How are you using the Windows 2003 POP3 Server?
I saw a link on the “hellomate“ MS Exchange blog to a post singing the praises of the POP3 Server that comes in Windows Server 2003 and it reminded me that I wanted to write about this and ask people to comment or write, and tell me what you are using the POP3 server for, and how you like it.
For Exchange admins, the POP3 server can be confusing, because the “Manage Your Server” wizard that comes up when you install Windows 2003 offers to let you select the “E-mail server” role for the server, and when you do that, it installs the POP3 service and the SMTP service. Unfortunately, the POP3 service is incompatible with Exchange, so Exchange 2003 setup will tell you to remove the POP service before it allows you to install Exchange.
If you are using the POP3 server, what do you wish it did, and how would it change how you use it? My team is responsible for the future of this service (among other things), so you're getting an opportunity to talk directly to the right person!
Comments
- Anonymous
January 30, 2004
My biggest issue is looking at the log of failed connects or errors at the end of the transfer as reported in the Server reports.
How do you look at them and see if there is something you need to fix. Simple rules would be cool too (if To: = some email address go here) - Anonymous
January 30, 2004
We would find IMAP support more useful than POP3 - as this provides the ability to have the clients connect from multiple workstations and roam more. - Anonymous
January 31, 2004
We spend significant funds on a 3rd party mail server, that provides pop3/smtp services. I'd love to not have to spend that anymore. The primary feature missing from the W2k3 pop3 server is webmail. It would be really nice if webmail functionality was available.
Secondly, and a much lower priority for us, would be IMAP support (very few of our users want IMAP capability). - Anonymous
February 07, 2004
I use the Windows 2003 SMTP/POP3 servers. I find them to be very stable. The only addition I would like to see would be the ability to authenticate users against the SMTP server using their POP3 login when you are using the Encrypted Password File. It seems only natural to login to the SMTP server the very same way using the same account you use for your POP3 mail.
What would the possibility of this be? - Anonymous
February 09, 2004
I'm also interested in hearing about the context in which people are using the Windows 2003 POP server. Do you run an ISP with it? Are you using it for your personal mail? Feel free to send me personal mail with the answer if you like, too. - Anonymous
February 10, 2004
The features I would most like to see are:
1. Distribution list
2. Alias support
3. webmail - Anonymous
February 16, 2004
I'll second Rick's opinion. Add IMAP and (of course) SSL/TLS support for all protocols and I would replace my sendmail server at home immediately. I would use it for personal/small business use. At work of course Exchange is the best solution. - Anonymous
February 17, 2004
using it as it should. although you should add a function that would allow the server to send email directly and try it indirectly.
my ISP blocks doing it directly in on a few cases. - Anonymous
February 18, 2004
I like the pop3/smtp combination in windows server 2003...but it seems really odd to me that I cannot create a 'forwarding address' (whereby email sent to me@my.com is redirected to me@myOther.com).
Either I'm mistaken, or the software doesn't support the feature...? Email forwarding is a very common task (isn't it?) - Anonymous
February 19, 2004
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February 21, 2004
I think that its very stable, but is missing a few features. I also want mail forwarding and the ability to set up a "catch-all" mailbox on each domain (unless this can be done already, i haven't been able 2 do it yet?) - Anonymous
February 24, 2004
I need a forwarding function. - Anonymous
February 26, 2004
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February 29, 2004
I use the Win2K3 pop/smtp for the family at home (4 different virt. domains) and it seems to work great for the 50 users (family members) or so that use it. The bells and whistles that I enjoy at work would be nice.
I agree with all of the above. I work for an ISP that is a heterogenous scheme and the management will not even consider this as an option due to the limitations/Lack of features. Webmail is a must for about 80% of our 2000 or so users. - Anonymous
March 02, 2004
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March 08, 2004
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March 09, 2004
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March 10, 2004
While in process of rolling it out now, it will solve a tremendous amout of issues that I currently face w/ trying to retrofit and support Siebel ERP implementations that use both pop and smtp (dependent upon the functionality required). By handing this functionaly off to a windows-based platform using win 2003, I can eaisly manage this with less effort. - Anonymous
March 15, 2004
I'm currently running the pop3 e-mail server on windows 2003 for personal use for myself and friends as well as a backend mail server for the network, i don't know if there is anything out there as of yet, but i would like to see, or know of any products on the market that can add, remove, and edit user accounts on the server, preferrably in PHP, or perl. the server runs great for what i use it for, although i have noticed at times of peak network traffic that the e-mail server seems to get lost in the confusion and claims failures at the end of the send/recieve process, but as of yet, i haven't noticed anything drastic about that, as the users appear to be getting thier mail fine, only the server sees a problem.. kinda off, but hey, what do you expect from a bundled option anymore? - Anonymous
March 16, 2004
Hi i am using Exchange 2003 as a email server, and on the client pcs I wanted to know how to display the users in the address contact list of Ms Outlook without having to install Exchange Server as the mail service. I installed the POP3 service in Outlook. It works to send a e-mail to a user, but you would have to know the email address, my problem is, this is an establishment with 800 pcs, and it has been configured with pop3 only and the address list does not display the list as an offline global address does which i found out about after the fact, and i wanted to avoid having to go back around and edit each pc, I wanted to know if I could just make a change from the server end - Anonymous
March 17, 2004
Can't use Eudora unless SSL/TLS/IMAP - Anonymous
March 17, 2004
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March 17, 2004
Also, to ArcAiN6 above, if you're using AD to authenticate your mail users, you can in fact currently use php to add/remove/change users in the AD. The php ldap functions would be of some use, although I've been having problems ldap_bind()ing to our win2k3 AD. - Anonymous
March 17, 2004
Talya: I'm afraid we're talking about very different things. But I have to ask why you aren't using the client to talk to the Exchange Server in its native mode. But in any event, it is possible to configure Outlook or Outlook Express to use LDAP for name resolution. In this case, you'd point it to a global catalog server. It's not as nice of an interface as you get with the address list with Exchange.
Jason: Eudora does support POP, not just IMAP. In fact I bet most Eudora users use POP, since that's all most ISPs support (or at least advertise).
Ken: it sounds like you have not installed the POP service? Or perhaps you haven't configured it? You can find its configuration in the Internet Services Manager. You are right that the SMTP service only puts mail in the drop directory, but when you install the POP service, it installs a hook into SMTP that makes it deliver mail to the mailboxes that the POP service knows how to check. - Anonymous
March 17, 2004
I have installed and configured the pop service, it doesn't seem to do what it's supposed to, although I can connect to it from a client. Also, if I stick a message in a mailbox I can get it just fine. Perhaps I have to reinstall the pop service or something.. I had issues with delivery out of the domain before and ended up reinstalling IIS to fix it. I'll give it a shot and report.
Thanks! - Anonymous
March 25, 2004
As Webmail i use NOCC (IIS + php) it works nice - Anonymous
March 26, 2004
I need forwarding. I would love the simple ability to create a catchall account.
I would also love to be able to do a handful of things programatically (using ASP.NET). It would be very helpful to give my website users the ability to create accounts, forwarding accounts and catchall accounts for their domain in a hosted environment. - Anonymous
April 07, 2004
i would use it, but for a webhosting company it just doesnt have enough! It would be brilliant if it could do all that other email servers can! and lets face it at £3,000 for enterprise it should be much better! - Anonymous
April 08, 2004
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April 08, 2004
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April 14, 2004
The ability to reset password would be nice - Anonymous
April 14, 2004
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April 19, 2004
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May 04, 2004
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May 10, 2004
I love the fact that the server is easy to use, but it really needs to have more features. I second the aliases and forwarding control.
Oh, by the way, I hate MMC plugins. - Anonymous
May 12, 2004
using it as normal but really wish it had a RBL or blackhole lit feature. - Anonymous
May 15, 2004
Hi All,
Mail enable has a free version of thier pop3/smtp server. it doesn't have webmail but you can find tons of them @ hotscripts.com.
Imail express is also free. I'm not sure if that has webmail or not and it only supports 10 users I think but my choice has been to just use mail enable standard and check my email using outlook.
Chris - Anonymous
May 18, 2004
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May 18, 2004
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June 01, 2004
I haven't had any major problems, the webmail I programmed from scratch in PHP, I'm just working on automating adding accounts and changing passwords.. I'm not using Active Directory so my only option is to use 'winpop', which is very limited... - Anonymous
June 02, 2004
ermm. what method of encrypting the password does the pop3 server use for Encrypted Password File? A standard MD5 encryption for 'test' gives: ' Åk-F!Ës-ÌNâ&'¦÷'
however the pop3 lock file gives: 'è‹€öŒ‰<×'? Knowing this work make changing passwords far easier via the MD5 module of Perl.. - Anonymous
June 07, 2004
it's good that microsoft included pop3 along with SMTP in windows ..... but I have a problem .... once I add a user for a domain in pop3 server then I cannnot have the same user for a different domain ..... has anybody had this problem before ???
Thanks
Shahin Fadaei - Anonymous
June 08, 2004
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June 12, 2004
i would like to know how i can create a php or asp form that will allow visitors of my page to sign-up automatically for a pop3 account...
also, i want authorization for smtp like pop3 as an option...
imap comes last for me cause i don't really need it...
(i think there should be included the functionality of auto sign up for new user in a web interface....)
plz reply how i can do these at:
chr_nikol@freemail.gr - Anonymous
June 22, 2004
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July 01, 2004
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July 02, 2004
Antti: I believe that some of the "POP3 Connector" products listed at http://www.slipstick.com/exs/popconnect.htm actually submit to the local server via SMTP, and so therefore they should be able to submit to the Windows SMTP/POP server combination.
Update to this post: I have actually changed jobs and I'm afraid that I no longer am working on the future Windows POP server. But the people who are do know about this post and do read it to get ideas for the future. It's just that I need to set expectations that I am not going to be able to answer questions about what we will have in the future in the Windows POP server. - Anonymous
July 08, 2004
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July 17, 2004
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July 17, 2004
Other ideas...
A script could be written to traverse the aliases OU and reset the password for all accounts under the username child OU and then update the password information in the batch file for their aliases.
Group policy could be implemented to disallow the users in the aliases OU from logging on to a machine.
On second thought for the task scheduling, it seems easiest to configure just one task and manage adding jobs by adding lines to the main batch. In other words, the main batch process would call the user-specific batch files.
Example: (ProcessAliases.bat)
call user1.bat
call user2.bat
call administrator.bat
Example: (user1.bat)
C:windowspullmail mypopserver.mydomain.net User.One@mydomain.net password /s:mySMTPserver.mydomain.net /to:user1@myDomain.net
C:windowspullmail mypopserver.mydomain.net UserOne@mydomain.net password /s:mySMTPserver.mydomain.net /to:user1@myDomain.net - Anonymous
July 24, 2004
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July 24, 2004
Dave: It's true, the POP protocol is very straightforward. Just make sure to consider the case where the same user has two connections at the same time!