On clients with XP SP2 (with firewall turned on with default firewall settings)
with Outlook communicating with Exchange server using RPC, there is a glitch:
the new items arrive and go to and from your computer, but you won't see them,
until you change the folder.
For example, if you are connected on a LAN and send and email to someone,
normally, it would appear in the Outbox folder for a second, and then be gone.
This is not the case with XP SP2 with default firewall settings: the item would
appear as a new item in the Outbox until you change the folders (just click on
any other folder). While the item actually was sent (it appears in the
recepient's mailbox without any delays), it would still appear in the Outbox,
until you click on another folder.
The same thing happens with Inbox. Even though email are physically downloaded
by Outlook from Exchange, they are not displayed automatically, until you click
on any other folder.
To confirm that this had to do with the firewall, I turned it off. As I
expected, turning off the firewall restores Outlook to normal operation.
This is not a fatal bug, of course, but it gets very annoying after awhile.
To remedy this, I used to put the OUTLOOK.EXE executable in the Exceptions list
in Firewall settings. To do so, go to Control Panel -> Windows Firewall
Exceptions Tab -> Add Program and select Outlook from the list, or if it's not
in the list, just browse to the location of the OUTLOOK.EXE (normally in
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\ folder). Also, a good idea is to change the
scope of ip addresses this exception applies to. Click on the Scope button, and
change the defualt value to the ip address of your Exchange server.
Oleg Bestseny
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NTBugtraq Editor's Note:
Want to reply to the person who sent this message? This list is configured such
that just hitting reply is going to result in the message coming to the list,
not to the individual who sent the message. This was done to help reduce the
number of Out of Office messages posters received. So if you want to send a
reply just to the poster, you'll have to copy their email address out of the
message and place it in your TO: field.
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