Exchange 2003 as part of 2003 SBS

Outlook 2010

After changing the default e-mail domain from one domain to another (e-mail for both domains hosted on our in-house Exchange 2003 server), already-configured Outlook 2010 Exchange clients are now popping up this message at startup and periodically during the day:

Allow this website to configure [UserName]@[MyDomain].com server settings?
https://autodiscover.bluehost.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml.

The username with the message is Username@NewDomain.com. The user was originally configured as UserName@OldDomain.com. Both are still hosted on our in-house Exchange server. The users can still use their mailboxes, but this message keeps popping up.

None of the auto-discovery registry entries refers to BlueHost, and there is no auto-discover record on my local DNS server. Bluehost just happens to be where our internet domain is hosting, although we have MX records redirecting e-mail to McAfee's anti-spam service that then forwards them into our in-house Exchange server. That is, BlueHost has nothing to do with our Exchange clients.

The user checks the box to quit notifying, then clicks Cancel, and things just repeat. Clicking OK just adds the BlueHost address to the list of redirect servers in HKCU\oftware\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover\RedirectServers. That, of course, does no good because BlueHost has nothing to do with our e-mail past providing the MX records.

• Edited by Brian D. Hart Monday, March 23, 2015 9:58 PM

Hi,

It's a bit weird, based on my knowledge there is no AutoDiscover feature in Exchange 2003 - It started with Exchange 2007. The provided information all implies it's related to AutoDiscover, could you please confirm this first?

Also, I think this issue is more on Exchange side, if so, it's better to post the question in Exchange Server forum to get more dedicated support:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/home?category=exchangeserver

Regards,

Melon Chen
TechNet Community Su

It is, indeed, related to AutoDiscover, and definitely Exchange-related; however, Exchange has both server and client components, and although Exchange 2003 has no autodiscover components, Outlook 2010 Exchange client does, and even though the Exchange server is in-house and the client already configured to connect to the server, it seems to want to go through the process of attempting to auto-discover the server configuration via a non-existent auto-discover URL at the hosting service.

Eventually, the message quit appearing. I think one user had continued to click Cancel, but when we finally checked the box to allow it to attempt to auto-discover, it added it to the list of redirect servers in the registry under HKCU...Office14 (on the client), after which it seemed to be satisfied that it had done all it needed in that regard.

Still, I have no idea why it should continue to attempt auto-discovery after it was already configured manually.