Importing SMTP or Custom Recipients into Exchange

Customizing Outlook Web Access

This guide is written for CGNET users, but much of the information below may be of more general use, as indicated by the number of administrators who have found this page through search engines and spent time reading it. Good luck!

About this Guide and More Resources

CGNET is happy to provide this concise guide, which is based on its 20 years' experience providing managed email and managed network services. You may also be interested in our fairly extensive list of more resources for Installing and Administering Exchange 5.5 on Windows NT 4. CGNET provides many services, including consulting, network installation, managed email, network monitoring and management, Web hosting and global roaming Internet access. We have particular experience working with non-profits and NGOs, and our network currently serves users in 94 countries. Check out our home page for more information about how we can help you.

Customizing Outlook Web Access

It is fairly simple to customize Outlook Web Access for your organization. There are four things that you can do:

1. Ask CGNET to add a DNS entry aliasing 'outlook.organization.org' to your IIS machine
2. Customize the Logon and Logoff Screens
3. Program IIS to default to the Outlook Web Access Logon Screen
4. Eliminate the need for users to enter both their NT domain and username when authenticating themselves

Creating an 'outlook.organization.org' alias in DNS

It might be easier for users of Outlook Web Access to understand the service if we add a second third-level domain name to DNS, pointing the name 'outlook.organization.org' to the IP number of your IIS machine, where 'organization.org' is your organization's second-level domain name. That way users will associate Outlook Web Access with the name "Outlook" rather than the particular name of your IIS and/or Exchange server, which they may not even know.

Customizing the Logon and Logoff Screens

The two screens which are easily customizable are the logon and logoff screens.

These files are called "logon.asp" and "logoff.asp" respectively. They can be found in the \Exchange\WebDate\Usa\ directory of your Exchange server. They are Active Server Pages, so some care should be taken in modifying their code so that the original functionality of the VB and JavaScript on the pages is maintained. Make sure you back up the original copies of these two files before you modify them.

Here is what the customized CGNET logon and logoff screens look like.

We have provided some templates for modifying these files. You can view and download the logon and logoff templates here. These files have .txt extensions so that you can see the code; after you have modified them, make sure you save them with the appropriate filenames and .asp extensions. Many organizations may wish to disable acccess to public folders from the logon screen, so the logon template here has that code removed.

To download these files, simply view them and then use your browser's "Save As" command.

You can also examine the CGNET logon and logoff files as we have customized them for ourselves.

Programmming IIS to default to the Outlook Web Access Logon Screen

Another step you might wish to take is to make the logon page be the default page for the web server on your Exchange machine. Assuming that your machine is called exchange.your.org, that both Exchange and IIS are installed there, and that your installation of IIS uses the default names and directories, you can locate the current default web page at /inetpub/wwwroot/default.htm.

You can replace this page with an HTML page that reads as follows:

Make sure you save this HTML code in a page called "default.htm". This will cause the web user to be transferred automatically to the logon.asp page.

Simplifying Authentication

After a user enters his/her name on the logon page and clicks the link, they have to re-enter their username and enter a password in a web browser authentication window. This can be confusing for users because in the authentication window they need to enter both their domain name and username, in the form NTDomain\username.

You can work around this issue as described below. This will allow users to enter only the user name and password and not the domain name also.

If you're using IIS4, open the Management Console on the IIS computer with the Active Server Components. Under the Properties of your Exchange Web Site, on the Directory Security Tab, open the "Edit" button under "Anonymous Access and Authentication Control". Open the "Edit" button under "Basic Authentication", and enter the default domain you wish to use.

If you do not have IIS4, then you can make this change by adding the following information into the registry on the IIS computer with the Active Server Components.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys And Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it.

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe or Regedit.exe as appropriate for your version of Windows NT).
2. Go to the following key in the registry:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W3SVC\Parameters
3. On the Edit menu, click New Value, and then click String Value.
4. Enter a new string value called DefaultLogonDomain with data of the DomainName (where DomainName is the name of the domain where the user account resides).
5. Quit Registry Editor. Restart all of the IIS services for the changes to take effect.