• it's architecture is proprietary and some of its APIs are undocumented
• it uses RPCs and is therefore hard to use through a firewall
• it has high protocol overhead which can make Outlook less responsive over dial-up links

nevertheless MAPI is the main interface for Outlook to access Exchange, is extremely feature-rich, is used by other Office apps like Word for sending email, and is supported by numerous third-party products from different vendors. But since MAPI is a legacy API that doesn't really fit into Microsoft's new .NET web services paradigm, it's bound to disappear some day, though replacing it would probably mean completely rewriting Outlook as a .NET client app. My guess is that won't happen for another five years though...more on Titanium (and beyond) soon...

HOT... Be sure to check out my new Exchange/Outlook Troubleshooter section, where I am compiling tips from KB articles and other sources on various troubleshooting topics. Topics I've added so far include experiencing slow connections, cannot connect, connecting over a slow link, client hangs, experiencing slow client performance...more topics soon...

NEW SECTION!!... Be sure to check out my new Exchange/Outlook Troubleshooter section, where I am compiling tips from KB articles and other sources on various troubleshooting topics. Topics I've added so far include:

• Experiencing slow connections...
• Cannot connect...
• Connecting over a slow link...
• Client hangs...
• Experiencing slow client performance...

You can also suggest a topic for me to add as well! 

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION... Special thanks to Rod Trent, renowned SMS Guru and manager of myITforum, who wrote a terrific review on Amazon of my new book Microsoft Encyclopedia of Networking, Second Edition. Rod says: "I love books like this! This guide has every network reference you can think of. If you are any kind of network administrator, you'll want a complete reference on your desk. When you were in school, you'd have to grab Webster's daily to complete projects or double-check your own work. Well...now that you've graduated into the Geek world, you need your own Geekified Webster's. I use this reference daily to look up terms I've always talked about, but not quite understood completely. And, believe it or not (OK, I'm a Geek, too), I'll sit in bed and just browse the text from time-to-time, picking up something new every time I crack the book." Buy my book on Amazon! :-)

20 Aug 02 NEW PRODUCTS... I talked this week with Lauren Black of Discus Data about their new and updated products that make the life of an Exchange admin easier. Last week I mentioned their ExMS Migration Suite that automates and streamlines the transition from Ex 5.5 to Ex 2000. I failed to note that this product supports both the upgrade method (add Ex 2000 servers to an Ex 5.5 organization, then migrate mailboxes between servers) and migration method (creating a new Ex 2000 organization, then migrating the Ex 5.5 infrastructure to the new org) for performing such a transition. If you're considering such a project and want to do it in a way that minimizes interruption to users, you may want to check this out. 

Just being released is their ExMS Enterprise Provisioning Manager (EPM), which simplifies and automates bulk provisioning user accounts, mailboxes, list/group memberships, home directories, and logon scripts. It also simplifies delegation, schedules account disabling and deletion, helps integrate with ERP and other resources, and much more. 

Finally, two of their products have recently been enhanced: ExMS ActiveDL (for Ex 5.5) and ExMS Active Groups (for Ex 2000), which lets you automatically create and maintain membership for DLs and security groups, has been enhanced to allow you to monitor and analyze DL usage and automatically regenerate DLs as directory attributes change; and ExMS Directory Integrity Agent (DIA), a tool for managing directories, address books, mailboxes, and public folders, which has now been enhanced with additional features for managing directory synchronization, inactive accounts, mailbox retention policies, scanning mailbox content and so on. 

I hope to try out an online demo of some of these products soon and will revisit them in a future column.  

SHORT STUFF... The order in which display names are shown in the GAL can be changed from Firstname Lastname to Lastname, Firstname using ADSI, see Knowledge Base articles Q277717 and  Q300427--useful in Ex2k if you migrate from NT 4... If you upgrade from Ex2k Standard to Enterprise edition, don't forget to reapply the latest service pack afterwards...see exception... If you have Outlook 2000 in Internet mode and you want to change it to Corporate or Workgroup mode, don't reinstall Outlook, just select Tools | Options | Mail Services | Reconfigure Mail Support and save yourself a ton of time... Sign up for KBALERTZ.COM, the site that tells you when new Knowledge Base articles of interest to you appear on the Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS) web site... More news and views

Deleted item retention is a way of user-proofing your Exchange system so that if a user empties their Deleted Items folder they can still recover accidentally deleted items. If they "hard-delete" items from their Inbox however (for example by using SHIFT+DELETE in Outlook) the messages are unfortunately gone for good. By editing the Registry however you can apply deleted item retention to other folders besides Deleted Items. To find out how, see KB article Q178630. 

Discus Data has recently released several new tools for Exchange including their ExMS Migration Suite, which automates and streamlines migrations from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000. You can read their press release for more info.