Andersen said:
Hi
I run Exchange 2003 SP2 with all updates, with Outlook 2002/2003/2007 with
or without updates.
Not a complete description. Obviously these users are running Outlook
on some operating system. And they are using WHICH version of Windows?
Some users get prompted for username and password every time they start
Outlook, why?
Might the users with the so-far-unidentified configuration be running
Outlook 2002 on Windows Vista? If so ...
Outlook 2002 will NOT remember passwords when ran under Windows Vista.
Outlook 2002 was coded to use pstore (protected storage system) in the
registry to cache the login credentials for the e-mail accounts defined
in Outlook; see
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb432403.aspx.
pstore is no longer available under Windows Vista. The registry keys
are still there but are read-only so Outlook cannot record your login
credentials into those registry keys but cannot update them. Vista
dropped pstore and went to DPAPI. For information on DPAPI, read
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms995355.aspx. DPAPI has been
around since 2001 starting in Windows 2000. The result is that you will
need to supply your login credentials for each e-mail account that you
have defined in Outlook for the first mail poll performed by Outlook.
After the first mail poll, the login credentials are reused so you don't
need to supply them again. However, if you exit and reload Outlook then
you need to supply the login credentials for only the first mail poll.
Outlook 2003/2007 are coded to use either pstore or the newer DPAPI
which means they will run under Vista and pre-Vista versions of Windows.
Mainstream support for Outlook 2002/XP has ended. There will be no
further feature changes, bug fixes, or enhancements to it. That means
it will remain incompatible for use under Windows Vista. Your
Microsoft-based solutions are: suffer with the problem when using
Outlook 2002 on Windows Vista, upgrade to Outlook 2003 or 2007, or use a
different e-mail program that runs properly on Windows Vista.
Read:
http://www.msoutlook.info/question/28
http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/vista.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securi...w_to_Windows_Vista#Other_features_and_changes
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb756884.aspx
The PStore keys in the registry are read-only in Windows Vista.
Removing the read-only attribute won't fix the problem. The PStore
interface used by Outlook is not available in Windows Vista. You cannot
manually edit the registry to retrieve or enter the passwords. PStore
isn't just a location in the registry with plain text data. It is a
method of encrypting the passwords using TripleDES that are cached in
the registry in a binary construct. Once a user is logged, the
CryptoAPI can be used to decrypt that Windows account's cached passwords
from the PStore in the registry. While Windows Vista no longer provides
support for PStore, it is possible to continue supporting PStore using
a program. Alas, there will be nothing forthcoming as a hotfix or
add-on from Microsoft to support PStore in Outlook 2002 because that
product is no longer supported.
A possible solution is to use a program (as a macro that runs inside of
Outlook) that manages the encrypted password for you in the protected
registry cache. If you don't want to write the macro or cannot find a
free one already written for you, there is OLAutoPW at
http://www.mgsware.de/index.php/OLAutoPW/138/0/#403. I've never used it
(because I don't use Windows Vista). Cost is 10 euro (~$16). It may
also be possible to use AutoIt, AutoHotkeys, or other keyboard macro
programs that can trigger on specific dialog windows to answer the
password prompt for you but then you need to leave them running all the
time and write up the macro that they run along with identifying the
trigger(s) on when and in which window to run their macro.
