Is it possible to run Exchange 2010 in Calendaring mode only and perhaps with global address list too? I understand it’s a bit of a strange question so a little background : We currently run Outlook 2007 using imap on our (120ish) Vista desktops within a 2008 domain, our users currently have their calendars, tasks, and contacts stored in their “personal folders” .pst files. We frequently get requests for people whom want to share calendars, we have looked at third party solutions and implemented Google calendar sync in one department. It works but is clunky, and required a sync application to be installed (and a google account) but primarily confused the end users so much we gave up on it, but it did do the calendar sync and share that we require. We do not wish to move away from imap for email currently since it is stored, managed, and backed up remotely. With very little knowledge of Exchange functionlity my google searches have proved inconclusive, could an exchange wizard out there confirm whether this is feasible? Thanks.

Well you can just use it for Calendering, but the price is the same so if you do buy Exchange for this reason I would strongly recommend a total migration to Exchange as both mail and calendaring system. The calender is found within the users mailbox, so you will have the option of mailing when the calendar is in place, the rest is up to where you want to send/receive mails from. /MartinExchange is a passion not just a collaboration software.

While technically you could, you can't stop Outlook from using it for email. If you use the GAL, then email will go through Exchange. If the users select recipients from the GAL and add external recipients, that will go through Exchange. Outlook will be biased towards Exchange. If you don't want to have the full Exchange internally, move to a hosted Exchange platform. Exchange though is really an all or nothing deployment. Partial deployment will cause you a lot of stress and hassles. Plus if you dump IMAP you can also dump PST files. You would also reduce your bandwidth requirements as everything happens on the LAN, even sending an email to local users. Simon.Simon Butler, Exchange MVP Blog | Exchange Resources