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- 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.
-
-