Saturday PM Update

Greetings All,

Here is where we stand:

There was a minor issue this AM that our VT admin corrected. 

Outlook Users:
Everything should work fine for you.  You may be prompted with security warnings or autodiscover warnings when opening Outlook but these are fine.  These warnings are temporary and necessary for your settings to change automatically.  Please answer yes to these when Outlook presents them to you.

Outlook Web Access users:
mail.vcom.edu AND mail.vcom.vt.edu will both take you to where you need to go.  The login page now looks different and there is a minor change in what you need to put in for your username.  IT IS NO LONGER NECESSARY TO PUT VCOM\ INFRONT OF YOUR USERNAME.  Just put the first part of your email address (everything prior to the @ symbol) for your username.  Enter your password and login.  You will get a certificate error, this is fine and temporary.  You should then see your Web Outlook as usual.

Smart Phone Access:

This is going to be in limbo for a little while.  I apologize for that but it is necessary for the transition.  The following settings should work for you however THEY ARE NOT PERMANENT.  These will change sometime soon but for now this should work for you.

These settings are for exchange/active sync/corporate sync accounts.  You will get a certificate or security warning but it is fine to continue through this.

I apologize to BlackBerry users; they have a completely different access mechanism.  I don’t have one so I can test it.  Even if I could, the very limited way that they access email may not work during transition. 

Current settings (NOT PERMANENT):

Exchange server: elros.vcom.vt.edu
Domain: vcom
SSL/Secure connection: yes

Future settings (not currently active but will be as the transition moves ahead):

Exchange server: mail.vcom.edu
Domain: vcom
SSL/Secure connection: yes

POP/Gmail accounts:

There are some out there that prefer to use POP access or access their accounts through Gmail via the POP protocol.  This is not a recommend method but we recognize its importance.  As the transition continues I will push for this to be considered.  For now here are the settings that have worked for me.  I tested this using Windows Live Mail on Windows 7.

Incoming Mail Server: elros.vcom.vt.edu

Username:  everything prior to the @ symbol in your email address with no VCOM\

Authentication: Clear Text

Port: 110

SSL: off

Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.vcom.vt.edu

Use same credentials for authentication as incoming server

Port: 25

SSL: off

Sending through Gmail via our POP server:  I don’t think this is supported at the moment.  You may be able to send through Gmail.  We will attempt to support this in the future.

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From a user:  I've been messing around with the gmail settings and wanted to let you know what my current setup is. With this setup I at least have a secure connection with outgoing e-mail. I hope this helps as well.

POP3:

POP server: elros.vcom.edu
Port: 110
SSL: Off

Outgoing:

SMTP Server: mail.vcom.edu
Port 587
TLS: On

Credit goes to Edi B
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A continual source of frustration has been access to POP on Macs.  The same settings that work on Windows SHOULD work on Macs but sometimes don’t.  A quirk to watch out for on the Macs, changes to the server settings in the mail apps on those platforms often do not take until the app is fully quit and restarted.  I will do what I can to ensure that Macs will work with POP accounts.  Without one to test with this will be difficult. 

Thank you for all your patience!

Harth Tucker