Looking for some Outlook/Exchange experts out there..
I could easily type several pages to describe in detail what the problem is, but I will only state the crucial information for the sake of your time/my fingers.
I have two separate networks A and B. In network A, I have some PCs all running Windows XP with Outlook 2003. In network B, I have a server machine running Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003.
The enterprise firewall at network A blocks all incoming AND outgoing connections to port 135. Since Exchange Server by default uses port 135, the Outlook clients cannot see the server. As a solution, I've installed the Windows Server 2003 component called RPC over HTTP, which allows for wrapping RPC packets over the HTTP/HTTPS (80/443) protocol.
The only problem is that, even though both the Exchange server and the Outlook clients are configured for RPC over HTTP, Outlook reports that the Exchange server is unavailable.
To troubleshoot, I used a network analyzer program to track packets. To my surprise, I discovered outgoing packets from the Outlook machines to the Exchange Server's port 135, even though I have configured Outlook to use RPC over HTTP. So it is no surprise that the connection cannot be established.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there anyone out there who was able to make RPC over HTTP work with port 135 disabled? Please help, I will be grateful!
I could easily type several pages to describe in detail what the problem is, but I will only state the crucial information for the sake of your time/my fingers.
I have two separate networks A and B. In network A, I have some PCs all running Windows XP with Outlook 2003. In network B, I have a server machine running Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2003.
The enterprise firewall at network A blocks all incoming AND outgoing connections to port 135. Since Exchange Server by default uses port 135, the Outlook clients cannot see the server. As a solution, I've installed the Windows Server 2003 component called RPC over HTTP, which allows for wrapping RPC packets over the HTTP/HTTPS (80/443) protocol.
The only problem is that, even though both the Exchange server and the Outlook clients are configured for RPC over HTTP, Outlook reports that the Exchange server is unavailable.
To troubleshoot, I used a network analyzer program to track packets. To my surprise, I discovered outgoing packets from the Outlook machines to the Exchange Server's port 135, even though I have configured Outlook to use RPC over HTTP. So it is no surprise that the connection cannot be established.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Is there anyone out there who was able to make RPC over HTTP work with port 135 disabled? Please help, I will be grateful!