Changes made on one machine, not replicated for another - Exchange Cached Mode

[MrJDH]

Hello all,

If a user is set to use Exchange Cached Mode, and they say, delete 5 emails from their Inbox (which works successfully), why would those same emails show as being back in their Inbox, if they log onto another machine? (one they have logged on to in the past). Would it suggest that the changes made on one machine, aren't being replicated back to the Exchange server?

[MrJDH]

Has no-one come across this before? Eek..

[DT2]

Hello all,

If a user is set to use Exchange Cached Mode, and they say, delete 5 emails from their Inbox (which works successfully), why would those same emails show as being back in their Inbox, if they log onto another machine? (one they have logged on to in the past). Would it suggest that the changes made on one machine, aren't being replicated back to the Exchange server?

If the mail is deleted from the mailbox, it should remove them from the server too. Being that it is cached, if a user logs onto another system where an old version of their .ost resides outlook doesn't bother to re-sync the entire mailbox every time, it just pulls the new items.
Although, I still can't fathom why anyone stills uses cached exchange. It's a PITA.

[gshaw]

Although, I still can't fathom why anyone stills uses cached exchange. It's a PITA.

Funny enough I was just re-looking at this while documenting our Exchange server where I force Outlook to be set to online mode (cached disabled). Saw some documents saying Cached is recommended so was beginning to wonder if I made the right choice... seen a few posts like this since and remembered why I was so adamant in turning it off in the first place!

[DT2]

Funny enough I was just re-looking at this while documenting our Exchange server where I force Outlook to be set to online mode (cached disabled). Saw some documents saying Cached is recommended so was beginning to wonder if I made the right choice... seen a few posts like this since and remembered why I was so adamant in turning it off in the first place!

I can see why you'd employ it in an environment where you have a lot of remote/offline users, but in the office where everyone has desktops, wtf!?! We use it here and it really pains me some days.....

[MrJDH]

Thanks DT2. Much appreciated.

[DT2]

No problem buddy.

[sukh]

Cache mode is still recommended for most deployments, not just for remote users. If you have an Exch outage and you don't know how long it will take to recover, at least users can still access the email (which is kinda critical nowadays for most) and continue to work. They can still compose emails and send (let it sit in their Outbox) and it will send when service is restored.

People hardly notice if there's an Exch outage if in cache mode, in online mode, people will.

Reduce server impact, i.e indexing a query takes place local rather than the server.

Don't need to worry about rebuilding indexes for your DAG.

Old, but a FYI - Cached Mode - Bill & Greg's Most Excellent Adventure - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Outlook 2013 has major improvements for offline access.

I do see scenarios whereby cache mode can be a pain but this depends on the env and how end users use email.

[MrJDH]

Cache mode is still recommended for most deployments, not just for remote users. If you have an Exch outage and you don't know how long it will take to recover, at least users can still access the email (which is kinda critical nowadays for most) and continue to work. They can still compose emails and send (let it sit in their Outbox) and it will send when service is restored.

People hardly notice if there's an Exch outage if in cache mode, in online mode, people will.

Reduce server impact, i.e indexing a query takes place local rather than the server.

Don't need to worry about rebuilding indexes for your DAG.

Old, but a FYI - Cached Mode - Bill & Greg's Most Excellent Adventure - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Outlook 2013 has major improvements for offline access.

I do see scenarios whereby cache mode can be a pain but this depends on the env and how end users use email.

Thanks for the contribution. Something to bear in mind.