OL 2003 and Exchange 5.5 - server resolution

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul MacFarlane
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Paul MacFarlane

I'm setting up a new workstation w/ Office 2003 and having problems
connecting to our exchange server (5.5)
When setting up the account in OL, it changes to name of the server to our
external SMTP address name
'mail.mullenlaw.com' - then it doesn't work.

When trying to connect, I control right-clicked the OL icon to check the
connection status and it indicated the server as a Directory (not mail).

Eventually (I walked away from it), it connected to our exchange server, but
it keeps losing the connection.
In the connection status window it even changed the server to our internal
name (which I'd prefer) but it ends up with 2 mail connections and 2
directory connections and continues to lose it's connection.

What's up with this? Is there a DNS problem resolving our internal name?
Thanks,
Paul
 
Sounds like a DNS problem to me. Do you have an internal DNS server? If
so, does your workstation's DNS settings (Start | Run | CMD | IPCONFIG /ALL)
show the ip address of your internal DNS server?


--
Aloha,

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, OneNote-MVP
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/schorr

**I apologize but I am unable to respond to direct requests for assistance.
Please post questions and replies here in the newsgroup. Mahalo!
 
Hi Ben,

No, we are not using an internal DNS server. We have been using WINS
internally (Is WINS out in 2003?)

We will be upgrading our NT4 servers to Server 2003 shortly.

Is a local DNS server required?

Paul
 
WINS is still supported by going away to be replaced by Dynamic DNS. You
will want to have an internal DNS server sooner or later.

Until you get that going, however...you can probably work around this
problem by adding the name and IP address of your Exchange server to a HOSTS
file on your workstation. Do a Windows Search for "HOSTS" (no file
extension). It will probably be in something like
C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc.


--
Aloha,

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, OneNote-MVP
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/schorr

**I apologize but I am unable to respond to direct requests for assistance.
Please post questions and replies here in the newsgroup. Mahalo!
 
Thanks Ben...

I've added entries to HOSTS but it doesn't seem to matter....

Maybe it's a naming problem....

Our Exchange server is actually named 'MAIL' (not my idea). I can ping
'MAIL' from the workstation with OL2003 without any problems. In the
account setup it's still changing 'MAIL' which I type, to
'mail.mullenlaw.com'.

I'm confused as to exactly how or why it's doing this. Is OL doing a
discovery of our external IP address and doing a reverse DNS lookup?.

I have NO entries in WINS or HOSTS or LMHOSTS for mail.mullenlaw.com. The
exchange server knows it's 'mullenlaw.com' but does not know it's
mail.mullenlaw.com. The only place that exists is in external DNS servers.

Any ideas?

Paul
 
What operating system is the workstation using? You might check the TCP/IP
settings on that workstation and UNCHECK the box that tells it to add the
primary domain name to the end of unqualified names.


--
Aloha,

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, OneNote-MVP
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/schorr

**I apologize but I am unable to respond to direct requests for assistance.
Please post questions and replies here in the newsgroup. Mahalo!
 
Windows XP Pro

I unchecked that box and re-started the workstation. Still resolves 'MAIL'
to 'MAIL.MULLENLAW.COM'

internally our domain name is something completely different.
 
And does your workstation have the internal domain name as its own?

Start | Run | CMD. At the command prompt type "IPCONFIG /ALL" and see what
it says for primary DNS suffix.

--
Aloha,

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, OneNote-MVP
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/schorr

**I apologize but I am unable to respond to direct requests for assistance.
Please post questions and replies here in the newsgroup. Mahalo!
 
I was having the same problem as you and solved it by putting the full qualified name in the host file in your case mail.mullenlaw.com. After I did this it connected immediately.

----- Ben M. Schorr, MVP-OneNote wrote: -----

And does your workstation have the internal domain name as its own?

Start | Run | CMD. At the command prompt type "IPCONFIG /ALL" and see what
it says for primary DNS suffix.

--
Aloha,

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, OneNote-MVP
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/schorr

**I apologize but I am unable to respond to direct requests for assistance.
Please post questions and replies here in the newsgroup. Mahalo!
 
It's blank......

Eric's solution seems to have worked - giving it the name it wants to use
with a local IP address in the HOSTS file....
 
That's a good workaround, but I'd encourage you to get your DNS straightened
out eventually.


--
Aloha,

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, OneNote-MVP
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/schorr

**I apologize but I am unable to respond to direct requests for assistance.
Please post questions and replies here in the newsgroup. Mahalo!
 
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