Domain – Exchange Server in Workgroup / Small Domain

domainexchangeworkgroup

For one of the projects I'm working on, the site currently has a workgroup of around 15 PCs (XP/Vista/7- these are employees' own computers) and one file server running Server 2008.

They use externally-hosted email (accessed in Outlook via IMAP) but would like an Exchange server in order to centralize Outlook contacts/calendar info, get mobile syncing via Exchange ActiveSync, and perhaps add web access via OWA.

Can Exchange be set up in a workgroup, or if I set up a domain with the new Exchange server (or SBS, whic might be a more financially viable route), or the current file server, as a PDC, would that work (given that most of the clients are running Home Premium OSes)?

The only constraint is that configuration changes on the clients should be limited to Outlook if possible (e.g. I can't have them all switch to Business edition OSes).

Best Answer

First, to answer the question. I believe that Exchange must be in an AD domain. However, I believe that it can be it's own "standalone" domain, which is essentially the same thing. The PC on which Outlook is installed does not have to be in the domain, so the Home Premium PCs should be OK.

Now, some additional thoughts.

1- The things you want to do (Active Sync, common contacts and calendars, OWA) can all be done on a hosted Exchange environment. Two good providers are MainStreet and SherWeb; there are tons more. Almost certainly it is better financially than rolling your own.

2- SBS is also a good solution .. I recommend it over building a single server domain and Exchange installation.

3- There are other EXCELLENT reasons for installing an AD domain if you aren't going to outsource. See the questions here, here, here, and here.

4- I would not be OK with employee-controlled PCs direct access to the server unless I had a good handle on the anti-virus and security setup on those PCs. In networks I manage, PCs not provided by me get very limited access to the infrastructure through a firewall.

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Apply this rule after I send the message
uses the Meeting Request form
CC the message to X

Where X is the account you want to get copied.

Client-only, I'm afraid, so won't work in OWA. For that you'd need something like a transport rule, but since you can't touch the server, that's no good.

What are possible reasons why a calendar entry in OWA is at a different time than in Outlook

This is almost certainly a time zone issue in OWA.

Outlook adopts the time zone of the host operating system; both of your client machines are configured for the same time zone, so the appointment is displayed at the same time on both machines in Outlook.

Outlook Web Access can't make the assumption that the client machine where the web browser is running is in the same time zone as the server, so the Outlook Web Access client provides a user-configurable option where the user can set their current time zone. This information is stored for each user.

Sign in to Outlook Web Access, navigate to the Options page and select the Date & Time Formats section to check the current time zone setting. Select the correct time zone and click the Save button and you should be able to avoid showing up to meetings four hours early!

Note that these options in Outlook Web Access are stored per-user, so the user experiencing the problem will need to check and modify this setting.

We currently use Exchange 2007; Outlook Web Access for Exchange 2007 calls this Options section "Regional Settings" instead of "Date & Time Formats" but it works the same.

I believe that users are prompted to configure their time zone the very first time they sign in to Outlook Web Access; however, most users of Outlook Web Access aren't aware of this setting, so if is set incorrectly or needs to be changed, most people don't even know to look for it...

Best Answer

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What are possible reasons why a calendar entry in OWA is at a different time than in Outlook

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