Exchange 2003 Remote Access from Outlook

It's actually the first time I install exchange so I'd say I'm fairly green in regards to exchange. As a matter of fact IT manager isn't even my main function, it's just part of my job. But I am the one who set up from A to Z here, from the server, to the Active Directory structure and even installed all applications so I know pretty much everything there is to know about our system and troubleshooted everything to get it working up to par.

Currently, I have gotten exchange all set up as I wanted it to be : we have two domains and one mailbox can fetch mail from both of these as long as the mailbox name is the same (ex: abc@1.com and abc@1.net). I can also send and receive mails just fine internally and externally so I'd say exchange is working just as it should so far.

What's left to figure out for myself is the remote access part of it : my initial efforts at getting outlook to access my exchange server through our dns name has been uncesful.

The step blocks at the part where outlook checks for the exchange connectivity before finalizing the mailbox. I don't know if its an exchange option I have to open up, if its a port I've missed opening or if its a security setting but I do know that when I get to that point, it doesn't even ask me for the domain logon credentials so obviously it can't get access to the computer where the exchange server is located.

If I do it through our internal network, everything works, but as soon as I attempt to do it through our DNS, it does not. As I've stated, laptop users will be fetching their mail while out of the office so this is paramount. I also want these guys to have full outlook integration just as if they were here and even though I know I could just use Terminal Services to give them access to the server remotely (so access to their Exchange account at the same time) but I'd rather not go through that route to give users as seemless an integration as possible and to keep strain on the server to a minimum.

Any help on this would be appreciated as all the info I've found so far are regarding the Outlook Web Interface or mobile PDA's and cell phone access which are not options I'm looking at as I want full Outlook integration.

Thanks.

Thanks for the info.

However I did look into OWA and it would have been a great way to do things but the reps use the calendar functions in outlook and as I understand it, you can't use calendar from their exchange account using OWA.

Also, I've read that the contacts don't behave the same way as they normally do in Outlook. As in they don't give out suggestions. Since the reps won't exactly be experts in computers. I'd rather have them have as close an experience as can be.

I've found a method which seems to solve that part, now I only need to fix the https issue and I should be in business.

Thanks for the help so far.

Hi.

I've finally managed to get this working.

For some reason I needed to create a new Outlook profile for it to work. I also needed to log in using the user@domain.suffix way for it to work.

I even changed basic authentication to NTLM so I can just "set it and forget it" as far as passwords go.

Thanks for people who helped me out with this.