By including a spelling checker in Exchange
Server 2003 Outlook Web Access (OWA), Microsoft overcame one of
users’ more persistent objections to using OWA. Accustomed to using
the spelling checker in Outlook, many users felt the lack of this
feature made OWA a lot less appealing.

However, it may not be time to start
celebrating just yet. We’ve heard some reports that the spelling
checker in OWA doesn’t work properly. For example, when a user
attempts to spell-check a message, OWA sometimes returns the
following error:

The spelling in this item can’t be checked. Try
again later.

The spelling checker appears to work fine when
accessing OWA from systems that have authenticated on your Active
Directory domain. However, when the same user tries to use the
spelling checker from a system outside the domain, it produces the
above error, even though the user has properly authenticated and
can access messages with no problems.

One cause for this error is when the
authentication setting on the ExchWeb\bin directory is Integrated
Windows Authentication. To change this setting, follow these
steps:

  1. Go to the Internet Information Services
    Manager, and open the properties for the ExchWeb\bin directory.
  2. On the Directory Security tab, click the Edit
    button under Authentication And Access Control.
  3. Deselect the Integrated Windows
    Authentication check box, click OK, and click OK again to close the
    dialog box.

Spelling checker should now function.

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