Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Connect Exchange 2007 in Lion Mail Client – Mac OS X 10.7 Needs Latest Exchange 2007


The built in mail client is one of the new and upgraded application in new Mac OX S 10.7 Lion. It is upgraded to version 5 with lots of new features like the mail client in latest iPad and iPhone.  You can find out more information onwhat’s new in lion mail client here. This small guide shows how to connect Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 in Lion Mail on OS X 10.7.
Though Lion OS will be released by this July 2011, but I got the chance to play around with it in my Windows 7 computer by using desktop virtualization software VMware workstation. I already covered how to install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion on VMware workstation.

Connect Exchange 2007 in Lion Mail

Mail 5 supports Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 running on rollup 4 or later versions only. I’m not sure how it will work with Exchange 2010. To start,
1) Select Add account and enter basic details of your email.
Connect Exchange 2007 in Lion Mail Client
If the Exchange 2007 is meeting all requirements to talk with Lion mail properly, then it should detect the settings automatically.
2) Go to next screen and enter more details about mail server and connection type.
Connect Exchange 2007 in Lion Mail Client
Make sure ‘Contacts’ and ‘Calendars’ are selected for synchronization.
Unfortunately, my office mail server doesn’t support the minimum requirement, so it throws the following error.
Exchnage 2007 error
Anyhow, I pressed Continue and reached the next step.
3) If SSL is enabled in your email server, then select ‘Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)’ tick box.
Check the summary and create the account.
That’s it, we have successfully connected Exchange 2007 with Lion mail. This method will ensure the proper synchronization of your email folders, calendars, contacts and Global address list.

There are two more options available to connect Exchange 2007 in Lion mail client.
1) IMAP
2) POP
Your mail server should support these two connection types. User name can be typed alone ( ‘dinesh’) or username@domainname ( dinesh@sysprobs.net) or domain nameusername ( sysprobs.netdinesh), this depends on the settings in mail server.
pop and imap
As you must aware, IMAP will synchronize your email folders (including sent items, trash, draft) and subfolders only, not the calendars or contacts or global address book. There could be some non-straight forward methods available to make this work, but not easy and sure.
POP will download your inbox emails only, not the sub folders or sent items or calendars or contacts or Global address list.
To leave the email messages without removing from server while using POP in Lion mail, make sure touncheck the below box or adjust the duration in drop down box.
leave emails in server lion mail

Connect Exchange 2003 in Lion Mail Client

Exchange 2003 is not directly supported by Mac OS X 10.7 Lion mail. As I said in earlier step, evenExchange 2007 needs SP1 with rollout 4 or latest versions to work properly with Lion OS.  So, old Exchange 2003 is not supported here.
Again you have only two options to connect Exchange 2003 with with Lion mail.
IMAP and POP, these two connection types are having few limitations and can’t get full fledge working Lion mail client with Exchange 2003. In this case, you can go for separate mail clientapplication ‘Entourage’ in Lion OS X to work with most of the Microsoft exchange versions.
I’m sure this small guide with screenshots would have been helpful to understand the requirements to connect Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007 in Lion mail client in Mac OS X 10.7.

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