section titled "How to Enable POP3 and IMAP4
Users to Use Default Protocol Settings". There is also a section on how to
set connection limits on *users* of the POP and IMAP services for Exchange.

These services are needed for protocol conversion. POP e-mail clients do
*not* talk Exchange-speak. Microsoft refers to their Client Access Server
because these protocol conversion handlers (POP, IMAP, OWA) probably don't
even have to run as a service on the same host as where Exchange runs.
Since the POP client can do nothing to alter read/unread/new/old status of
messages using the POP protocol, that the messages were seen as opened
(read) by the OP means Exchange was doing that as a consquence of the POP
interface to the Exchange server. So, again, the Exchange newsgroup would
have users more familiar with what settings are available within Exchange to
stop that from happening; however, I suspect that if they changed it for one
user that the behavior changes for all users.

Unless you point to something that says otherwise, and still in Exchange
2007, there is no direct support for POP and IMAP protocols. Those are
handled through conversion using the services (which are the *client access*
servers) for POP and IMAP. OWA is a bit different in that it gets setup on
an IIS server that communicates to Exchange.

You haven't convinced me that you know more about how Exchange is setup to
facilitate its access via POP than how Microsoft defines that access.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

I'm saying you are mixing apples and oranges, confusing providing a POP3
experience to non-Outlook mail clients with collecting mail from other
servers using the POP3 protocol. The document you referenced is for Exchange
to *get* pop mail from other servers - the POP connector made Exchange a POP
client. The POP Connector collects mail from POP3 accounts and drops it into
the Exchange mailboxes. There are many of these pop connectors available -
a list is at http://www.slipstick.com/exs/popconnect.asp. (I've had a
license for PopBeamer for over 10 years and used it to put mail into
Exchange 5.5 through 2010. Until last week it collected mail from a pop
account and put it in my Exchange mailbox. We moved that last domain using
outside mail hosting on linux to Exchange 2010.)

To use Exchange (any version) as a POP *server* so you could use Outlook
Express, t-bird or Eudora to read mail in your Exchange mailbox, the admin
only needed to enable the POP service and open the port on the firewall. In
older versions, the admin enabled the Windows service (it shipped with
Windows server, was not a separate download).
See http://www.google.com/search?q=Exchange+pop3+and+imap for articles
concerning this. I have VM's of all versions of Exchange and most versions
of SBS here and yes, I know how to configure them to so OE and Eudora could
get into the exchange mailbox or to collect POP mail from other servers and
place it into an Exchange mailbox.

Back to the original question that started this thread- the blackberry user
was connecting to his Exchange mailbox using POP3. Exchange was acting as a
POP3 MAIL SERVER in this case. This has always been possible with all
versions of Exchange, with just the files on the windows install disk. No
extra download from Microsoft was necessary.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]

Outlook & Exchange Solutions Center: http://www.slipstick.com/

Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

Poll: What version of Outlook do you use?
http://forums.slipstick.com/showthread.php?t=27072