Microsoft Online Services Team Blog : Office Outlook

Do you want to use Outlook 2003 with Exchange Online?

JimGlynn — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:12:00 GMT

In response to customer feedback, the Microsoft Online Services engineering team is developing the Outlook 2003 Connector. This is an Outlook add-in that will enable customers to use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 to access all the features of Exchange Online. This includes free/busy information when setting up meetings, and the ability to access your organization’s global address list (GAL) from Outlook when you're offline. The add-in is currently in private beta testing with selected MVPs, Partners, and customers, and we’re ready to broaden the audience.

Help us make sure the Outlook 2003 Connector is ready
If you have purchased Microsoft Online Services, or are currently participating in a trial, and you’d like to use Outlook 2003 to access Exchange Online, navigate to to http://connect.microsoft.com, and provide the invitation ID below to participate in this beta program. Contact bpospb@microsoft.com if you need assistance.

Invitation ID: 2003-8PYX-K72K

If you’re not using Microsoft Online Services, but you’d like to take a look, go to the Microsoft Online Customer Portal and sign up for a free trial.

The Microsoft Online Services Team

Monthly Service Update: June 2009 Release Availability Announced

paulenglis — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:49:00 GMT

The Microsoft Online Services Monthly Service Update for June 2009 is currently in deployment and will be available to all customers by June 30. No scheduled downtime is planned for this release deployment.

The release delivers two important capabilities:

· Exchange Online attachments are now supported up to 30MB. Previously, Exchange Online attachments were limited to 20MB.

· Support for Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 client for Exchange Online is now provided. Support for Outlook 2003 was previously announced in the Team Blog.

Release notes for the June 2009 Release can be found here.

Exchange Online Adds Support for Outlook 2003

paulenglis — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:34:00 GMT

Starting in June 2009, organizations can use Outlook 2003 to connect to Exchange Online Standard. Prior to this update, customers could connect to Exchange Online Standard via Outlook 2007 or Outlook Web Access (OWA).

Customers should be aware of two technical caveats when using Outlook 2003 with Exchange Online Standard.

1. Exchange Online Standard will not support free/busy status in Outlook 2003. A workaround for this is to use Outlook Web Access.

2. Exchange Online Standard will not support offline address books in Outlook 2003. Global Address Lists will not be available in offline mode.

Support for free/busy status and offline address books is scheduled to be added later in the calendar year.

This update will not impact Exchange Online Dedicated customers, typically enterprise organizations with more than 5,000 end-users. Exchange Online Dedicated fully supports Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, and OWA today.

Time Out! for Outlook Web Access

Stephanie Shenk — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:42:00 GMT

I’ve been hearing accounts lately of people being unclear about the automatic time-out, or session length, feature of Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access (OWA). Sometimes people are getting unexpectedly bounced out of OWA sessions, and sometimes they’re just worried that other customers are using OWA without being aware of the potential security issues or the automatic time-outs. Let’s review how OWA tackles user location and session length.

Because OWA is designed to be accessed from any computer with a Web browser and an Internet connection, it is inherently less secure than its client-based counterpart, Microsoft Office Outlook. That’s why OWA prompts you to provide your location information before you log on. By assigning different time outs based on user location, OWA helps reduce the possibility of unauthorized personnel accessing your mail.

· Public or shared computer: If you indicate that you are logging on from a public or shared computer, your session will automatically time out after 15 minutes of inactivity and your user name will not be saved.

· Private computer: If you indicate that you are logging on from a private computer, OWA assumes that you are working from a secure computer, most likely your own, or at least one you can exercise control over, and your session will not expire until after 8 hours of inactivity. Your user name is saved.

Note: These two time-out periods are the default values for OWA. The time outs can be changed on certain machines by administrators.

You can see the trust issues here. OWA relies on you to be honest and diligent about the nature of your computer. Even if you select the “public or shared computer” option and your session automatically times out after a short period, you should never leave the computer unattended while you are logged on and you should always log out as soon as you have finished with mail.

Likewise, even if you are accessing OWA from a private computer, you should always lock your computer when you leave it for any length of time. COMMAND+L is your friend! (Or if you are running Windows XP, CTRL+ALT+DELETE>Lock Computer.)

Here’s a handy table:

Computer or operating system	Session length or shortcut
Public or shared computer	OWA session times out after 15 minutes of inactivity. Cookie expires too.
Private computer	OWA session times out after 8 hours of inactivity.
Windows Vista	To lock computer, click COMMAND+L.
Windows XP	To lock computer, click CTRL+ALT+DELETE and then click Lock Computer.

Verify Microsoft Online Services Transport Layer Security (TLS) E-mail Delivery

Ryan J. Phillips — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:29:00 GMT

To secure e-mail message delivery between your on-premise and Online environments first, follow the steps on how to configure your on-premise messaging environment.

Next, determine whether Transport Layer Security (TLS) was used during Message Delivery. Assumption: Your on-premise SMTP Connector has been configured to request a TLS Session.

Send a test message from your on-premise environment to a Microsoft Online Services mailbox.
Log in to your Microsoft Online Services mailbox by opening Office Outlook.
Open the test message that you sent from from your on-premise sender, and then click the small down-arrow in the options section:
Review the Header information for TLS, which indicates that the message was delivered using TLS:

Note: Perform this test in the opposite direction to make sure TLS is being used in both directions

Exchange Hosted Services (EHS) front-ends all Microsoft Online Mail and uses Deterministic TLS when sending/receiving messages, which means that it will attempt to send/receive mail via TLS (issuing EHLO statements to understand the message servers capabilities).

On-Premise à TLS à EHS à TLS à Microsoft Online Services

Microsoft Online Services à TLS à EHS à TLS à On-Premise

Note: IF TLS is not available anywhere along this path, delivery will fallback to SMTP port 25 and deliver in clear-text.

If a customer requires full TLS Messaging Transport capabilities, they will need a TRUSTED certificate (a certificate that can be verified and is trusted – Verisign, GoDaddy, etc.) on their On-Premise Exchange Bridgehead Server, so when MS Online/EHS delivers mail, it can properly negotiate the TLS session. ALSO, the On-Premise Exchange Admin must configure their SMTP Connector to use Outbound Security – TLS, in order to request a TLS session for any Address Namespaces (i.e. contoso1.microsoftonline.com) defined for that Connector.