Due to security and stability patches applied on Tuesday of last week, anyone using Entourage 2008 to receive email via Microsoft Exchange will need to download and install an update for it in order to continue receiving email & calendar information via Microsoft Exchange. This applies to both students using Entourage (who have always required EWS) and Faculty and Staff using Entourage.

Before installing the update, it will be necessary to make sure that your installation of Microsoft Office 2008 is up to date. To do this, open any component of Microsoft Office 2008. Click on the Help menu in the Finder bar, and click Check for Updates. In addition to setting the frequency of your updates, you can click Check for Updates, and Microsoft’s Auto-Update software will search for and download any updates that you need to install first.

Once your client is up-to-date, you’ll need to install Entourage Web Services Edition, which requires a manual download.

On-campus Mac users can find the installation file by clicking Go –> Connect to Server, and connecting to smb://jupiter.missouristate.edu/apps/Office2008Mac. In that folder, the EWS-1305-EN.dmg file is the one you’ll need to run and install.

Alternatively, you can also download Entourage Web Services from the Microsoft website at http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx. At the bottom of the page, click Office 2008 in the left-hand column, and select Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition.

We’ll be updating our setup guides for Entourage with this information presently.

A recent configuration change on our email server did have a lasting effect on faculty and staff email clients connecting via POP or IMAP. Most of those who are connecting via POP or IMAP will not be able to download new email messages until they change the user name that they were using to log on to the Bearmail server. Where once you were required to enter sgf\abc123\BoomerBear, you will now just need to enter sgf\abc123 (or WP\xyz987 for West Plains clients).

This will not affect student email. This will only impact email accounts that are hosted on Missouri State’s email servers.

Affected clients include Mozilla Thunderbird, as well as some configurations of Entourage, Mac Mail (OS X 10.5 or earlier), or Outlook (2003 *). Some Blackberry devices may also be affected.

Any email client configured for Exchange, which includes most users of Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Entourage, and the latest version of Mac Mail, will be able to send and receive email normally.

I’m currently working on updates to our email client setup guides, and will post links to the documentation here when I am done.

Update 6/10/2010 7:38 PM – The Bearmail client setup guides have been updated to reflect the necessary changes. I’ve linked to the individual setup guides above.

Update 6/11/2010 4:52 PM – After much testing, it appears that Mozilla Thunderbird will accept the old configuration settings for receiving mail; that is, it will take domain\BearPassLogin\BearPassEmail as the user name and still receive mail. Entourage and Mac Mail, by contrast, require domain\BearPassLogin to receive email via IMAP. Our Microsoft technical support representative explained that this is likely because IMAP is not a well-standardized specification, and that its implementations in Thunderbird may be different from those found in Entourage and Mac Mail.

Additionally, no known Blackberry devices have had any problems sending and receiving email as a result of these changes.

*We don’t currently have guides for using Outlook 2007 or 2010 using POP/IMAP, though the configuration is similar to 2003. For Outlook, Entourage, and Mac Mail users running Snow Leopard, we recommend using Exchange as the email protocol.