How to change default web browser in Entourage

P

Paul Berkowitz

Well, they obviously do allow connection to Exchange via OWA then!

As I understand it, Entourage uses exactly the same protocol (WebDAV) to
interact with Exchange that OWA does. Are you quite sure that you can't get
there from Entourage? Maybe there's some setting that can be made.

The Macintosh Business Unit (that makes Entourage) of Microsoft does not
control either Safari (Apple) nor OWA - Exchange. So I don't suppose there's
anything they can do about what OWA looks like in Safari or any other Mac
browser, aside from alerting the Exchange team, who may or may not care.

I'd try to do it form Entourage, if I were you. Maybe there's just a proxy
setting, or something similar, you need.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.
 
M

mmmmark

I use it on a regular basis, Julia, and find it to be acceptable. The only
thing that I need to remember is to deactivate the pop-up blocker in Safari
to have it work correctly (Command-K). Be sure you are using the newest
version of Safari, as, very old versions did have some display issues.

-Mark
 
N

Nathan Herring [MSFT]

OWA is owned by the Exchange team. Their "downlevel" client (i.e., the
client they use for anyone who isn't WinIE 6.0) is significantly worse than
their main client.

We (MacBU) don't like it any more than you do. You could try requesting it
on microsoft.public.exchange.clients. I don't know if there's an Exchange
feature request e-mail anymore...

There are more links about OWA here:
<http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/outlook/owa.asp>

-nh
 
J

Julia

Paul,

First, thanks for the background about Safari and OWA. I wasn't sure why it
looked bad, just that it did. Your explanation makes sense, and I appreciate
it.

But more importantly, thanks for the information about being able to use
Entourage to access my Exchange account. After checking with my company's IT
department, what they have blocked (due to security concerns, they say) is
off-site DIRECT access to the Exchange server, which does affect using an
at-home Outlook application. Access through Entourage is indeed, supported,
though, with an IMAP account. I set it up earlier this evening and it works
beautifully!

So thanks very much for sharing your knowledge. It's amazing what you can
learn when you post a message impulsively -- I never thought to ask directly
here in the newsgroup about using Entourage to access my Exchange account
because I thought I "knew" I couldn't. In this case, I love being wrong.
 
J

Julia

Nathan,

Thanks for the response. As I explained to Paul upthread, I was not making a
distinction in my thinking between the MacBU and the Exchange team at
Microsoft -- just lumping you all together in one big MSFT basket. Sorry
'bout that!

I will look into the Exchange newsgroup and possibly post something there
abut the Safari ickiness. In the meantime, with Paul's help I have figured
out that I can, in fact, configure Entourage to access my Exchange account,
though only for e-mail, not calendars, tasks, etc. due to my company's
disallowing what they call "direct" off-site access to the Exchange server
for security reasons. However, being able to use Entourage for e-mail is a
huge improvement over OWA/Safari, so I'm a pretty happy camper tonight.

Thanks to all!
 
N

Nathan Herring [MSFT]

If you can access OWA from a browser at all from at home, then you can use
an Entourage 2004 Exchange account. Instead of using the actual server name
you would normally use, use the name of the OWA server instead.

For example, though my Exchange mail server is RED-MSG-XX, I can also access
it via OWA using https://mail.microsoft.com. I put "mail.microsoft.com" and
checked SSL, and now all is dandy. (You can also put in
"https://mail.domain.com" in, though expect to get prompted a second time
for your password.)

In any case, you probably should not have to forego the Calendar and Contact
goodness that is a full-blown Exchange account!

-nh
 
J

Julia

The OWA server is the one that our IT dept. instructed me to use to set up
the Entourage off-site access, and it does work fine. If I click on the icon
that represents the account in the Folder pane in Entourage, I get the
complete list of Inbox, Calendar, Contacts, Deleted Items, Drafts, Journal,
Junk E-mail, Notes, Outbox, Public Folders, Sent Items and Tasks.

However, all but Inbox, Deleted Items, Drafts, Sent Items and Junk E-mail
are grayed out and unclickable. In addition, they do not appear in the
folder list when the account is expanded in the Folder pane.

So clearly, our IT folks have disabled some access to Exchange. If I have
time, I plan to pursue this with them to hopefully get some answers about
why this is, etc. If I find out anything, I will be glad to report back.

I'm still happy about the e-mail access via Entourage, but it would be nice
to be able to check my calendar without having to fire up that godawful OWA
in Safari. One step at a time ...
 
Top