Outlook Express settings on domain logon

[Samson]

Hi there

I'm currently in the process of setting up an internal mail server.

All the computers in school have outlook express installed.

What I want to know is, how do I auto-configure outlook express so that whenever a user logs on, it automatically sets outlook express up for their mail settings?

Thanks in advance!

[Geoff]

You can't do it AFAIK.

What you'd normally do is use Outlook 2003 and Exchange 2003 server. You can push the Exchange server settings out to Outlook using Group Policies.

[Samson]

I dont have Outlook 2003, nor an Exchange server, only a free GNU mailserver called hMailServer.

Surely if group policy can do it with 2003, express should be similar? I've seen it done for a start...

Any good resources on pushing the settings out via group policy?

Cheers.

[Geoff]

You can't push OE settings out via GPO.

What about using a webmail front end? Then the only thing you'd need to push out to users would be a desktop shortcut?

[limbo]

I am guessing when you have seen this done it is probably using a registry hack rather then a true group policy.

I have never done it as we use the full version of Outlook with Exchange but it is something we might need to be able to teach a couple of SOW next year.

Having just had a very quick look it seems that the registry key that holds the information is in the sub folders of:-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Account Manager

The pop server info seems to be in the sub folder called Accounts / 00000001 including the username and encrypted password, pop server and email address.

If you were happy with the students inputting their own username and password everytime then I guess you can just set them globally, leaving out the username and password, and then importing them using a GPO or a login script.

Cannot be any more precise that this at the moment because hopefully this will start you in the right direction.

[Samson]

Cheers.

Yeah thats definately a step in the right direction.

The internal mail will be for staff useage solely, I spoke with my superiors about student mail and we figured it'd be pretty useless, it being internal and all.

I'll look into this and hopefully annoy the county council ICT centre by modifying their login scripts further, which is always fun!

Cheers!

[DaveW]

Hi,

We also set up Linux-based internal email for our students, specifically because of the KS3 on-screen testing that was to go ahead but then, not. We wanted the students to have experience of using email with a client that resembled the QCA software as closely as possible but did not have the budget for Exchange etc.

The interface was so similar to MS Office / Outlook Express etc. that using Web-based email, although we have now done this, was not ideal and would not familiarise students with the QCA interface. Thunderbird was an obvious choice but it doesn't yet support roaming profiles - I think that SeaMonkey does, however.

Perhaps Thunderbird, or similar, could be used if students' 'Application Data' folders were redirected? Any advice on this much appreciated, although we don't currently have enough storage space left to implement this anyway.

Cheers,

Dave.