[MS Office - 2003] Outlook 2003 auto configure imap accounts using GPO or something similar

[HodgeHi]

Hello,

I am looking into Outlook for our admin staff ready for when we can use our own email server. The mail server is OS X 10.5.5 so outlook will need to have IMAP connections. Now i would like to be able to have the admin staffs' email accounts configured to connect when they log in and so they don't have to worry about doing it themselves. Aren't we nice?

I have downloaded the Office 2003 resource toolkit and imported the OUTLK11.adm template. I thought that this would allow for all sorts of mail configuration options. How wrong was I? I still plan to use this to re-direct the .pst file to their H: though.

So how could i configure their IMAP connections when they log in. There is only 2 members of the admin team, but i plan to roll this out to all staff members when i get it working so when they move about their Outlook should follow them. I could use webmail access but i want them to start using the system and making it as simple as possible without them doing very little seems to be the best way here

We also switch between OS X and XP so obviously having clients on both sides open all the time would be useful so they can receive email no matter what (no escape )

Thanks for any help

[kylewilliamson]

My honest understanding was that you could only do it with exchange....

[Jay]

You can configure a mail store automatically using a PRF file. The easiest way is to use the office setup file with a switch to start the customisation tool and create a templated PRF and then edit it in notepad to insert placeholders. You could use a login script to automatically insert the correct usernames/passwords and import to outlook.

Customize Outlook profiles by using an Outlook Profile (PRF) file

I can't recall the switch to use off hand, try setup.exe /? to see what it gives you.

I've used this to configure accounts automatically, works a treat.

[Zimmer]

Have you looked into RICHPROFILE?

If you can make use of MAPI then that may be your answer, RICHPROFILE can be included in your login script to configure the Outlook 2003 client.