Using Entourage for Mac with Microsoft Exchange – Part 2
More Potential Problems and How To Fix Them
We received so much positive feedback on last month’s article about using Entourage for Mac with Microsoft Exchange that we decided to make this subject a two-part series. Here are some additional issues that we’ve seen crop up, and information about what you can do about them:
Annoying Error Occurs When Connecting to Exchange with Entourage
Sometimes when Mac users attempt to use Microsoft’s Entourage email client program to connect to Microsoft Exchange 2003 they get the following error message:
“HTTP 500 - Internal server error”
If you restart the World Wide Web Publishing service on the Exchange Mailbox Server the issue will probably go away for a few days, but this doesn’t really solve the problem. Basically you never know when this error will first appear, but once it does come up it tends to keep occurring on a regular basis.
Incorrect Times Show on Meeting Requests
Many of our clients have reported a problem with Entourage users receiving meeting requests with the wrong meeting times – a potentially disastrous (or at least embarrassing) problem. This issue occurs under the following circumstances:
- The meeting organizer, working in an Exchange Server 2003 or 2007 environment, uses Outlook to send a single-instance meeting request (not a recurring meeting) to the Entourage user.
- The meeting organizer’s computer and the meeting attendee’s computer are in the same time zone, but the meeting organizer’s Exchange Server computer is in a different time zone.
This problem appears to happen because for single-instance meeting requests, Outlook stamps the time field in the request by using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). However, Outlook does not include any time zone information. So when the Exchange Server converts the meeting request from Outlook’s MAPI format to Entourage’s iCal format, the time field gets stamped using the local time on the sender’s Exchange server (which, as we’ve already established, is in a different time zone than either the sender or the receiver). The end result: the Entourage user receives a meeting request with an incorrect time.
Mysterious Duplicate Calendar Items Confuse Entourage Users
When you use Entourage to access a calendar that is on an Exchange 2007 server you can end up with duplicate calendar items. This problem occurs when the Entourage user edits a particular calendar item when there are other calendar items with the same subject line, because an internal process in Entourage causes Exchange 2007 to return all calendar items with the same name. In response, Entourage creates duplicates.
Problems with Modifications to Recurring Meetings
If you create a recurring meeting with Entourage on Exchange 2007, modifying some of the instances of the meeting can cause other instances to be modified unexpectedly.
- The Fix: Unfortunately there isn’t one yet. Microsoft is aware of this issue and is working on it. In the meantime, we recommend that you warn your Entourage users about the existence of this problem so that they can watch out for it.
As more companies allow Macintoshes into their corporate environments, Entourage is becoming more prevalent…and as more people use Entourage in an Exchange environment, more issues are discovered. These past two months we have shared the bigger issues that we have seen out in the field. As more arise we will keep you informed.
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