[ncbryan]

I understand that everyone's exchange can and probably is set up differently, but I wanted to start a new post informing the folks what finally got my exchange email working seamlessly! I might add that the speed that emails are now delivered is amazing and equal to or ever sometimes faster coming in on my phone than on my desktop.

We have an exchange 2003 server and when we set up the server we installed the exchange from the microsoft small business server disk. Our IT person did all the setup and based on what I know, he set it up with what I would say is a medium security level. I know I have heard alot of talk about PINs and all that and honestly I haven't a clue what they are or how they work. I suspected my email problem on the phone was not a phone issue but an exchange setup issue on my server not allowing it to communicate with the phone. Evidently, on my Blackberry all that has to be allowed on the exchange server is webmail has to be turned on. The key to my success was activesync not being installed or enabled on our server.

Activesync isn't a part of the original exchange 2003 installation. So the first thing you have to do is install the exchange 2003 sp2 on your server.

Download details: Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2

Follow the directions and go through the full installation.

Next I had to download and install the activesync program:

Download details: Microsoft Exchange Server ActiveSync Web Administration Tool

There are 3 different versions, and the one for my server was the MobileAdmin (Ex2003).exe

Once these were installed I went on the phone and made sure all my incoming settings were correct:

domain\username (on my phone I do NOT have the domain and mine is just \username
password exactly how you enter it to log on your computer (case sensitive)
exchange server: vpn.mycompanyname.com
This setting can be different depending on how your server is set up, so if it doesn't work, try a different setting.
SSL and accept all SSL certificates are BOTH checked

When I made these changes my phone started vibrating and beeping (Droid) and wala....emails were there. After further review, the contacts, calendar and everything was working seamlessly. After some speed tests to determine how fast everthing worked, I was amazed at the speed.

A couple of side notes:
1. When you delete an email off your phone, it will also be deleted from your inbox on your desktop and the email will now go into the deleted items folder.
2. If you delete an email on your desktop, it will also be deleted from your phone's inbox.
3. No signature will be on emails you send or reply to. We are all hopefully this will change with future software updates.

Disclaimer.......When changing settings or doing anything in the exchange system, your companies email will not be operational for a period of time. We are a small company and I was able to do these updates without any issues at all. I first got the approval from our IT person. As with anything else, you want to make sure you BACKUP your existing exchange settings before doing any updates.

Hope this helps everyone get their exchange 2003 email working like it should.

[jgurnett#CB]

You may have already looked into this but the Touchdown App is phenomenal. Very minimal involved to setup as compared to the native app and if you're on Exchange 2003, as you may have encountered already HTML emails come through as plain text. With Touchdown, all emails come through as HTML regardless of server edition. There's a 5 day trial of the full version and the purchase price is $10 which is high for an app, but if you're dependent on your email for filtering, sorting and the like, it's more than worth it!

[ncbryan]

Yes, I agree that Touchdown is an excellent program! I am not a big fan of how you navigate around the program, but I love the way it adds the signature and also love the HTML emails. I am just trying to use the exchange the way it was designed on my phone first and then I will make a decision on whether to disable the email portion of the exchange and use Touchdown for email.