Exchange 2003 Server.....

This year i bought a MacBook Pro with the intention of having it work with our corporate server. I was assured by the helpful people at apple that the new OS X10.6 would work without any issue. Once I received the computer, it turns out that it only works with exchange 2007 or newer, our company is running exchange 2003. I am the only Mac in the company, so they're not going to upgrade the server for just me.

I am currently using a remote desktop application to use e-mail etc.. on the server, and it sucks. I want to find a way to be able to use the full functionality of my Mac and still be able to connect to the exchange 2003 server.

Does anyone have any ideas on what to do?

I am considering BootCamp and installing Windows, but the reason I bought a new computer was to have more space on it, with Bootcamp I'll end up chewing up all my hard drive capacity by having 2 operating systems.

I look forward to your comments and hopefully suggestions.

Cheers,

What Mac applications are you running that are not compatible with Exchange Server 2003? I know Outlook 2011 requires Exchange Server 2007....

Also, instead of using Boot Camp to run Windows natively, you can use virtual software (Parallels, Fusion, VirtualBox) to run Windows in a VM. That will save considerable space.

I have office 2011, so outlook 2011 is pretty critical. We also run a Blackberry server, so I need to be able to use outlook.

With the Virtual Software, do you know if I can save all my files in one location and access them both from Windows and Mac OS?

Valleybull said:

I have office 2011, so outlook 2011 is pretty critical. We also run a Blackberry server, so I need to be able to use outlook.

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Yeah, I thought you might have been referring to Outlook 2011. Lots of folks were likewise disappointed to find out it'll only run from Exchange Server 2007.

Valleybull said:

With the Virtual Software, do you know if I can save all my files in one location and access them both from Windows and Mac OS?

Click to expand...

Yes, that's the convenience provided by virtual software. I use XP from Fusion to run Windows programs and it gives me complete access to both the Finder in OS X and the Windows File Explorer.

Do you use outlook from a windows virtual environment? That is what I will need to do, and have it so that outlook will communicate properly with the exchange 2003 server.

This page shows how to use davmail to get Mail to connect to an Exchange 2003 server. I haven't tried it myself but it's worth a look.

Valleybull said:

Do you use outlook from a windows virtual environment? That is what I will need to do, and have it so that outlook will communicate properly with the exchange 2003 server.

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I'm not using use my Windows Outlook 2010 copy from a VM, however, I don't think that Outlook 2010 is compatible with Exchange Server 2003. Earlier versions of Outlook (Office 2007, Office 2003) should work OK though. You can also try what Van suggested in the previous post.

If the Exchange Server has IMAP enabled, simple to do if they haven't already got it enabled then you can configure Outlook or Mail to use IMAP? Worth a shot and a lot better than using any remote desktop in the long run.

In Saying that I remember setting up a clients Mac using Leopard so 10.5 to connect to their 2003 Small Business Sever with Exchange using IMAP. Just use the exchange servers name or IP address for both the Incoming and Outgoing servers and make sure your username and passwords are in the right formats, normally DOMAIN\USERNAME.

Hope that works.

vansmith said:

This page shows how to use davmail to get Mail to connect to an Exchange 2003 server. I haven't tried it myself but it's worth a look.

Click to expand...

I tried this DavMail, but could not get it to work. Thanks for the suggestion.

Cheers

Thanks everybody for your help and suggestion. Today I decided to try VMware Fusion4 for a 30 day free trial, it works great and has allowed me to set up Outlook in order to connect to our exchange server.

Appreciated the help.