Little document about using Microsoft Exchange as your email program -------------------------------------------------------------------- Before I get started, I would like to point out that a wealth of information is available over the Internet. I do not intent to repeat that information here, there is just too much; I will just try and hit the highlights. I would also like to point out that I do not represent Microsoft or CompuServe. I just am just someone who had a problem with WinCIM and was able to solve it with Microsoft Exchange; it helps to be a programmer. Here are some Internet sites that you might find of interest ------------------------------------------------------------ I have found lots of information about MS Exchange at the web sites that follow. There were many more sites, but these were my favorite. Microsoft Windows 95 Detailed Questions and Answers February 1996 http://www.microsoft.com/windows/qa/qa.htm Getting Started Guide: Introduction to Microsoft Exchange http://www.lsusd.lsumc.edu/csvc/docs/Exchange/Schplus.htm Ben Goetter's Microsoft Exchange Frequently Asked Questions http://www.halcyon.com/goetter/exclifaq.htm Jerry's Windows 95 E-Mail & News Page Lots of interesting mail programs and add-ons http://www.syspac.com/~jbaldwin/email.html Detailed document about how to setup MS Exchange http://www.almac.co.uk/almac/services/email.html PC Week review of Microsoft Exchange http://www.pcweek.com/sr/0821/tmail.html Answer to some common questions ------------------------------- Q: Is Windows 95 required to run MS Exchange? A: Yes Q: Is MS Exchange free? A: Yes, it comes with Windows 95. Q: Does that mean I have to cancel my CompuServe service? A: No. Microsoft Exchange is not the same as the Microsoft Network (MSN). In fact, you can use MS Exchange to receive email from both CompuServe and MSN. Q: Once I start using MS Exchange, do I have to stop using WinCIM? A: No, but you might want to be consistent where you send or where you receive mail. Q: If CSMAIL can already be used to retrieve CompuServe mail, then what would CS2Exchange be used for? A: CS2Exchange would only be used once to import all the old WinCIM messages into MS Exchange. This type of utility would appeal to the person that likes to save everything. If you typically delete messages after reading them, then CS2Exchange is not the utility for you. Q: What was that "begin 600 WINMAIL.DAT" stuff at the end of the message? A: Microsoft has a document that explains the problem and a solution. Actually, Ben Goetter's page is where I first found the problem documented. I tried to prevent you from seeing this stuff, but caught it too late. http://www.microsoft.com/kb/bussys/exchange/q136204.htm Interesting MS Exchange Features ----------------------------- If you were using MS Exchange now, and I knew it in advance, I could send you a fancy document with bitmaps that describe the advantages of MS Exchange. But since I don't know if you are using MS Exchange, I must try and describe the features with text alone. I'm going to try and keep this document short, so if you want more information on a specific feature, just ask. If you want specific instructions on how to use the CSMAIL transport from CompuServe, I can send you a document on that topic. 1) An elaborate folder list. Folders can contain folders that can contain folders. Folders can also contain text files, documents, spreadsheets and faxes. Folders can be customized to display message attributes that have been sorted by any of the attributes, like date, size or sender. Other message attributes include Importance, Category, Comments, Company, Keywords, Security, Sensitivity, and Title. You can password protect your personal folders to keep others out. 2) There is a search tool that allows you to specify a particular sender, a particular receiver, a subject, or some text in the body. The search can by narrowed by message size, message date, and order of importance. The best part about the search feature is that the results of the search can be dragged to the appropriate folder in MS Exchange. 3) An advanced feature of MS Exchange is the ability to read Internet or CompuServe mail from more than one account. This would allow multiple users to share the same machine but have separate email. This feature is a tad complicated to setup, but there are a number of books and Internet document that can wall you through it. 4) MS Exchange can send faxes directly out of the email program. You might think that this would put WinFAX PRO out of business, but, instead, WinFAX PRO 7.0 was written to take advantage of this feature. 5) MS Exchange can send and receive email from CompuServe, America Online, Microsoft Network and the Internet. 6) Mail can be sent with attachments using the MIME format. The MIME format is a standard that allows files to be transferred through a variety of computers. This feature will allow you to send documents and spreadsheets to your friends. If a particular friend is also using MS Exchange, you can send mail that includes formatting like bold, italics and various fonts. This feature can be enabled and disabled for each friend. 7) MS Exchange supports MAPI, which means you can send a message from within most Windows 95 programs. Even the Paint program has a Send menu option. 8) When you reply to a message, the original text is placed at the bottom. WinCIM can do this, but it will cost you extra. 9) MS Exchange can check your spelling. Actually, this feature only applies if you have the spelling checking in Microsoft Office 95 installed. You can get WinCIM to check your spelling, but again, it will cost extra. 10) The address book can contain groups of people. Address Book can contain fax and email addresses. The addresses in the Address Book can also contain personal information like Title, Company, Department, Office, mailing address, and a variety of phone numbers. Now for the down side of MS Exchange --------------------------------- It is a memory hog. I can't give specifics on how much memory is required, but suffice it to say that you should not keep MS Exchange running all the time unless you have over 16M RAM. My suggestion is to just run it when you want to check your mail. There were a large number of people who responded to my survey with disdain toward MS Exchange. The biggest complaint was the time it took to load MS Exchange. There were a number of people that complained about an interface that was not intuitive. I disagree, but then I have a programmer's viewpoint. (I was pleasantly surprised that I could drag messages over to MS Explorer and drag files over to MS Exchange.) Interesting MS Exchange Add-ons ---------------------------- Exchange was designed with add-ons in mind, which is probably why it is slow. Here are a few examples: 1) Deming Preview - adds a preview window to the MS Exchange client. http://www.deming.com/preview/preview.exe 2) Internet Idioms - appends boilerplate text to outgoing messages. http://www.halcyon.com/goetter/inetxidm.zip 3) MailAlert - reduced memory utility for monitoring incoming mail. http://www.diamondridge.com/diamond/software/mailalert/mailalert.zip 4) Microsoft Internet Mail and Newsreader - Latest program from Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/ie/download/Mailnews95.exe 5) PGP Extension - sign, encrypt and decrypt messages within MS Exchange. http://homepage.interaccess.com/~jon/PGPEXT.ZIP 6) Voice Email - create and send voice email. http://www.bonzi.com/voicemsm/voicemsm.htm Paul CS2Exchange Software cs2exchg@ma.ultranet.com End of Document.