Exchange 2003 SMTP Issues

Scenario: My AD is named .local… when a new user is created, their SMTP address is, of course, set to @.local…

I’m able to access the server via OWA, but whenever I go into AD Users and Computers and change the SMTP address, I’m unable to login via OWA.

The long and short of it is that I need this Exchange server to have new users point to our .com SMTP address, not the actual AD name.

Thanks in advance,

Bobby