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How Outlook 2007 works with different Exchange Server versions

Updated: October 14, 2010

Applies To: Office Resource Kit

This Office product will reach end of support on October 10, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see , Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 works well with a variety of e-mail servers. You can take advantage of an even richer feature set by using Outlook with the latest version of Microsoft Exchange Server. Features of Office Outlook 2007 that work better with Microsoft Exchange 2007 include scheduling meetings, Offline Address Book (OAB) downloads, automatic configuration of Exchange server accounts, and enhanced Out of Office functionality. In addition, some features of Office Outlook 2007 require or work better with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, or Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

Note

Using Office Outlook 2007 with Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 is not supported.

In this article:

  • Features supported with Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010

  • Features supported only with Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010

  • Enhancements that work better with Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010

Features supported by Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010

The following table shows how Office Outlook 2007 features are supported by different versions of Exchange Server.

Office Outlook 2007 feature Exchange 2010 Exchange 2007 Exchange Server 2003

Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) support for e-mail.

X

X

X

Sender ID Anti-Spam can reduce the number of unsolicited e-mail messages that enter the organization.

X

X

Managed Folders can help organizations to reduce the legal risks that are associated with e-mail and other communications.

X

X

Voice mail messages can be delivered in e-mail.

X

X

Instant Search enables users to quickly find items in Outlook by using the Instant Search pane.

X

X

Search Folders display the results of previously defined search queries of your Outlook folders.

X

X

X

Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP) connections are automatically configured.

X

X

X

Exchange Server settings are automatically detected over the Internet (Autodiscover).

X

X

Exchange Server on which the user's mailbox resides is automatically found.

X

X

X (see note below)

Exchange servers are automatically found in multi-forest environments.

X

X

Exchange servers can share information across forests.

X

X

Free/Busy information is always up-to-date for users with Exchange 2007 Availability service.

X

X

Tentative calendar booking is managed on the Exchange Server. Users do not need to run Outlook for others to see their Free/Busy status.

X

X

Scheduling Assistant helps users choose the most convenient times for meetings, including easy checking for conference room availability.

X

X

Public Folder replication on the server is not required to schedule meetings across forests.

X

X

Out of Office improvements: separate internal/external Out of Office messages, external replies can be limited to Contacts folder entries, HTML formatting for reply messages, scheduling Out of Office replies during a specified time period only.

X

X

Introduction of Offline Address Book Version 4 (OAB V4). For more information, see Features supported only with Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010.

X

X

X

Enhanced OAB download support in OAB V4, including binary delta compression for incremental and more efficient downloads, HTTP download distribution points that do not require Public Folders, ability to restart downloads at the point of interruption (instead having to restart the download), trickle download for low bandwidth scenarios.

X

X

Other feature improvements in OAB V4, such as client-side indexes for multilingual sorting when the user's computer and Exchange Server use different languages; more efficient client-side search index.

X

X

Support for Yomi names in OAB.

X

X

Address Book can be searched hierarchically and by name (Hierarchical Address Book).

X

Local copy of a user’s mailbox to enable users to work offline (Cached mode).

X

X

X

Partial item downloads in Cached Exchange Mode are more efficient. This helps with synchronizing in multiple client scenarios.

X

X

If a user's mailbox is full in Cached Exchange, Outlook no longer generates non-delivery reports (NDRs) when the user sends an e-mail message. Instead, the user receives an error message that the mailbox is full. The messages stay in the user’s Outbox until the user makes space in his or her mailbox. (Requires Exchange Server versions 2003 with SP2 through 2010.)

X

X

Shared calendars/PIM data is cached for offline access.

X

X

X

Calendar details can be shared with external business partners by using federation.

X

X

Connection Sharing to reduce the number of open connections against the server.

X

X

X

Scenarios that previously caused synchronizations to fail are now managed so synchronization can continue.

X

X

X

Updates are check-pointed. If a download of new information is interrupted—for example, by a connection failure—Outlook can resume the update at the point where the failure occurred, instead of starting over from the beginning.

X

X

X

Note

For Exchange Server 2003 and earlier versions of Exchange, the server can be found automatically only if the client machine is joined to a domain and the Exchange server topology is installed within the same Active Directory organization as the user object.

Features supported only by Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010

Using Office Outlook 2007 with Exchange Server version 2003, 2007, or 2010 has a number of advantages. For example, the following Outlook features, which were introduced in Microsoft Outlook 2003 and are also available in Office Outlook 2007, work only with Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010.

  • Offline Address Book Version 4 (OAB V4)   OAB V4 enables more efficient OAB downloading because of improvements in its usage of binary delta compression, OAB templates, and OAB indexing. Microsoft introduced OAB V4 in Exchange Server 2003 SP2. It requires Outlook 2003 SP2 or Outlook 2007. For more information, see OAB Version 4 in Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=203253).

  • Cached Exchange Mode using Download Headers   Cached Exchange Mode automatically downloads only headers when the user's operating system perceives that the user's connection mode is slow.

  • Cached Exchange Mode using Download Headers and then Full Items   With this option, all item headers are downloaded first, followed by item bodies and other detailed information. Users can click item headers to immediately see specific items (headers, item bodies, and attachments).

  • Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP) connection support   You can configure user accounts to connect to an Exchange server over the Internet. This feature enables users to use the Office Outlook 2007 client for security-enhanced access to their Exchange Server accounts when they are traveling or are working outside their organization's firewall.

  • Kerberos authentication   Outlook can use Kerberos authentication with Exchange Server 2003. The Kerberos network security protocol uses cryptography to help provide mutual authentication for a network connection between a client and a server, or between two servers.

  • **Performance tracking support   **Office Outlook 2007 provides information about client processing that Exchange can use to help locate networking or server issues. For more information, see Exchange Server 2003 documentation.

Enhancements that work better with Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010

Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010 provide support for certain Outlook features. Office Outlook 2007 works better with Exchange Server, version 2003 through 2010, in several ways for other features. Microsoft introduced several of these features in Outlook 2003—most notably for synchronization processing, user synchronization status reports, and junk e-mail filtering. Instant Search and automatic Exchange Server discoverability are new in Office Outlook 2007.

Synchronization processing between Outlook and Exchange is improved in several ways, starting in Outlook 2003. For example, data exchanged between the Outlook client and Exchange Server 2003 servers is compressed, and the data buffer size is larger. In addition, the buffers are packed so that more compressed data is included in each buffer. With these features, more data can be transferred with fewer server calls. This is especially helpful when users are synchronizing across networks that charge by the byte of data that is transmitted. When large information sets are downloaded—for example, when users update their mailboxes after they have been on vacation—cost can be significantly lowered and the transaction can be shortened with these improvements.

Another feature that users will notice is better status information about Cached Exchange Mode synchronization. In Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010, the Outlook status bar shows detailed information about synchronization, such as the following:

  • How many bytes have not been downloaded for the current folder?

  • How many items have not been downloaded in the current folder?

  • Approximately how long it will be until the current folder is synchronized?

  • Folder status, such as Up to Date and Last updated at <date and time>.

When it is used with Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010, the Headers Only mode in Outlook provides a 256-byte plain text preview that includes part of the message body, instead of showing just the message header information. This message preview can help remote users to make better decisions about whether to download a whole message—which, for example, might include a large attachment.

Using Outlook with Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010 also helps provide a better experience for users in filtering junk e-mail messages. The Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook provides some support for Outlook users by using Cached Exchange Mode on versions of Exchange Server earlier than Exchange Server 2003. The experience is much improved with Exchange Server versions 2003 through 2010. To learn more about how Outlook junk e-mail filtering is supported with different versions of Exchange Server, see Configure junk e-mail settings in Outlook 2007.

Several features that are new in Office Outlook 2007 also work better with Exchange 2007. Instant Search works better with Exchange 2007 when you use Outlook in Online mode with a mailbox server, because Outlook can use the index on Exchange Server 2007 for searching. To enable Instant Search when you use Outlook with earlier versions of Exchange, you must configure Outlook to index user mailboxes for each Exchange client. This additional step is required because indexing in Outlook on the user's computer cannot be fully optimized, unlike the server indexing service that is implemented for Exchange Server 2007.

If users are configured to use Cached Exchange Mode, Office Outlook 2007 indexes the search locally, regardless of the Exchange Server version. In addition, Office Outlook 2007 automatically detects the user's Exchange Server with Exchange Server 2007. Automatic detection is also enabled under the following circumstances for earlier versions of Exchange: when the user's computer is joined to a domain and when Exchange is in the same domain as the user account.

Note

You can configure Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 settings for Outlook profiles as part of your Office Outlook 2007 deployment. For more information about how to use the Office Customization Tool to customize Outlook profiles, see Specify Exchange settings in Office Customization Tool in the 2007 Office system.

Additional resources

More information about how Outlook and Exchange versions work together is listed below.

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