Enabling Exchange Cached Mode in Outlook 2003 on a 2003 Terminal Server, in the Application Installation & Compatibility forum on BrianMadden.com

Hi all,

My deployment scenario is to provide access to the a single exchange 2003 server at our HQ to users at our branches. We also want to allow the users to work "off line" when the WAN link drops. Thus I am looking at deploying the Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003 with Exchange Cached Mode enabled, the twist is we want to deploy it in a TS environment. That is Exchange at HQ, TS at branch and with Exchange Cached Mode enabled, the OST file are cached on the Branch TS server. So that when the WAN link goes down, the users can still TS into the TS server and work "offline".

Only problem is the Outlook 2003 is installed with Exchange Cached Mode disabled for performance reasone. My question is there any way for me to force the Exchange Cached Mode, knowing that we have to live with the performance impact. We also plan to make the OST permanent on the local TS server at the branch.

Thanks,

Andrew Leong

you can enable this setting via group policy settings for the terminal server. you will need to download the office 2003 resource kit and extract the adm files. import the outlook adm file in your GPO and you can set the configuration for the cached exchange mode for users via GPO.

AFAIK, Cached Mode is unsupported on Terminal Server, just like offline files. If this is possible, I've never seen it done, and the thought of synchronizing a bunch of OST on one terminal server sounds like a performance nightmare, that would be better addressed by a redundant WAN Link. I'm not saying everything MSFT documents is the rule of law, but it is stated here:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011402511033.aspx

To achieve the optimal results when you use Outlook with Terminal Services, pay close attention to how you customize your Outlook configuration. For example, Cached Exchange Mode cannot be configured with Terminal Services.

If someone is successfully using Cached MOde on Citrix or TS, I'd like to know how, and how it performs.

Advise not bad software for work with Outlook files-microsoft outlook 2003 ost viewer,allows to recover *.ost files, when Microsoft Exchange Server gets out of order and your data may be lost,can convert *.ost files to *.pst files, that can be easily opened by any email client, compatible with Microsoft Outlook,convert your *.ost to *.pst, but to extract a list of files in such formats, as: *.eml. *.vcf and *.txt,allows to view a ost file and avoid extracting, for example, 50 Mb of your content, you can extract all files from .ost viewer mail, than just to copy and paste emails and contacts, that you need,runs under all versions of Windows operating system, such as: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Andrew Leong:

Hi all,

My deployment scenario is to provide access to the a single exchange 2003 server at our HQ to users at our branches. We also want to allow the users to work "off line" when the WAN link drops. Thus I am looking at deploying the Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003 with Exchange Cached Mode enabled, the twist is we want to deploy it in a TS environment. That is Exchange at HQ, TS at branch and with Exchange Cached Mode enabled, the OST file are cached on the Branch TS server. So that when the WAN link goes down, the users can still TS into the TS server and work "offline".

Only problem is the Outlook 2003 is installed with Exchange Cached Mode disabled for performance reasone. My question is there any way for me to force the Exchange Cached Mode, knowing that we have to live with the performance impact. We also plan to make the OST permanent on the local TS server at the branch.

Thanks,

Andrew Leong

Once my friend said:"Why do have any programs for recover corrupted mails?",and after that I understood he was right,and finded in google,next application for him-view .ost,but frankly speaking tool helped me too))),program has free status as far as I know,because I didn't use it some months or possible near year,also it "allows to recover *.ost files, when Microsoft Exchange Server gets out of order and your data may be lost,open damaged files, you can open your corrupted *.ost file and estimate data losses,can convert *.ost files to *.pst files, that can be easily opened by any email client, compatible with Microsoft Outlook,convert your *.ost to *.pst, but to extract a list of files in such formats, as: *.eml. *.vcf and *.txt,allows to view a ost file and avoid extracting, for example, 50 Mb of your content, you can extract all files from .ost viewer mail, than just to copy and paste emails and contacts, that you need,view ost file runs under all versions of Windows operating system, such as: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Patrick:  It's not a performance nightmare in many situations.  For example, imagine a small business with 15 users and a well-endowed terminal server with lots of RAM, CPU horsepower, and SCSI drives to spare.  Already, these folks use POP3 with large PST files and the server's pretty much sitting there idling most of the time.

So we say hey, Microsoft Exchange Online looks awesome, and the customer can't afford another whole server and maintenance on that.  But hey, you can't run Outlook in cached Exchange mode on terminal server.  So that's a complete show-stopper.  20-30 second delays opening an email is completely unacceptable.

So like many other features, why don't they make this optional instead of completely locking it out at the app level?  Make the default to disable... heck, even grey it out and require a registry hack to enable it, along with whatever warnings in a KB article about performance?  Blows me away.

I love MS products but the occasional thing like this is incomprehensible.  MS has to understand that there's this massive market out there in the small business space who could take advantage of many technologies they intend for the enterprise, but then the customer gets knocked out of it for some silly reason.

I'd love for someone to find a workaround for this.  I'm thinking some app shim that makes Outlook think it's on an XP box or at least not on a TS... or maybe there's simply a DLL that needs to be copied to the TS Office installation from a desktop Office installation so that this is no longer a problem.