Outlook XP and Exchange (not storage related)

[ddrueding]

[disclaimer] This is not storage related in the least, if it belongs in the P&B, please move it[/disclaimer]

Just went live opn the first exchange bon in a domain (both 2003). Every machine went perfectly except the CEOs (figures). His machine insists on asking for the username/domain/password before loading every time.

This is driving me nuts, and MSDN was no help at all. You guys are the most knowledgeable group I know...I could really use some direction on this problem.

TIA

 

[ddrueding]

bon = server


no idea how that happened.... :eekers:

 

[Handruin]

This belongs here, or possibly the support. No matter, it's fine where it is.

When you say his machine insists on asking for username/domain and password, is that outlook you're talking about, or is it one of multiple exchange servers?

Have you tried removing the host from the domain and rejoining. (removing from the domain could cause negative effects, so it's hard to give that advice without knowing more about your setup)

Also, check your DNS settings...windows 2000 and 2003 can rely on DNS with active directory. Not sure if that helps any...

 

[Mercutio]

Try making a new Outlook profile for him.
You can always add his existing PST as a data source later, if that works.

His PC is part of an appropriate domain, right? And if not, is he at least part of a domain with a trust relationship with the one containing your exchange servers?

 

[ddrueding]

Ok, here's where the description gets messy...

The computer is running XP Pro and is not part of any domain.

[disclaimer]I am in the process of repairing the situation described below, I did NOT create this mess[/disclaimer]

There are currently 2 domains (each with their own DC and DNS servers) company.com and company.local. No trust relationships exist between these, and they contain identical user lists. All of the servers are 2k Std. and members of the .com domain except the one running exchange 2k3; it is a DC and DNS server as well for the .local domain. Clients are everywhere from 98SE with OL97 to XP Pro with Office XP. Some of the XP boxes are members of the .com domain, some are not. None of the 98SE machines are affiliated with a domain in any way. No machines are part of the .local domain.

All of these configurations worked without any problems at all! Except, of course, the CEO. His profile was corruped while trying to add the exchange server to his list of POP3 and MS Mail (yes, MS Mail on '95B) connections. So I created a new profile, and while I was at it I upgraded him from OL97 to XP. I added only the exchange server to the profile (here it first prompted for the username/password) and restarted the app. It promped again, only once while it starts (never again during send/recieve) and the username/password is the same as the login.

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

 

[Mercutio]

I'd suggest getting a copy of Scott Archer's "Designing a Windows 2000 Active Directory Infrastructure", finding the individual responsible for that mess, and playing whack-a-mole with his head until you're exhausted.

Internally, there's really not much reason for your guys to be using .com for anything for Windows Networking. Exchange can package external mail appropriately on its own.

I can launch into AD design in a box, but chances are you either know everything I can tell you or you're in the process of finding it all out, so I won't, since I wanna go to bed soon.

I'm not sure why username/password aren't being filled in, unless you didn't save 'em with the profile, or there's some cached, wrong information somewhere. You might want to re-make it again, or try a repair on Office, just in case - you said you did an Office Upgrade, which is, while not evil, not always the best thing, either.

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks for the tips. My next move is to join his computer to the .local domain and see what happens. I am pretty familar with building an AD, and am in the process of fixing things. This was a company that grew to 50 people before deciding to hire a local (crappy) company to set them up. The odd thing was mostly all of it worked when I came in, so I can't really tear it all apart. I just have to move things very slowly toward the objective.

The objective being:

A single company.local domain, with 2 domain controllers (dedicated and exchange, dedicated also doing DNS)
All users running WinXP Pro and Office XP as members of the domain. (I won't talk about the licencing situation)
All workstations to be at least 1Ghz/512MB/7.2k (I just found a 1.2GB Conner HDD today that doesn't do DMA)
Complete backup routine, to a dedicated server, using DVD-RW (no backups at all currently)
Ditch the AS400 and Bosanova emulator cards
Ditch the 2 diffrerent standalone Unix systems
Establish some kind of "regular maintenece" routine and cost schedule
Get something better than a single ISDN for web access (128k / 50 users = )
etc, etc....

(And for the record, I did remove OL97 before installing OLXP.)

Thanks for the help guys, as you can see, I've got my hands full!

 

[Fushigi]

Ditch the AS400 and Bosanova emulator cards

Out of curiosity, are they ditching their AS/400 or just moving to a TCP-based product?

Anyway, have you tried, in Outlook: Tools - Options - Mail Setup tab - Email Accounts... - More settings... - Advanced tab - Logon network security drop-list and making sure it's set to 'NT Password Authentication' or basically anything other than 'None'?

BTW, while our company default is to allow Outlook to use the LAN password and login automatically, I personally feel this is a poor security practice and have my Outlook set up to always prompt when loading.

 

[ddrueding]

We are ditching the AS/400 for a windows-based product.

It is set for 'NT Password Authentication'

Phisycal security is good, and the systems auto log off (at least his does), so I think passwords during launch would only piss him off.

 

[Fushigi]

We are ditching the AS/400 for a windows-based product.

My condolences.

 

[ddrueding]

We are ditching the AS/400 for a windows-based product.

My condolences.

Hardly. I am not trained on AS/400s, and have no desire to be. From the basic functions I have performed, I am glad to be rid of it. Besides the fact that using emulator cards and an entirely seperate network topology is completely nuts.

 

[Fushigi]

Hardly. I am not trained on AS/400s, and have no desire to be. From the basic functions I have performed, I am glad to be rid of it. Besides the fact that using emulator cards and an entirely seperate network topology is completely nuts.

Emulator cards haven't been necessary for almost a decade and I haven't worked with them since 1995. In that regard I'd have to say your company is behind the times; not the platform.

Which probably means their system isn't very current either. As such, I could probably understand you not having a great experience with it. The capabilities of the machine have grown by leaps and bounds over the years. That said, even an AS/400 from 1991 could do things Windows still can't.

Out of curiosity, what functions have you had difficulty doing?

 

[ddrueding]

Out of curiosity, what functions have you had difficulty doing?

The system was originally purchased by someone who didn't know what they were doing. They bought an accounting system, and didn't realise it wasnt windows based. So the bought an AS/400 to run it on, and bought emulator cards for everyone in the office, and ran a second star of Cat5, and paid a ridiculous amount for the whole thing. It gives them roughly quickbooks-level functionality.

My main complaints with the platform are:

1. Text-based everything (user admin, etc)
2. Funky port-specific hubs, etc.
3. more but I gotta go.....

 

[Fushigi]

The system was originally purchased by someone who didn't know what they were doing. They bought an accounting system, and didn't realise it wasnt windows based.

It probably would have been cheaper to buy another accounting system.

So the bought an AS/400 to run it on, and bought emulator cards for everyone in the office, and ran a second star of Cat5, and paid a ridiculous amount for the whole thing. It gives them roughly quickbooks-level functionality.

Probably a vertical-market type app? Most mainstream accounting apps for the platform are quite a bit more sophisticated. But with vertical-market, it's always a crap-shoot.

My main complaints with the platform are:

1. Text-based everything (user admin, etc)

Outdated, or at least no longer mandatory. This is what's current. Of course, most modern OSes are text based with a GUI slapped on so in that respect OS/400 is hardly different from Windows, Linux, *nix, OS X, OS/390, OS/2, etc. And old-timers like me prefer the text interface as it's way more efficient than any GUI. The GUI has it's place, but I can do things much faster in text mode. Also, the same commands you enter in text mode can be programmed/scripted to run later. Try that in a Windows GUI.

For the end-user interface, there are also a number of programs from both IBM and others that will provide a graphical presentation layer without having to re-code the underlying apps.

2. Funky port-specific hubs, etc.

Twinax-to-twisted pair. Again, outdated since TCP over LAN is the only supported client connectivity scheme on current releases. I'll note that IBM seldom strands it's customers and has even created an IP stack that'll run over the old Twinax cable infrastructure, making it another LAN topology.

The twinax infrastructure predated most LANs, BTW. The need for co-existence of cabling ended several years ago. Twinax still has advantages, though, like 1000 foot runs between hops w/o a repeater, data prioritization, heavy shielding, and no hubs. (The last two are n/a if using the UTP converters like you were) Also, since the basic format is a daisy-chain, you didn't necessarily have to have a separate star cable environment. Very handy when several devices in the same office or just the same vicinity need to be connected.

 

[Howell]

Of course, most modern OSes are text based with a GUI slapped on so in that respect OS/400 is hardly different from Windows, Linux, *nix, OS X, OS/390, OS/2, etc.

You're not trying to say that anything Windows NT and newer is a GUI slapped on a command shell, are you? NT's GUI reaches into the kernel unlike the unixes.

Also, with graphical macro programs you can program quite sophisticated routines. That is as long as you can keep people from touching the machine while its running.

 

[Fushigi]

You're not trying to say that anything Windows NT and newer is a GUI slapped on a command shell, are you? NT's GUI reaches into the kernel unlike the unixes.

Forgot about that. That's one of the reasons Windows is less stable, no? :lol:

Also, with graphical macro programs you can program quite sophisticated routines. That is as long as you can keep people from touching the machine while its running.

Are those free with the OS and supported by Microsoft? If so, and I'm 100% serious here, where are they? I could use some good scripting tools to automate some brain-dead GUI-only apps at work. And do they work with Java apps (that don't support things like Control-Tab and other Windows navigation functions)?

 

[Mercutio]

You're not trying to say that anything Windows NT and newer is a GUI slapped on a command shell, are you? NT's GUI reaches into the kernel unlike the unixes.

NT's graphical-ness was bolted on in NT4, it was NOT designed that way. Yes, the graphics are in the kernel now, and it's very hard to make XP start up as console-only, but all the system-level utilities have a command-line component, and the entire operating system can be run from a prompt.

 

[blakerwry]

i remember win3.1 came with an app to script GUI only functions... it was terrible! lol.. but so was win3.1... but it was sooooo cool to see your computer doing stuff by itself.

 

[Fushigi]

i remember win3.1 came with an app to script GUI only functions... it was terrible! lol.. but so was win3.1... but it was sooooo cool to see your computer doing stuff by itself.

Recorder or something like that. AIR it did something really brain-dead like record the position of mouse clicks screen-relative instead of app-relative so things would get messed up if the window wasn't open in the right spot.