Chapter 5: Setting Up Microsoft Mail

This chapter steps you through setup of Microsoft Mail. With Microsoft Mail service, you can exchange email with other people in your organization who have Microsoft Mail addresses, post information in shared folders, and — if your postoffice is connected to a gateway — exchange email with people on other mail systems or even send faxes.

---

Microsoft Mail is Microsoft’s older e-mail product family. It comes in a full server version and in a “workgroup postoffice” version included with Windows 95 and Windows NT.

With the Microsoft Mail service, you can

• Exchange e-mail with other people in your organization who have Microsoft Mail addresses.
• If your postoffice is connected to a gateway, exchange e-mail with people on other mail systems or even send faxes. (A gateway is a way of connecting a Microsoft Mail Server to other types of mail systems, such as an Internet mail server or Novell NetWare mail.)
• Post information in shared folders for other members of your postoffice to see (but not including Outlook appointments or contacts).

REQUIREMENTS

To use the Microsoft Mail service for Outlook, you must have

• a Microsoft Mail postoffice to connect to (you need to know the network path to the postoffice)
• an account in that postoffice and the password for that account

The postoffice can be a full postoffice created with Microsoft Mail Server, or it can be a workgroup postoffice created either by the Mail program that comes with Windows for Workgroups or Windows NT 3.x, or by the Microsoft Mail Postoffice applet in the Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 Control Panel.

If you’ve never used Microsoft Mail on your network, you can create your own postoffice and add user accounts. But to do this, you must install Exchange or Windows Messaging with the Microsoft Mail service before installing Microsoft Outlook. Otherwise, you will not find the Microsoft Mail Postoffice applet in the Control Panel.

BASIC SETUP

Depending on how Outlook was set up on your machine, you may already have Microsoft Mail in your default profile. But, assuming you don’t, let’s walk through the two different methods of adding it: via the setup wizard and by manually adding the service. See Chapter 3 if you need a refresher on how to add a service to an Outlook profile.

The advantage of using the wizard is that it lets you pick your name from the list of people with accounts on the postoffice; you don’t have to know your actual mailbox name. The advantage of configuring manually is that you get the chance to establish all the settings at once. If you tend to veer from the defaults (see Table 5.1 later in this chapter), then manual configuration is probably your best bet. Manual configuration is also the most efficient method if you’re setting up Microsoft Mail on a laptop or on any system that isn’t currently connected to the network where the postoffice resides. We discuss both setup methods after taking a quick look at some preparation you need if you’re upgrading to Outlook from an older version of Microsoft Mail.

If You’ve Used Microsoft Mail Before

Before you set up Microsoft Mail, make sure that your old messages are available for Outlook to import. These old messages are stored in an .mmf file, either on the postoffice or on your local drive. Locally stored messages are usually in a file called Msmail.mmf in your Windows folder. If the messages are on the server, you need to use the old Microsoft Mail program to move or copy them so Outlook can import them.

To copy the old messages, follow these steps before you install Outlook:

1. Start Microsoft Mail and log on to your account.
2. In Microsoft Mail, choose File, Export Folder.
3. Specify a name for your export file, then click OK.
4. In the Export Folders dialog box, choose Select All Folders.
5. Click Copy to copy all the folders and your Personal Address Book to the export file. Click the Close button when finished.
6. Choose File, Exit and Sign Out to close Mail.

Alternatively, if you prefer to move the message file from the server to another location,

1. Run Microsoft Mail and log on to your account.
2. Choose Mail, Options.
3. From the Options dialog box, click the Server button.
4. Choose Local and, in the File box, specify a path to the .mmf file; this path can be either on a local drive or at another server location.
5. Click OK twice to return to the main Mail window.
6. Choose File, Exit and Sign Out to close Mail.

To import the .mmf file after you install Outlook, see “Importing from Microsoft Mail” in Chapter 16.

Using the Setup Wizard

Now that you have access to any earlier Microsoft Mail .mmf files, you can proceed to add Microsoft Mail to your profile. As noted earlier in this chapter, there are two ways to do this — using the Inbox Setup Wizard or manually.

The setup wizard is available only when you create a new profile through the Mail and Fax applet in the Control Panel.

To add a profile using the setup wizard, follow these steps:

1. Run the Mail and Fax applet in the Control Panel.
2. Click the Show Profiles button.
3. Choose Add.
4. In the first screen of the setup wizard, choose Use the Following Information Services and check the ones you want, in this case being sure to include Microsoft Mail.
5. Click Next to continue, and give the profile a name on the next screen of the wizard, then click Next again to begin configuring Microsoft Mail and any other services you selected.

Here are the steps in the wizard that are specific to Microsoft Mail:

1. The wizard asks the path to your postoffice (Figure 5.1). This path is likely to be \\Servername\wgpo0000 or something similar if the postoffice is on a workstation or an NT server. You may be able to locate the path by browsing the LAN through Network Neighborhood, but it’s probably quicker just to ask the system administrator. Click Next to continue.
2. If you’ve entered the postoffice path correctly and the wizard can connect to it, the system displays a list of Microsoft Mail users (Figure 5.2). Pick your name, then click Next to continue.
   
   If you see the list of users but your name isn’t there, you don’t have an account on the postoffice and therefore will not be able to set up Microsoft Mail. Click the Cancel button and make sure you get an account before you try to configure Microsoft Mail again.
   
   If you get the message “Could not connect to the postoffice that you specified,” follow the wizard’s instructions for correcting the postoffice path or, if the path is correct but the postoffice is currently unavailable, click Next to continue. Also click Next if you always work remotely.
3. If you picked your name from the postoffice list, you’ll see Figure 5.3. Enter your password, then click Next to continue.
   
   If you couldn’t connect to the postoffice in step 2, you will be prompted in the dialog box in Figure 5.4 to enter both your Mailbox and Password. Enter the name of your mail account and its password. The system administrator should be able to give you that information if you don’t have it already. Click Next to continue.

<< Previous Page Next Page >>