RPC over HTTP for Exchange w/ SBS 2K3?

Hello,

I have a single server running SBS 2003 and I was wondering if anyone else has had any problems using Outlook remotely without using a VPN. Supposedly SBS can use RPC over HTTP in order to do this, however, I cannot get my server to enable RPC-HTTP because it is not a "Front end server ". Has anyone been able to do this? I know it must be possible because there is a link in the Remote Web Workplace to "Configure Outlook via the Internet ". I followed the instructions there and made sure all required software & service packs were installed on the remote machine, but with no luck.

When I looked into my exchange settings on the server, I found where I would enable RPC-HTTP, but cannot seem to do so without a back-end and front-end server.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Rob

 

Additional Question

I figured I would keep this in the same thread since it is another Exchange/Outlook question...and maybe someone will see the other question and be able to help me out with that one as well.

I have a client PC on the network that cannot contact the exchange server for a certain username. I manually changed the settings in Outlook and now even though the username is correct, it will not open up the user mailbox.

So basically, if I logon to the pc and open Outlook, everything is fine and my e-mail is available. But if "Joe" logs onto the same pc, he cannot retrieve his e-mail. In fact, Outlook won't even open. It just gives the error message that "The connection to the Microsoft Exchange server is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action. "

It seems as though Outlook is stuck in the "Work Offline" mode and I cannot get it to reconnect so I can correct the Outlook profile.

Any suggestions?



EDIT: I found a solution here: Solution


Turns out that I just needed to enter the server name and not the full server name including domain. Outlook automatically converts it to the full name, but it just won't accept it that way. Very strange. I figured I would leave this up in case anyone else ran into a similar issue.

Here is the response that helped me resolve this issue (quoted from above link):

"I ran into the exact same problem above, tried all the solutions presented (and others) and had no luck. Finally, a little flailing brought me to the solution. To be clear, my setup was that I had two Windows XP laptops (one XP professional, the other XP Home). Both were running Outlook 2003 and connected via VPN to our corporate network. We are running Exchange 5.5 on a Windows 2000 server. Contrary to all public biases, the XP Home box had no problems connecting to the Exchange server! I could not get the XP professional box to connect at all.

When I finally discovered the solution, I realized that I was the master of my own disaster (aided and abetted by Microsoft):

You have to be careful when you specify the name of the Microsoft Exchange Server in the Exchange Server Settings form (this is the form that you find the "Check Name" button). For a reason that I'll explain later, I specified the fully qualified name of the exchange server, e.g. servername.somedomain.com. From this point on I couldn't connect. The nanosecond I changed the name to JUST the server name, it worked.

Why didn't I think of it before you ask? Because when I set up the XP Professional box I used the Home box as a reference. On the XP Home box, the exchange server name is FULLY qualified and it is very nicely underlined indicating it has successfully connected to the requested server and mailbox in the past. Now for the added fun, the instant that the XP Professional Outlook successfully connected to the Exchange server, it changed the name in the form to a fully qualified name (and then underlined it).

So it appears that Outlook 2003 always appends the domain name to whatever is in the Exchange Server name field until it successfully connects - at which point it converts it to a fully qualified name and "remembers" for future reference not to append the domain ever again. How bogus is this? Once Outlook connects, the only difference between a working name and a not working name is the fact that the working one is underlined. In addition, nowhere is there an indication that this kind of behind the scenes magification is happening (certainly not in the event log where it might be useful). It would even have been nice if Microsoft would have put up a little status dialog that said "Attempting to connect to servername.somedomain.com.somedomain.com . . ." then one could see that the software was trying to be smarter (in a dumb way) for your ease of use. From a user interface point of view this is a D'ar Quon (Dark One).

I am feeling a little sheepish that I didn't try using just the server name right off the bat but . . . I mean I did have a working example to configure from . . . "

 

Kind of in a rush right now but when I configure Outlook to connect to exchange I always put in the IP address of the Exchange server and the user name and click "Check Name ".
Seems to work faster than waiting on DNS to find the server.

 

ssmith10pn,

Thanks for the tip. I will remember to try that next time.


As for the RPC over HTTP on a single server (SBS 2k3), I think I may have finally found the information I was looking for...

I found this on the Microsoft TechNet website: RPC over HTTP Deployment Scenarios

And I also for and downloaded the following document: Exchange Server 2003 RPC over HTTP Deployment Scenarios.doc

On pages 13-20 there are instructions on how to configure a single-server installation to use RPC over HTTP.

I will try it out and see what happens...

 

Not the only one!

Cheers for that SlackMaster! I had the same XP professional problem but your tip worked a treat.