Outlook Compatible Mail Required

[crocketb]

I guess I wont be upgrading to one of those nice new Macbooks that can't run Classic.

I used to use Apple Mail to access my companies mail system but when they upgraded Exchange they cut off all access except for Outlook. I think the Sys admin has it in for me. He say's it's a security issue and since I'm the only Mac user he's not willing to do any investigation to see how I could be turned back on.

So I need to run Classic to run Outlook to read my mail. Nothing else works not Entourage, not Outlook Web Access, nothing. (Some quirk of the VPN wont let me access OWA)

If someone knows of an Outlook compatible mail client please let me know. I don't care about calendar and all the rest I just want to be able to send & receive mail. The old Mac Outlook sucks big time. No HTML, No imbeded images, The address systems a mess.

I know Novel has some plugin for it's Linux mail program that emulates Outlook. But that doesn't help me.

 

[mduser63]

You're asking for an Outlook compatible client that's not Outlook, but you say that nothing except Outlook works? The closest to Outlook on the Mac would of course be Entourage. I'm a little confused as to why Entourage won't work. It is of course the official way to connect to Exchange mail in OS X. I really doubt you're going to be able to find something that works if Entourage won't. Sounds like your sys admin is a typical MS-trained appliance operator.

 

[iMeowbot]

Yeah, this is a common problem. Entourage really doesn't implement MAPI fully, so lots of people are in the same boat (I'm there).

I'm expecting that there will be some solution to this soon enough, in the form of something like VMware, VPC or Wine that will allow Windows Outlook to run under OS X. It's only a matter of when.

 

[mrgreen4242]

Sounds like your sys admin is a typical MS-trained appliance operator.

To be fair, you can't really place this problem on the network admin. He is almost certainly an overworked individual who has a lot of what he can and can't do dictated to him by someone who has no clue about what they are talking about.

It's hard to expect him to solve a compatibility issue that only effects a single user, especially when there is a extremely easy solution the user can take: don't buy and Intel based Mac (yet). I'm sure that a solution will present itself for this problem sooner or later, but considering that the Intel Mac has been out in users hands for what, a week, and you can't even buy the machine you want right now, I think you can be a little more patient.

I fully expect to see some form of WINE on Mactels within the year, which means you will almost assuredly be able to run Outlook on your Macbook. In the mean time, don't blame the admin.

If it isn't obvious, I am a system administrator. I am lucky to work for a fairly small non-profit - 30ish users - and have pretty much free reign over my "department" (me); not everyone can be that lucky, though, and I know what a PITA the job can be.

 

[MisterMe]

To be fair, you can't really place this problem on the network admin. He is almost certainly an overworked individual who has a lot of what he can and can't do dictated to him by someone who has no clue about what they are talking about.

It's hard to expect him to solve a compatibility issue that only effects a single user, especially when there is a extremely easy solution the user can take: don't buy and Intel based Mac (yet). I'm sure that a solution will present itself for this problem sooner or later, but considering that the Intel Mac has been out in users hands for what, a week, and you can't even buy the machine you want right now, I think you can be a little more patient.

I fully expect to see some form of WINE on Mactels within the year, which means you will almost assuredly be able to run Outlook on your Macbook. In the mean time, don't blame the admin.

If it isn't obvious, I am a system administrator. I am lucky to work for a fairly small non-profit - 30ish users - and have pretty much free reign over my "department" (me); not everyone can be that lucky, though, and I know what a PITA the job can be.

B$. As a victim--I mean user--of Entourage 2004 on Exchange, I say "nonsense." It would be difficult to have an Exchange system administrator less competent than mine. I'm not sure he walks upright. As bad as he and his staff are, Entourage 2004 still works--in a fashion. Sadly, an upgrade late last Summer rendered Exchange incompatible with MacOS X Mail's Exchange settings.

 

[mrgreen4242]

B$. As a victim--I mean user--of Entourage 2004 on Exchange, I say "nonsense." It would be difficult to have an Exchange system administrator less competent than mine. I'm not sure he walks upright. As bad as he and his staff are, Entourage 2004 still works--in a fashion. Sadly, an upgrade late last Summer rendered Exchange incompatible with MacOS X Mail's Exchange settings.

For whatever reason this places particular Exchange setup does not work with Entourage. You don't know why, you don't know what the circumstances are that make it not work. Entourage pretty much sucks and blows at the same time. It works for lots of people, but ask around and you will hear that it doesn't work for a lot of others. Just because you can connect to your Exchange server with Entourage doesn't mean it will work for this other group. There are so many configurations of Windows/Exchange servers out there (NT4/5.5 is used, 2k/5.5 is very popular, then you have 2k/2000, 2k3/2000, 2k3/2k3, plus all the various service pack levels for both Windows and Exchange) that one particular setup has almost nothing to do with the other.

Again, why should this person have to do a ton of extra work to provide access to a SINGLE user who ALREADY has WORKING access through his existing system? Upgrading to an Intel machine, right now, is completely by choice. If you NEED a new computer there are PLENTY of Macs you can buy right now, brand new, that will let you run Classic and do what you have to do.

You may think that he is a knuckle dragger, and he may be I don't know him, but managing a network and all of the client services isn't as easy as everyone seems to think. Often making one change in order to make one person happy breaks something else; either an actual service is broken, or a "mandate" from your boss is violated.

Please note that I am not trying to give the original poster a hard time. I understand that you WANT a MacBook, so do I! But, in your case you have a compelling reason to wait for a bit to see if the software you NEED becomes available... I have to think that MS knows about the issues with Entourage, and know that people are using the Classic version of Outlook to connect to some Exchange servers. I would assume/hope that the next version of Office, likely the first Intel native version, will have an improved version of Entourage/Outlook.