[Samba] Re: Error in documentation: Samba 3 By Example: Chapter 5 - Making Users Happy in re: Outlook

[Alan Dodd]

Jonathan Johnson ha scritto:
> 
> NOTE: Outlook Express store files are quite different from Outlook store
> files. Outlook Express store files can not be redirected to network
> shares (the options panel won't allow it), but they can be moved to
> folders outside the user's profile, or excluded from synchronization
> with the roaming profile. While it is possible to redirect the data
> stores by editing the registry, experience has shown that data
> corruption and loss of messages will result. Like Outlook store files,
> Outlook Express store files can become quite large, and when used with
> roaming profiles can result in excruciatingly long login and logout
> times while the stores are synchronized. For this reason, it is
> recommended not to use Outlook Express in a roaming profiles environment.
> 
> ++++
> 
> To expand on the last note about Outlook Express -- using OE's tools (as
> described in the confusing documentation above) will allow you to change
> the location where the OE store files are kept. However, it will only
> permit you to change it to a local drive. This path is stored in the
> registry. I have attempted to change to a network path via the registry,
> which indeed does take, but I've run into problems. It seems that
> Outlook Express expects very fast response when reading these files. If
> there is any lag at all, such as you might find across a network, it
> assumes the files are unavailable and creates new, blank store files.
> Old messages are effectively lost, and cannot be retrieved without the
> use of third-party mailbox recovery tools. If you ask me, that's sloppy
> and irresponsible programming on Microsoft's part -- but then again,
> maybe it's intentional to force you to buy Outlook.
> 

Hello everybody,

I didn't try Ms Outlook, but with OE I had EXACTLY the same experience - 
using roaming profiles with 50 users and hacking windows registry to 
make it point to the network home directory created havoc.
Every time the network got a bit slow, OE reset the connection to a new 
-local- folder.
Tried using Thunderbird with Imap, but this was quite bulky, messages 
get cached locally, and if there is a lot of mail, when the roaming user 
changes workstation, he/she has to wait 'till the cache reloads (550M? 1G?).
(And for security reasons we must delete the cache anyway, and if we 
don't use cache, the thing gets slow, and......)
I then installed a web interface mail client which works quite well, but 
is not as complete as OE or Ms Outlook or Moz Thunderbird are.
I think if some guy from Mozilla would want to build an option to store 
collected messages in a (centralized) database like Mysql, Thunderbird 
would become a killer app for roaming profiles! (already tried giving 
them a hint - no response yet)

Regards
Alan