Exchange 2007
What a bear! In some ways Exchange 2007 is incredible, in other ways it’s just a pain in the neck. It almost feels like they just gave up and decided to release it before they finished building the user interface. Many things that were done with a GUI interface in Exchange 2003 now require archaic commands using the “PowerShell”. What were they thinking?
Yes - it’s nice having the PowerShell, but it would be nice if you didn’t NEED it for things like moving the public folders, adjusting spam filtering and a few other things that should be a couple of clicks. So far I haven’t even found any help in the PowerShell. I had problems moving public folders - it generated some warnings and some errors, but not much info on how to correct the problem.
Also…. you’d think by now Microsoft would have figured out a way to host multiple domains, let users connect using the Outlook/Exchange combination and choose which domain they want to send mail from. Geez! How hard could it be? If your main address is user@domain1.com but you have user@domain2.com as another email address there is no way to send from user@domain2.com unless you’re replying to an email that was sent there.
I downloaded the “simple” implementation guide from Microsoft and it’s 500 pages long! I finally gave up and just installed it hoping that the paper made it seem more complicated that it really is. In some ways, that’s true. I was able to get the server up and running faster than I could have read 500 pages of “how-to”, but now that it’s running I guess I have to learn another OS - Exchange PowerShell.
And no upgrade? Come on! Even if your Exchange 2003 is running on 64-bit hardware, you can’t do an upgrade. You have to add a new server to the mix then migrate across the wire. Give me a break! Unless you have a compelling reason to switch to Exchange 2007, I’d say leave it alone - maybe they’ll fix it in the next release. Service Pack 1 adds some GUI features, but not enough in my mind. If I wanted to type in everything I’d still be using DOS 6 and Novell 3.
Thumbs down on Exchange 2007
Tags: email, Exchange 2007, Microsoft