Global AddressList for POP3 Users
I understand POP3 is only for retrieving emails. We are on Exchange 2007 SP1 and 50% of our users spread across various countries have POP3 settings for their outlook 2007. Now everytime we need to keep updating their address book to have the exact copy of the global address list. please anyone share the easiest way to update global address list for pop3 users? thanks philip
May 15th, 2012 3:14am

First - Exchange 2007 SP1 is no longer supported. I would recommend that you upgrade the server to Exchange 2007 SP3 plus roll up 7 to bring the server fully up to date. Your best option would be to drop POP3 completely and switch to Outlook Anywhere. That will give you full Exchange functionality including the GAL, and you wouldn't have to worry about keeping the clients up to date. For the address book only, you could look at using an LDAP server and have the clients connect to that. AD is an LDAP server, but I would be hesitant to expose the domain controller to the Internet, so you might want to look at running an LDAP server somewhere else which contains a list of the users and email addresses, then simply maintain that list. Finally you could simply maintain an Excel spreadsheet that is configured correctly for an import in to Outlook and send it to all users at a regular interval. However that would depend on the users actually doing the import. The bottom line is that POP3 is not designed for this kind of operation, it is effectively a consumer protocol where email is stored and managed locally and address book functionality is an exclusively local function with no centralized management. For central management you need to switch to the Native MAPI connection, which means Outlook Anywhere. As far as I am concerned, POP3 has no place in an enterprise email solution. Simon.Simon Butler, Exchange MVP Blog | Exchange Resources | In the UK? Hire Me.
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May 15th, 2012 7:56am

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