[bigyin]

Hi, a customer has asked how they can have users sit down at any pc in a computer room and get their e-mail either through outlook express or microsoft outlook. They have a Windows 2003 Server and domain and each user has their own login. There are 5 different classes that use the room so they want each users to have their own stuff. Does anyone know of a way of doing this.

Thanks

[serverguy]

Originally Posted by bigyin

Hi, a customer has asked how they can have users sit down at any pc in a computer room and get their e-mail either through outlook express or microsoft outlook. They have a Windows 2003 Server and domain and each user has their own login. There are 5 different classes that use the room so they want each users to have their own stuff. Does anyone know of a way of doing this.

Thanks

If you want to use Outlook you are going to need to be looking at either setting up an Exchange server, or another Outlook supported mail server. If you want the full features of Outlook though, Exchange is the best but also the most £££ and the biggest pain in the arse to manage / admin.

Smarter Mail is an option, but again big (relatively speaking) money, but slightly easier to admin. Mailenable is much of a muchness.

Then thee is the option of Gmail. This would be the least maintenance, but expensive as it is done on a per account basis. You do however, as I said, get very easy, very reliable email. You can use whatever email you like, like yourcompany@yourcompany.com

Then there is the option of something like hMail Server. This would probably be the best option.

It is a free mail server, and can be installed on very limited hardware.

It is very easy to admin, as long as you are relatively IT savvy, and the open source community support is very good.

It will let you use it with Outlook or Express (I really suggest avoiding Express.. it is very near it's coffin).

You could also use Thunderbird...?

But in my opinion, you would be better off installing a web based mail client, like Roundcube, and letting people use this for email access.

This way they could get at the email from anywhere if you so wanted, it makes admin a shed load easier, it is much quicker to learn so less help desk etc etc.

I have seen this sort of setup used in situations like you describe, and it appears to work very well. I also use it for personal email and some commercial hosting, so could let you have a look and see what you think? PM me about that if you want.

Also, as long as there is not a huge amount of mail being sent, I would recommend relaying mail through your ISPs or DynDNS Outbound Mail Hop Service.

If you ISP provides it then great, you have to spend nothing extra and you know your email will always get out, and if your ISP doesn't then sign up with DynDNS, and for the sake of £50 a year or so, you know your email will always arrive without spending hours chasing ISPs trying to get mail out of the spam folder.

[bigyin]

Thanks Serverguy for your reply. I just wanted to make sure that that is how it is done. I was hoping there may be a cheap and cheerful way of doing it but wasn't hopeful. I'll let them know their options but would presume they won't go down that route as its only for a training room.
Thankyou for your comprehensive response, as it give me lots of options for other customers

Cheers

[serverguy]

hMailserver could be set up for free, especially if it is not mission critical email.

Heck, you could even get the domain for free with a co.cc domain name.