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Snow Leopard only supports Microsoft Exchange Server 2007? Possible workarounds?

guitarman777

guitarman777

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 15, 2005
274
117
Orlando, FL
My workplace is dual-platform, we've got both PC's and Macs galore. My IT guy and I have been pretty excited about Exchange being supported out-of-the-box, but we got pretty bummed when we saw it would only support 2007, not 2004. We've been hoping to deep-six all our Entourage usage, we've had nothing but problems as of late, but we're only running 2004 and probably won't be able to upgrade to 2007 due to a tight budget.

What are the possibilities of a third-party software company releasing some kind of compatibility workaround to permit support for Exchange 2004? I'm sure Apple would be less likely to release something like that, otherwise they would have made it compatible with 2004 out of the box.
 
You mean Exchange 2003 right ;)

We are in the same boat, my thinking is setting up a separate Exchange 2007 box running standard edition just for our Mac users.
 
That sucks. I didn't realize Apple was only supporting Exchange 2007. My company is on Exchange 2003. This was the only reason I even wanted to upgrade to Snow Leopard. I might just save my $29 then.
 
I'm fairly certain that somebody will come up with a way to add support for Exchange 2003. The company or person that does will make a nice bit of change for themselves.
 
embedded said:
God I hope so. Entourage has to go away.
Click to expand...

I despise Entourage, and I don't know how people deal with it. I'm fortunate in that we're not running Exchange here. It's like Microsoft took Outlook and tried to figure out how to screw it up as much as possible, yet still have it work just enough to sell it.
 
Actually, it will support 2003:

Exchange Support
Apple has built in support for Microsoft's Exchange Server 2007. This is what, on a PC, pushes and synchronises all your email, contact info and calendar entries to Outlook and your phone.

By doing this, OS X's Mail, iCal and Address Book apps sync up just like Outlook. Note that if your company is still running Exchange Server 2003 (ours is), you will still be able to sync Snow Leopard with your office server. We confirmed this with Microsoft, a spokesperson from which said, "Correct -- it will work with Exchange Server 2003 as well." Our IT boffins here at CBSi confirmed this too.
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49303381,00.htm
 
To quote Paris Hilton, "That's huge." Not having to upgrade an entire Exchange server pretty much blows that whole Entourage for Web Services thing out of the water. Sure the Exchange support in SL will probably need some work, but imagine how good it will be by Holiday 2010 when MACBU finally rolls out Outlook (aka Entourage with a new name).
 
embedded said:
God I hope so. Entourage has to go away.
Click to expand...

Actually the Web Services Edition (free download) works quite well with Exchange 2007. I used to hate it as much as anyone prior to the Web Services update. Now a days I use it most of the time and haven't had any annoying issues. Give it a try?
 
Oh, how I wish it were true that it will work with Exchange 2003!... but I just tested it with the latest beta, and I am unable to establish a connection.

Entourage 2008 works fine, and I can set it up as IMAP Exchange, but the IMAP Exchange only syncs mail, not iCal or Address book.

I am sad beyond comprehension because I was looking forward to ditching the Microsoft office suite once and for all with the iWork / Mail combination. This seriously ruined my evening.

Please, oh please, some third party developer figure out how to add 2003 compatibility, even if we have to pay extra for the extra licensing to use Microsoft's craptacular proprietary protocol. Please...
 
perrydb said:
Actually, it will support 2003:

Exchange Support
Apple has built in support for Microsoft's Exchange Server 2007. This is what, on a PC, pushes and synchronises all your email, contact info and calendar entries to Outlook and your phone.

By doing this, OS X's Mail, iCal and Address Book apps sync up just like Outlook. Note that if your company is still running Exchange Server 2003 (ours is), you will still be able to sync Snow Leopard with your office server. We confirmed this with Microsoft, a spokesperson from which said, "Correct -- it will work with Exchange Server 2003 as well." Our IT boffins here at CBSi confirmed this too.
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49303381,00.htm
Click to expand...

I cant wait to try it out, I am sure there will be millions of sysadmins making sacrifice at the altars of those who publish the how-tos
 
perrydb said:
Actually, it will support 2003:

Exchange Support
Apple has built in support for Microsoft's Exchange Server 2007. This is what, on a PC, pushes and synchronises all your email, contact info and calendar entries to Outlook and your phone.

By doing this, OS X's Mail, iCal and Address Book apps sync up just like Outlook. Note that if your company is still running Exchange Server 2003 (ours is), you will still be able to sync Snow Leopard with your office server. We confirmed this with Microsoft, a spokesperson from which said, "Correct -- it will work with Exchange Server 2003 as well." Our IT boffins here at CBSi confirmed this too.
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49303381,00.htm
Click to expand...

Is this going to use ActiveSync? Or something else? I hope it's not what they consider exchange support in 10.5.
 
embedded said:
To quote Paris Hilton, "That's huge." Not having to upgrade an entire Exchange server pretty much blows that whole Entourage for Web Services thing out of the water. Sure the Exchange support in SL will probably need some work, but imagine how good it will be by Holiday 2010 when MACBU finally rolls out Outlook (aka Entourage with a new name).
Click to expand...

not that it's pertinent to this thread, but there really isn't an exchange 2003 to exchange 2007 "upgrade."

you have to do a migration: build an ex2007 server and move your mailboxes from the 2003 server to the 2007 one.
 
I manage an Exchange 2003 server here at my work. I will have to wait until I upgrade to Snow Leopard before testing this and how it will connect from Mail.app

We are not ready to move to Exchange 2007 here, but will most likely start the initial steps of migrating later this year for a complete upgrade sometime in 2010.
 
We are also using exchange 2003. I have tried SL with exchange 2003 and have had no luck in getting it working.

Has anybody actually succeeded in getting Exchange 2003 to work with Mail, Calendar and contacts?
 
godspeed said:
We are also using exchange 2003. I have tried SL with exchange 2003 and have had no luck in getting it working.

Has anybody actually succeeded in getting Exchange 2003 to work with Mail, Calendar and contacts?
Click to expand...

I haven't found anything yet. This forum had the best info, but nothing works just yet. I just installed OSX 10.6, took my Mac to work and found that it won't work. I could either beg IT to upgrade to 2007, or just wait till a 3rd party plug-in comes out. And since IT tends to ignore the world, I waiting on the plug-in.
 
Just tried connecting today. Mail links to Exchange 2003 but only as an IMAP, which means the functionality with iCal and Addressbook is not there. Mail worked before with Exchange 2003 (IMAP), in Leopard. The problem is that you are pretty much dependent on how your company has set it up. Mine has blocked SMTP so you cannot send messages from their server. Instead I have to send them via my google account, which is quite annoying. Mail Server for Leopard works round this problem, but it won't work at all in Snow Leopard now.

Thankfully my company also have a 2007 server (it's a university - no logic to it!), so I have asked to be migrated to that server and will try again. It is the iCal and Addressbook functionality I was hoping to get with Snow Leopard, but obviously it only works with 2007. Bizarrely, though, it all works fine with the iPhone. I can get exchange mail and calendar from 2003 and can now even link to the corporate addressbook when I am sending emails.
 
very unfortunate

I also expected at least the same Exchange support as the iPhone but discovered 2007 only in the fine print. I would have upgraded anyway, it's only $30, but I think there should have been a big asterisk by the "out of the box" claim. I had been anticipating accessing my work Exchange server after using the iPhone, which works great, and reading about Snow Leopard support. However, since my company is on 2003, is skipping 2007, going "one of these days" to 2010, I've started looking around for alternatives since I doubt Apple will retroactively add 2003 support. It appears that Office 2008 Business Edition will support all version of Exchange with Entourage and is being released September 15th. Hate to use it, but getting tired of only having access on the iPhone or OWA which I dislike even more. Here's a link to a chart showing compatibility:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/itpros...rget=5dc552e3-ea74-4bba-a647-afaabe7dee531033
 
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