Outlook setup with a Exchange and POP3 account

[goombawaho]

I inherited this old server (Windows SBS2003) and I see that all the Outlook clients are set up this way. See picture.

I'm trying to understand why someone would do this (have a POP3 account as well as an Exchange account set up) versus having the Exchange server go out to the internet and get the emails directly.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[ShackDaddy]

When you go into the configs on each account, do they both reach out to the same server? Assuming they do:

My guess is that originally they had their mail hosted externally and were downloading with POP, but then they added the local Exchange server and never got around to deleting the old POP account. They probably used the POP to ease the cutover from the hosted mail to the local mail, which is why they have the POP configured to dump the mail to the Exchange mailbox instead of a .pst file.

If they are pointed to different servers, it could be the same scenario, just with a different means of shifting the DNS settings/MX records during the cutover which could have been years ago.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net

 

[goombawaho]

All accounts point to the same POP server. The email is still hosted externally at their domain host, so the obvious answer is that they just didn't want to host their own email and thus had to set it up that way.

I was wondering if I could use the Exchange POP connector and SMTP Connector to handle the inbound/outbound mail within Exchange vs. each PC (Outlook) being set up for a POP account. Will that work?

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[wmin3]

I suspect this is a legacy issue that was left during the migration. The sys admin did not want to let go the old mail service provided before moving to the exchange.

It is time to let go

 

[goombawaho]

There was no migration. It was set up this way when the server was new. As I said, I think the admin didn't want to host their own email. I intend on setting up Exchange to send/receive by the connector but NOT have the server be the MX record because it's getting so old. Maybe when a new server is put it in place it would be time for it to host the email.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.