Exchange Server 2007 hardware requirements

Exchange Server 2007 requires a server with a 64-bit processor and a

64-bit operating system. It supports a variety of 64-bit processors,
including Intel Xeon or Pentium processors that support Intel Extended
Memory 64 technology (EM64T). 64-bit AMD Opteron and Athlon
processors are also supported. Exchange 2007 will not run on the Intel
Itanium (IA64) processor though.

I'm not sure if these other hardware requirements are official yet or
not, but the information that I got from Microsoft was that Exchange
Server 2007 will require a minimum of 1 GB of RAM (2 GB
recommended) and a minimum of 1.2 GB of hard disk space.

While I am on the subject of hard drives, I should mention that all

partitions must be formatted as NTFS. This includes the system
partition and partitions containing Exchange Server binaries,
transaction logs, database files, and any other Exchange-related files.

Exchange Server 2007 operating system requirements

If you are planning on purchasing a copy of Exchange Server 2007

when it is released, plan on running it on a 64-bit version of Windows
Server 2003. Presumably, Exchange Server 2007 will eventually run on
top of 64-bit versions of Longhorn Server whenever, but obviously that
won't be an option initially.

Exchange Server 2007 will be on the market long before Longhorn

Server, so Windows Server 2003 will be the only operating system that
will support Exchange 2007 for now. In a way, that's a good thing. It
means that you won't have to struggle with learning a new version of
Windows while you are trying to figure out Exchange 2007.

When Longhorn Server is eventually released, Exchange Server 2007

may or may not run on it. Being that Longhorn Server is still under
development, a final copy of the Longhorn Server code was not
available to the Exchange Server development team during the
Exchange 2007 development process. I personally think that Exchange
Server 2007 probably won't be completely compatible with Longhorn
Server until the first service pack is released -- but that's just
speculation.

Internet Information Server

The server on which you install Exchange Server 2007 must be running
Internet Information Server (IIS). What is different from deploying
Exchange Server 2003 though is that only the minimal IIS components
should be installed. For example, you cannot install Exchange 2007 if
the SMTP or NNTP components of IIS are installed.

Exchange Server 2007 infrastructure requirements

There are some fairly stringent requirements for the network that your
Exchange 2007 server is connected to. For starters, the Active
Directory domain functional level must be set to Windows 2000 or
higher.

Furthermore, the domain controller that is acting as the schema

master must be running Windows Server 2003. By default, the Schema
Master role is assigned to the first domain controller in the domain, but
you can move the role to another server if necessary.

In addition, all domain controllers and global catalog servers running in

the Exchange 2007 site must be running Windows Server 2003.

Part 2: The test environment

used for this Exchange Server
2007 tutorial

Before I get started with the deployment process, I want to tell you a
little bit about the test environment I used for this "Exchange 2007 test
drive." Knowing exactly how my environment is configured may help
you out if you try to duplicate any of the techniques I discuss.

For the purpose of the demonstrations herein, I am testing Exchange

Server 2007 on an AMD Athlon 64x2 3400+ with 2 GB of RAM. It is
running Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition with Service
Pack 1.

Also, because Exchange Server modifies the Active Directory schema, I

created a dedicated forest solely for the purpose of beta testing
Exchange Server 2007. I did not want Exchange 2007 Beta 2 making
any modifications to the schema of my production Active Directory
database.
In addition to the machine that is running Exchange Server 2007, there
are three other computers in my dedicated forest. One machine is
running a beta of Longhorn Server, and is acting as a domain controller
and the DNS server for the forest's only domain.

The other two computers in the forest are workstations. They are both
running a beta of Windows Vista, and the copy of Microsoft Office
2007. Later in this tutorial, I use these two PCs to demonstrate using
Microsoft Outlook 2007 in an Exchange Server 2007 environment.

Part 3: The Exchange Server

2007 installation process

To begin the Exchange Server 2007 installation process, I downloaded

the current Exchange Server 2007 beta from the Microsoft Web site. I
then double-clicked on the file that I downloaded to extract the
Exchange Server 2007 setup files.

To install Exchange Server 2007, double-click on the Setup.exe file to

see the splash screen shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: This is the Exchange Server 2007 installation screen.

As you can see, there are five steps to installing Exchange Server
2007: installing the .NET Framework, installing the Microsoft
Management Console, installing the Microsoft Command Shell,
installing Exchange Server, and downloading any available updates.

Step 1: Install the .NET Framework 2.0

The first step in the Exchange Server 2007 installation process is to

install version 2.0 of the .NET Framework. The installer makes it look
like the .NET Framework will be installed as a part of the Setup
process. However, when you click on the Install .NET Framework 2.0
link, you are taken to a Web page where you can download the .NET
Framework 2.0.

The .NET Framework is only 45.2 MB in size, so the download shouldn't

be a big deal. One thing that you do have to pay attention to though is
the fact that there are 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Make sure you
download the 64-bit version of the .NET Framework 2.0.

Step 2: Install the Microsoft Management Console

Exchange Server 2007 requires version 3.0 of the Microsoft

Management Console (MMC). The new management console differs
from the previous version in that it supports three horizontal panes, as
opposed to the two panes that the previous version was limited to.
MMC 3.0 also supports an extra vertical pane. These extra panes don't
show up if you simply enter the MMC command at the Run prompt, but
the new Exchange System Manager -- now called the Exchange
Management Console -- makes use of them.

In Figure 1 above, the option to install Microsoft Management Console

was grayed out on my test machine. This is because MMC 3.0 was
installed by default with Windows Server 2003 R2 SP1.

Step 3: Install Microsoft Command Shell

As tidbits of information about Exchange Server 2007 and Windows

Server Longhorn have leaked out, you might have heard about Monad.
Not too long ago, Microsoft renamed Monad to Microsoft Command
Shell; it is a scripting language that will be native to Longhorn Server.

Exchange Server 2007 is written in such a way that anything that can
be done through the Exchange Management Console can also be
scripted through the Microsoft Command Shell. In fact, I have heard
rumors that the new Exchange System Manager was written on top of
the Microsoft Command Shell.
At any rate, the Microsoft Command Shell is a required component.
Like the .NET Framework, you will be prompted to download the
Microsoft Command Shell as part of the Exchange Server 2007
installation process.

Step 4: Install Microsoft Exchange

Now it's time to install Exchange Server 2007 itself:

1. Click on the "Install Microsoft Exchange" link to view the screen shown in Figure
2.

Figure 2: This is the initial Exchange Server 2007 Setup

screen.

2. Click Next to bypass the wizard's Welcome screen and view the End User License
Agreement. Accept the license agreement and click Next.
3. You will now see a screen asking if you would like to enable error reporting. If
you enable error reporting, information about errors that occur will be silently
transmitted to Microsoft over an encrypted connection. Whether or not you enable
error reporting is up to you, but for beta testing purposes, I highly recommend
enabling it.
4. Click Next and you will see the screen shown in Figure 3. This screen asks you if
you want to perform a typical or custom Exchange Server installation. While
asking about custom installations isn't new to Microsoft products, the way that
Exchange Server 2007 goes about the process is new.
 Figure 3: Choose a typical or custom installation.

5. Notice that there are a number of Exchange Server 2007 server roles listed below
each installation type. Server roles are a big new concept in Exchange Server
2007. The roles that you select control the server's capabilities and what services
and dependencies are installed. I will be talking a lot more about roles in future
articles. For now though, select the "Typical" Exchange Server Installation option
and then click Next.
6. Enter a name for the Exchange Server organization and click Next. The default
organization name is "First Organization," which is what I will be using for the
purposes of this tutorial. In Exchange Server 2003, choosing an organization
name was a big deal because it could not be changed later on. I'm honestly not
sure if this has changed in Exchange 2007 or not, but choose your name carefully
just in case.
7. Click Next and Setup will ask you if you have any client computers running
Outlook 2003 or earlier versions of Microsoft Outlook. When answering this
question, think about not only if there are Outlook 2003 clients now, but whether
there will ever be any Outlook 2003 clients. Since I am using Outlook 2007 on a
test network, I answered "No" to this question.
8. Click Next again and Setup will run a readiness check against the server and the
forest as a whole. The readiness check itself doesn't take long, but be prepared to
spend a little time cleaning up the issues that the readiness check reveals. On my
test deployment, there were a couple of Windows patches that Setup required me
to download and install before it could continue. When the readiness checks
complete, the results look something like what you can see in Figure 4.
 Figure 4: This is the Readiness Check screen.

9. Now click the Install button and Exchange 2007 Setup will begin installing the
necessary files and configuring the selected roles. As you can see in Figure 5, the
installation process took about 20 minutes to complete on my test server.

Figure 5: The installation process tool about 20 minutes

to complete.
 10. When the installation process completes, the Exchange Management Console
(formerly known as Exchange System Manager) will open and you will be
prompted to begin the final configuration process, which I outline in the next
segment of this tutorial.

Figure 6: This is what the new Exchange System Manager

looks like.

Part 4: Exchange Server 2007

post-deployment
configuration tasks

Having to do some configuration tasks after the initial installation is

nothing new for Microsoft products. What is new is that the Exchange
Management Console (formerly known as the Exchange System
Manager) actually walks you through the configuration process. If you
select the console's Microsoft Exchange node, you'll see a screen
similar to the one that's shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Exchange Management Console steps through the
configuration process.

Verifying Exchange 2007 deployment

The easiest way to tell if Exchange Server 2007 was deployed correctly
is to select the Server Configuration container in the Exchange
Management Console. When you expand this container, you'll see a list
of the various roles that are installed on the server appear just below
the container, as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8: Assigned roles appear below the Server
Configuration container.

If you are uncertain as to whether or not a particular role has been

successfully installed, then I recommend checking your server's log
files for possible error messages.

Configuring domains for which you will accept email

Assuming that your Exchange 2007 server contains the Hub Transport
role, you will need to define at least one accepted domain for the
Exchange Server organization. An accepted domain is any domain
namespace for which the Exchange server can send and receive SMTP
email. In most cases, the Exchange server is considered to be
authoritative for accepted domains, but accepted domains can include
both authoritative domains and relay domains.

By default, the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of your forest's root
domain is defined as an accepted domain for the Exchange Server
organization. Having this default-accepted domain entry will make it
possible to send email back and forth locally. But in the real world, you
probably want to define other authoritative domains for your
organization, such as external SMTP domains.

1. To define the Exchange Server 2007 organization's accepted domains, navigate

through the console tree to Microsoft Exchange -> Organization Configuration ->
Hub Transport.
2. When you select the Hub Transport container, the console's details pane will
display the hub transport's properties sheet. Select the Accepted Domains tab. As
you can see in Figure 9, the local domain name should already be listed.

Figure 9: The Hub Transport properties sheet contains an

Accepted Domain tab.

3. Now click the New Accepted Domain link found in the Actions tab to launch the
New Accepted Domain Wizard, shown in Figure 10.
 Figure 10: Specify a domain with the New Accepted
Domain wizard.

4. Enter a description of the domain into the Name field, and then enter the domain
name into the Accepted Domain field. Finally, use the radio buttons at the bottom
of the screen to choose whether the domain is authoritative, an internal relay
domain, or an external relay domain.
5. When you click New, the wizard will add the accepted domain to the Exchange
Server organization. But first make sure you check your domain's spelling before
clicking the New button -- the wizard does not give you an "are you sure"
message.
6. After the domain has been added, click the Finish button to close the wizard.

Subscribing the Edge Transport Server

Subscribing to an edge transport server is an optional part of the
configuration process. I'm not going to go through the entire process of
connecting to an edge transport server because it is complex, and I
intend to write another tutorial dedicated specifically to this topic soon.
For now, what I will tell you about edge transport servers is that they
exist for the purposes of providing enhanced security and message
hygiene. The edge transport server role gets installed on a separate
physical server, which can not host any other Exchange Server roles.
The edge transport server cannot be a member of a domain. Instead, it
uses the Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) to store
configuration data.
The edge transport server sits at the network perimeter. Messages are
initially sent to the edge transport server, where viruses and spam are
removed. Only then are the messages passed to the hub server, where
they can be routed to the appropriate mailbox server.
Configuring ActiveSync
If you have mobile users in your Exchange 2007 organization, and
you've installed the Client Access role, the next step is to configure
ActiveSync.
Step 1: Configuring the Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync virtual directory
The first step in the ActiveSync configuration process is to install an
SSL certificate on each client access server that hosts the Microsoft-
Server-ActiveSync virtual directory. For the purposes of this tutorial,
I'm assuming that you've already acquired an SSL certificate for use
with your Exchange 2007 server. You must now configure the
Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync virtual directory to require SSL encryption.

1. Begin by selecting the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager command

from the Windows Administrative Tools menu.
2. When the IIS Manager console opens, navigate to the Web Sites -> Default Web
Site -> Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync container.
3. Right click on the Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync container and select Properties.
4. Go to the Directory Security tab and click the Edit button found in the Secure
Communications section.
5. Select the Require secure channel (SSL) checkbox and click OK to complete the
process.

Step 2: Adjusting firewall settings for ActiveSync

The next step in configuring ActiveSync is to adjust the firewall settings
to allow ActiveSync to use Direct Push. The actual procedure for doing
so will vary depending on your firewall. What I can tell you is that if you
have the Client Access Server role and the Mailbox Server role installed
on two separate Exchange servers, you will need to open TCP port 135
on any firewall that might exist between the two servers. This will allow
the RPC Locator service to communicate between the two servers.
Since you're requiring SSL encryption for the Microsoft-Server-
ActiveSync virtual directory, you must open TCP port 443 on any
firewall standing between the Internet and that the Exchange server on
which the Client Access server role is installed.
In addition to opening these ports, Microsoft recommends that you set
your firewall's timeout period to 30 minutes. Shorter timeout periods
will cause mobile devices to initiate new HTTPS requests on a more
frequent basis. These requests not only consume bandwidth, but they
also shortened battery life on mobile devices.
Step 3: Creating an Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy
The third step is to create an Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy.
 1. Open the Exchange Management Console and select the Client Access container
to view the details pane, where any existing ActiveSync mailbox policies will be
listed (there shouldn't be any, since this is a new server).
2. Click the New Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policy link found in the Actions
pane to activate the New Exchange ActiveSync Mailbox Policy wizard.

Figure 11: Use this wizard to create a new Exchange

ActiveSync mailbox policy.

3. Enter a name for the policy that you're creating.

4. Now use the checkboxes to control the device's password policy, and whether or
not you want attachments to be downloaded to the device. There is also checkbox
you can use to let Exchange 2007 know that you have non-provisionable devices.
5. Click the New button and the new ActiveSync mailbox policy will be created.
6. Click Finish to close the completion summary screen.

Step 4: Creating users and mailboxes to complete the ActiveSync

configuration
The final step is to assign the ActiveSync mailbox policy to the users.
The problem is that, because this is a brand new Exchange Server
deployment, there really aren't any users yet. So let's jump ahead and
learn how to create some users and mailboxes so that we can finish
the ActiveSync configuration.

1. Begin the process by creating a few user accounts through the Active Directory
Users and Computers (ADUC) console in the same way that you normally would.
2. After you've created a few user accounts, go back to the Exchange Management
Console and select the Recipient Configuration container.
3. Now click the New Mailbox link found in the Actions pane to launch the New
Mailbox wizard shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12: Use this wizard to create a new Exchange

mailbox.

4. The first thing that the wizard asks you is what type of mailbox you want to
create. Choose the User Mailbox option and click Next.
5. At this point, the wizard will ask you if you want to create a new user, or if you
would like to create a mailbox for an existing user. Select the Existing User
option, and then click the Browse button to reveal a list of user accounts.
6. Choose the user account that you want to create a mailbox for and click OK.
7. Click Next, and you'll see a screen similar to the one that as shown in Figure 13.
 Figure 13: You can link an ActiveSync mailbox policy to
the user's mailbox.

8. At first glance, the screen looks a lot like a screen from the Mailbox Setup Wizard
found in Exchange Server 2003. Like its predecessor, the screen asks you to
choose a user alias name, server, storage group, and mailbox database. If you look
at the very bottom of the screen though, you'll see that there is a checkbox labeled
Exchange ActiveSync mailbox policy. Select this checkbox and click the Browse
button. You will then be able to link the ActiveSync policy that you created
earlier to this account.
9. Click Next and you'll see a screen containing a summary of the options that you
have chosen for the new mailbox.
10. Click the New button and the mailbox will be created.
11. Click the Finish button to complete the process.

Part 5: The Exchange

Management Console for
Exchange Server 2007

Exchange Server 2007 has two primary management interfaces: the

Exchange Management Console and the Exchange Management Shell.
You've already worked with the Exchange Management Console during
the initial deployment process, but I want to spend some more time
showing you its key aspects.

The Exchange Management Console is laid out quite a bit differently

from its predecessor, the Exchange System Manager of Exchange
Server 2003. If you look at Figure 14, you will see that the console is
broken down into four different areas: Organization Configuration,
Server Configuration, Recipient Configuration, and Toolbox.

Figure 14: Exchange Server 2007's Exchange Management

Console.

The Organization Configuration container

As the name implies, the Organization Configuration section contains

settings related to the Exchange Server organization as a whole. For
example, if you look at Figure 15, you'll see that selecting the
Organization Configuration container causes the details pane to reveal
a list of delegates for the organization.
Figure 15: The Organization Configuration container.

There are four subcontainers beneath the Organization Configuration

container related to global settings that apply across the entire
Exchange Server organization. For example, the Mailbox container
allows you to configure email address formats for the organization and
to create new managed content settings. (Managed content settings
provide a way for you to specify a retention period for a particular
folder, and an action to take when the retention period expires.)

The Organization Configuration section also includes the Client Access

container, which is used to configure ActiveSync mailbox policies.

Just below the Client Access container is the Hub Transport container.
The Hub Transport container allows you to define your Exchange
Server organization's topology. This is where you would go to configure
accepted domains, remote domains, and transport rules.

The Server Configuration container

The Server Configuration container is used to store settings related to

a specific server. For instance, if you look at Figure 16, you'll see that
when you select the Server Configuration container, the details pane
displays a list of the roles that are configured on the server.
Figure 16: The Server Configuration container.

Like the Organization Configuration container, the Server Configuration

container also contains a set of subcontainers. These subcontainers
correspond to the various roles assigned to the server. Selecting one of
these subcontainers allows you to configure options related to the
corresponding role -- e.g., the Mailbox container is used for managing
Exchange Server stores and storage groups.

The Recipient Configuration container

The Recipient Configuration container is used for managing options

related to individual recipients, as shown in Figure 17. This container
houses a set of subcontainers used to show recipient resources such as
mailboxes, distribution groups, contacts, and disconnected mailboxes.
Figure 17: The Recipient Configuration container.

The Toolbox

Over the years, Microsoft has released a number of external tools for
Exchange Server. As great as some of these tools have been, there has
always been one major underlying problem -- they have not been
directly built into Exchange Server.

In Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft finally incorporated the various

Exchange Server tools directly into the Exchange Management
Console. As you can see in Figure 18, the Exchange Management
Console contains a variety of tools related to configuration, disaster
recovery, mail flow, and performance. You can run any of these tools
from within the Exchange Management Console just by double-clicking
on them.
Figure 18: Tools are now integrated into the Exchange
Management Console.

Part 6: The Exchange

Management Shell for
Exchange Server 2007

The Exchange Management Shell is new to Exchange Server 2007. The

basic idea behind the shell is that it is a command and scripting
interface.
Figure 19: This is what the Exchange Management Shell looks
like.

It may first appear as if the Exchange Management Shell is nothing

more than a standard command prompt. But if you look at the bottom
line of text in Figure 19, you will notice that the letters "MSH" appear in
brackets just ahead of the path.

The [MSH] tells you that you are not running in a true command
prompt environment, but rather within a Microsoft Scripting Host shell.
The Exchange Management Shell is nothing more than a Microsoft
Scripting Host environment that has been extended to support
Exchange Server commands.

So what types of commands can you run within the Exchange

Management Shell? Exchange Server 2007 has been designed so that
anything that you can do through the GUI can also be done through
the Exchange Management Shell.

The available commands and all of the things you can do with the
Exchange Management Shell are almost endless -- and definitely
beyond the scope of this tutorial. However, I do want to show you a
couple of quick tricks you can perform with the Exchange Management
Shell.

The first trick involves using the get-ExchangeServer command. If

you type this command by itself, the Exchange Management Shell will
attempt to display all of the server roles that are configured on the
server. However, because of the way that the information is formatted,
you'll be able to see very little of the actual information. But, if you
append the |format-list option to the command, the Exchange
Management Shell will display a very nice summary of how your server
is configured.

Figure 20: Entering the get-ExchangeServer|format-list

command.

Now let me show you an example of how the Exchange Management

Shell can be used for scripting. As you have worked with the Exchange
Management Console, you might have noticed that some rather bizarre
commands are displayed after completing certain actions. For
example, if you look at Figure 21, you will see the New Mailbox screen.
To get the screen, I created a mailbox for a new user named "User3."

Figure 21: Many of the actions that you perform through the
Exchange Management Console will reveal commands that can
be used to perform the exact same action from a command
prompt.

There's nothing especially remarkable about creating a new user

account and a new mailbox (except that you can do it all through the
Exchange Management Console now). However, if you look at Figure
21 again, you'll see an extremely long command following the mailbox
creation. This is the actual command that you would enter into the
Exchange Management Shell if you wanted to create the new user and
the new mailbox from the command prompt.

OK, I know that nobody in the right mind would want to type such a
long command when they can perform the action through the GUI.
That isn't really the point though. I'm showing this to you because you
can use this command -- or other commands revealed through the
Exchange Management Console -- as the basis for a script.

Imagine for example that you had a couple thousand mailboxes to

create. It would be a lot faster to create a script based on the
command that I just showed you then it would be to manually create
the mailboxes through the GUI.

Part 7: The Outlook 2007

configuration process
Before I show you how to configure Outlook 2007 to connect to
Exchange Server 2007, there are a few prerequisites. First, you must
have created a couple of user mailboxes. If you are unclear as to how
to create mailboxes in Exchange 2007, read the end of Part 4. I am
also assuming that you have already installed Microsoft Office 2007 on
the users' workstations.

Finally, at the time I wrote this tutorial, Exchange Server 2007,

Microsoft Office 2007, and Windows Vista were all still in beta testing.
That being the case, it is possible that anything I show you here could
change by the time that the various products are released.

Configuring Outlook 2007

1. Log into one of your workstations using one of the user accounts for which you
have created a mailbox. After logging in, open Microsoft Outlook 2007 to view
the Outlook 2007 Startup screen, which is really just a welcome screen for the
Setup wizard.

Figure 22: This is Outlook 2007's Welcome screen.

2. Click Next and you will see a screen asking you if you would like to configure an
email account. Click the Yes button and then click Next again.
3. You will now be asked if you want to connect to an Exchange, POP3, IMAP, or
HTTP server, or if you would rather connect to an Outlook Add-in Connector.
Choose the Microsoft Exchange Server option and click Next.

Figure 23: Choose the Exchange Server, POP3, IMAP, or

HTTP option.

4. Outlook 2007 will now request a name, email address, and password. (One thing
that's worth noting is that Outlook 2007 is prompting you to enter the user's name,
not the person's user name.) Before you start typing though, just wait for a few
seconds. Assuming that you have your workstation's DNS settings configured
correctly, and the user account that you are signed in with has a mailbox, Outlook
2007 should automatically detect the Exchange Server and fill in the necessary
information for you.

It usually only takes a few seconds for Outlook to automatically

configure itself. If for some reason Outlook configures itself
incorrectly or not at all, you do have the option of performing a
manual configuration. Notice the Manually Configure Server
Settings checkbox in the lower left corner of Figure 24.
 Figure 24: Enter the user's name, email address, and
password.

5. Assuming that Outlook 2007 has configured itself correctly, click Next to
continue.
6. Depending on how your test environment is configured, you might possibly see a
message telling you that the certificate issuer for the site is untrusted or unknown.
If this were a production environment, it would be a serious issue. Being that our
purpose at the moment is to simply take Exchange 2007 and Outlook 2007 for a
test drive though, just click "Yes" to ignore the message and continue.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 should now be installed and ready to use.

Part 8: Favorite new Outlook

2007 features

There is no way that I can possibly show you everything that's new to
Outlook 2007, but I do want to at least show you a few of my favorite
new Microsoft Outlook features.

Aside from the cosmetic changes to the menu bar, the Outlook 2007
interface looks a lot like the Outlook 2003 interface. Outlook 2007
offers the same basic folder structure as its predecessor in the column
on the left. The Inbox pane and the preview pane also remain largely
unchanged.

Figure 25: This is the new Outlook 2007 interface.

The "To-Do Bar"

If you look at the far right side of Figure 25 though, you will notice
some sideways text that says "To-Do Bar." If you click the blue arrow
just above this text, the bar will expand to reveal a calendar and the
day's to-do list.

As you can see in Figure26, Outlook 2007 displays a calendar for the
full month, along with today's appointments and today's to-do list.
Figure 26: A calendar and to-do list display alongside your
messages.

I absolutely love this new feature because it allows you to see

everything you've got going on for the day and your email messages --
without having to switch between views. Of course, if you prefer the
old Calendar and Tasks views, those are still available.

Outlook 2007's search feature

My absolute favorite feature in Outlook 2007 is the new search feature.

Outlook 2007's search capabilities are nothing short of amazing. If you
have ever performed a search on messages in Outlook 2003, you know
that you just enter the phrase that you are searching for and then wait
for the search to complete.

In Outlook 2007 though, the search interface has been greatly

expanded. You can enter search criteria based on any combination of
the To, From, or Subject fields of a message, or on the message body.

The neat thing about the new search tool is that the search takes place
as you type, and occurrences of the search criteria are highlighted in
the message pane.

For example, if you look at Figure 27, you will notice that I entered the
word User into the From category. A message from User1 was instantly
displayed as I typed, even though I had not typed the 1 yet. Of course,
had I typed User2, the message from User1 would disappear from the
search results.

Figure 27: The Outlook search feature has been completely

overhauled.

I'm sure that this example probably seems a little abstract, so let me
give you a real-world example. I am running Outlook 2007 on my
production desktop. Yesterday my wife was on the phone to our travel
agent. The travel agent asked for a booking number for a cruise
booked months ago. I had no idea what the booking number was, but I
knew that I had it in an email message from my wife.

I opened Outlook 2007 and typed my wife's name in the From field. Of
course, Microsoft Outlook displayed about a billion email messages
from her. I then entered the phrase Booking Number into the body field
and Outlook 2007 instantly narrowed down the search results and
displayed only the message I needed. The entire process was so fast
that my wife thought that I had the number in front of me when she
asked for it.

Outlook 2007's Categories feature

It is now possible to categorize messages by color. In Outlook 2003,

you could assign objects to categories and various colored flags to
messages. In Outlook 2007, the categories and the colors have been
combined.
When you select the Categories command from the Edit menu, you will
see a list of categories that looks like the one shown in Figure 28. You
can assign a message to the blue category, the red category, etc.

Figure 28: You can assign messages to color-coded categories.

Of course blue, red, and green probably don't mean a lot to you in
terms of your messages. The first time that you use a category though,
you have the opportunity to rename it. For example, if you look at
Figure 29, you will see that the blue category is now business and the
red category is now personal. If you look at Figure 30, you will see
what it looks like when you apply these categories to messages.
Figure 29: You can customize your color-coded categories.

Figure 30: This is what it looks like when messages are

categorized.

Another nice thing about categorizing messages is that you don't have
to worry about running out of categories. If the six default categories
aren't enough for you, you can create more categories any time you
need to.