We have about 10 users on our network. I would like for everyone to have the same address book that new emails are saved to...automatically. This is currently not done and creating difficulties for others who need to send email to the same contact but can not access an email address for that person.

Any help would be greating appreciated.

Houston, Texas

Are you using Exchange or just Outlook with a POP3/IMAP server?

There are two basic containers (concepts) for Outlook - the Private and Public. When Outlook is used as an email client only (ie. For POP/SMTP email to an ISP) it is working as a Private client only. All of your content is saved in Personal Folders and uses Private Address Books (Contacts) and these folders can be opened by one person at a time ONLY.

The Public part of the Outlook functionality is introduced when you connect to an email server such as Microsoft Exchange. Email is then centrally located on a server. Each email address is shown in a Global Address List (GAL is global to the company). You may also add custom addresses into your GAL for Internet Contacts or you may use a centralized Contacts list or Calendar, Tasks, etc. MS Exchange Server introduces a whole new level of functionality that is just not possible with the Outlook Client only.

Another thing that is gained by Exchange Server is called Single Instance Storage. When you send an email to 5 people inside your company, it is stored only once within your server. The sender plus the five recipients each has a link to the same email (and attachments). Secondly, there is Deleted Item Retention. When items are cleaned out of your Mailbox and Deleted items, they are gone. MS Exchange Server will still retain the deleted item for a period that you specify (we use 10 days) and then ONLY after backup, is it removed from the mail server. Lastly, now that I have mentioned backups, the email is backed up to a central location. You do not have to contend with numerous PC's and files. If email is a high priority in communications and regulatory compliance, then providing reliable backups is not only a smart business decision but can be a legally required one.

The down side is that Microsoft Exchange requires a server and expensive licensing. In your case, I would look into Small Business Server. It includes a slightly watered down version of Microsoft Exchange and would be just the ticket for most companies with only one location and under 50 users.

Watered down?? How so?

SBS is a single domain solution with a user/device limit of 75 connections. Exchange 2003 running on SBS can not be part of an Exchange Organization. It is basically a single office solution.

I was not knocking the cababilites of SBS running Exchange 2003. It is simply not meant to be a multi-site, multi-domain solution. If it was, I would suppose Microsoft would want a whole lot more money for it.