Setting Up The Post Office


After completing the installation of Windows Messaging, you will need to setup the Microsoft Mail Postoffice setup from the Control Panel.

Double click on Microsoft Mail Postoffice and select Create New Workgroup Postoffice and then Next. You can select the root directory of a drive and a subfolder wgpo0000 will be created.

You will be prompted for the administrator name and password for the current post office.

Upon completion, you will need to go through the step to add users and create individual mailboxes to your present post office by selecting "Administer an existing Workgroup Postoffice" instead of the initial "Create New Workgroup Postoffice".

Browse to your post office location and then enter your administrator's mailbox and password.

Once you have entered the mailbox name and password, you can add new users by selecting "Add User" from the options.

You will need to share the Postoffice folder (ie. the initial folder name created "wgpo0000") for other users on the network to access their mailboxes.


Setting Up Client Connection


Each client machine has to be setup with either Microsoft Outlook or Windows Messaging.

To add a user's configuration, double click on Mail icon in Control Panel and then select Add on the current profile or change it to the one you are configuring. Multiple users can be using the same system and thus there may be more than one profile under the Mail option.

From the list of services available, select Microsoft Mail and click OK.

Under Connection tab, browse to the location of your share Postoffice folder on the network. Select Local area network (LAN) if the present user's computer does not change it location and does not requires dialing-in from remote to logon.

On the logon tab, add the user's mailbox name and password. Password are not case-sensitive.

Leave the rest as default and select Apply and OK.

If user would like to change their password, it can only be done after Microsoft Mail finalises the configuration.

User can then change their password by going to Mail icon, double click on Microsoft Mail, select the Logon tab and click Change Mailbox Password.

For multiple-recipients type of email accounts, we would normally create a shared folder on Outlook setup at the server and then redirect all mails for that email account to it. This would ensure that all users can view the messages.

Unfortunately, in such instance, even users not from that mail account may also be able to view it. One way to restrict is set access to that folder on a user-level access.


Subsequent Newer Version


The features in Microsoft Mail are quite basic but should be sufficient for the needs of smaller organisations.

Windows Messaging is probably the last product that is provided at no charge. All newer version of it, which is now known as Instant Messaging, are bundle with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 onwards.

The Instant Messenging (or Windows Messenger for XP/2000) are messaging clients used for connecting to Office Live Communications Server which comprises of support for Microsoft .NET Messenger Service and Exchange 2000 Instant Messenger Service.

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