Entourage and Exchange 2007

CoryS

Anyone have any experience with this client and connecting it to an Exchange 07 setup? I am just curious on the ability to access public folders and if theres been any further support for this other then the basic chatter on some other forums. We are going to be setting up a client but they want to know if their Macs will be ok to use (only 2 outta the whole org) i know it can natively connect to Exchange but I was assuming only for mail and calendar, and the other basic tasks...

Any input would be welcome, I think its the latest version (Entourage 200 if I remember correctly.

Thanks!

Cory

HeroPsycho

Haven't had to do it with E2K7, but I've seen enough issues with Entourage in the past that I'd say it's at least worth looking into whether or not you could avoid having to use it.

Would OWA be sufficient for these users?

What about VMware Fusion or Parallels running a virtualized Windows OS to run Outlook?

You might consider these now as more viable alternatives than people could traditionally. OWA is vastly improved in E2K7, and obviously OS virtualization was not nearly as practical as it is now.

bjaxx

HeroPsycho wrote:

Haven't had to do it with E2K7, but I've seen enough issues with Entourage in the past that I'd say it's at least worth looking into whether or not you could avoid having to use it.

Would OWA be sufficient for these users?

What about VMware Fusion or Parallels running a virtualized Windows OS to run Outlook?

You might consider these now as more viable alternatives than people could traditionally. OWA is vastly improved in E2K7, and obviously OS virtualization was not nearly as practical as it is now.

Umm...

I am using it on my mac. exchange 2007 and Entourage 2008, they work well even with the outlook anywhere bit.

I can get you the settings if you need it.

CoryS

Wow that would be great bjaxx, if its not to much trouble!

Hero I have heard of some issues as well at least with Public Folders with the older versions of Entourage and I was not aware of what else to look for, and yes if its to much bother I will just be having them use OWA at least for whatever functionality is lost (if any)

I am excited to see Outlook Anywhere works with it as well. If you want to email me its

corystorms (at) gmail (dot) com

Otherwise any insight is more then welcome. Thanks for the heads up guys.

bjaxx

CoryS wrote:

Wow that would be great bjaxx, if its not to much trouble!

Hero I have heard of some issues as well at least with Public Folders with the older versions of Entourage and I was not aware of what else to look for, and yes if its to much bother I will just be having them use OWA at least for whatever functionality is lost (if any)

I am excited to see Outlook Anywhere works with it as well. If you want to email me its

corystorms (at) gmail (dot) com

Otherwise any insight is more then welcome. Thanks for the heads up guys.

Not at all, I left my mac at home so i'll get some shots of it and send em your way.

HeroPsycho

There's some weirdness I've seen with Entourage and especially with Exchange 2003. Entourage stuff sticks pretty much everything in the STM if I remember correctly, and there's issues I've seen if you mix checking that mailbox with Outlook or OWA vs. Entourage. Sometimes calendar stuff can get screwy, that kind of thing.

bjaxx

HeroPsycho wrote:

There's some weirdness I've seen with Entourage and especially with Exchange 2003. Entourage stuff sticks pretty much everything in the STM if I remember correctly, and there's issues I've seen if you mix checking that mailbox with Outlook or OWA vs. Entourage. Sometimes calendar stuff can get screwy, that kind of thing.

There's probably some truth to that, but 4 years later I think they have figured it out.

The only thing that kind of got funny was the LDAP configuration.

HeroPsycho

For a reference, take a look at some of these links of various Entourage oddities and how it works very differently from Outlook, and notice the dates on some of these that discuss problems associated with Entourage are pretty recent.

http://www.macwindows.com/041107d.html

http://blogs.technet.com/amir/archive/2008/02/08/how-does-entourage-work.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/amir/archive/2007/07/14/content-conversion-issue-with-exchange-entourage.aspx

I don't want to belabor the point here, but Entourage works fundamentally in different ways from Outlook, and those differences have been known to cause problems. Is it a hellion? No, but if you have no need for it, why introduce Entourage clients when today there are two pretty viable technologies that might serve you better in the end than deploying entourage? (vastly better OWA in E2K7 and virtualization products for the Mac such as VMware Fusion and Parallels)

bjaxx

HeroPsycho wrote:

For a reference, take a look at some of these links of various Entourage oddities and how it works very differently from Outlook, and notice the dates on some of these that discuss problems associated with Entourage are pretty recent.

http://www.macwindows.com/041107d.html

http://blogs.technet.com/amir/archive/2008/02/08/how-does-entourage-work.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/amir/archive/2007/07/14/content-conversion-issue-with-exchange-entourage.aspx

I don't want to belabor the point here, but Entourage works fundamentally in different ways from Outlook, and those differences have been known to cause problems. Is it a hellion? No, but if you have no need for it, why introduce Entourage clients when today there are two pretty viable technologies that might serve you better in the end than deploying entourage? (vastly better OWA in E2K7 and virtualization products for the Mac such as VMware Fusion and Parallels)

I don't think the point here is does entourage work with e2k7, the short answer is yes.

Outlook anywhere
autodiscover
public folders
Global Catalog

As i'm sure you can relate but in some enviroments they dictate on what you they want to use, I don't know anyone thinks logging onto owa is a convenience. There's no doubt in my mind that parallels is a great alternative but its not convienent and especially for someone who wants something on the fly.

HeroPsycho

I use OWA on a daily basis, and don't even care to setup Outlook Anywhere to be honest. OWA on E2K7 is great.