10 things to remember after upgrading to Exchange 2007

Exchange 2007 is a new member of the family and provides new and cool features such as unified messaging, improved spam filtering, and smart travel arrangements. However, as with other upgrades, there are some features that have been left behind. Here are some of the features you've been familiar with in Exchange 2003, but in the coming days you'll probably miss them-at least for me.

1: Transparent support for pop3/pop3s and imap4/imap4s

POP3 is the most used Internet email protocol. In Exchange System Manager, Exchange 2003 fully supports the POP3 protocol. All you have to do is enable the POP3 service, then open Exchange System Manager, locate the POP3 server, and then configure all aspects of the protocol above. This includes not only the authentication method, but also the POP3 through TLS. In Exchange 2007, there is no graphical support for POP3, and you can only enable POP3 via TLS by using a command-line interface, which can quickly make you dizzy.

IMAP4 is another popular protocol for accessing Internet e-mail. Unlike POP3, which downloads all the letters, IMAP4 generally only downloads the head of the letter; the subject of the letter is downloaded only when the letter is selected. In Exchange 2003, it is extremely easy to go into the service console to enable the IMAP4 protocol and to open Exchange System Manager directly to enter the related configuration of IMAP4.

In the ESM, you can also configure support for the authentication protocol, as well as specific configuration authentication to protect the IMAP4 via TLS. You don't have to memorize command line interface commands, no matter how simple the command is. With Exchange 2007, you'll soon find that enabling IMAP4 and imaps is not just as easy as being unconscious, because you will find that you will have to contend with the command shell to be able to do what you want to do.

2: Transparent support for SMTP

One of the great things about Exchange 2003 is the absolute transparency support for SMTP servers. If you understand the IIS SMTP service, you can understand the Exchange SMTP service. Need more virtual servers to support SMTP and SMTP via TLS? Do you also need to support SMTP with authentication? No problem! Just create a new virtual SMTP server. You have a dozen SMTP options available, and they are very approximate because you know the IIS SMTP service.

In Exchange 2007, SMTP services are hidden behind countless connectors and are difficult to understand, and they are unable to provide the transparent and flexible SMTP service, as in Exchange 2003. Perhaps you can use the command shell to perform some of these configuration options, but who has the luxury of taking the time to learn a whole new command line interface?

3: Transparent view of the user's mailbox

In Exchange 2003 System Manager, you can easily view the user login information, the size of the user's mailbox, and the number of items in the user's mailbox. At the same time, you can also see some interesting information, such as the full text indexing status. Now, when you examine the Exchange 2007 management console, you will find that all this information is no longer present. I've heard that you can use the command-line interface to get this information, but why do we have to enter the command to do it in Exchange 2003 just by clicking a few clicks?