Exchange-Genie

A new feature in Exchange 2007 is the ability to connect to internal file servers from OWA. I have not heard many companies using this feature however thought I would put togethor a blog on this topic.

I have configured file share access from OWA and found it works well for small files but any large files seem to timeout making access to them unusable.

So how can you configure this feature?

To enable remote file share access there are a number of locations which configuration needs to be made.

1. Open EMC (or EMS) Server Configuration and select CAS

2. On the OWA virtual directory right click and select properties

There are 2 locations we can edit for these setting Public/Private computer file access however I am going to just focus on Private as we most likely do not want to allow this from computers that select the public option.

3. Select the Private Computer file access

4. If not checked, check the box Windows File Shares

5. Click Apply
6. Select the Remote File Server Tab

Lets take a look the option that are available under this tab

The first option is to specify a block list, this will set a explicit deny so that user cannot access these servers via the web interface and will take precidence over the allow list.

Next we have our allow list which specifies the servers which users can access

The Unknown Server option specifies how any server that is not explicity on the block or allow list should be handled

The domain suffix lists specifies what name space will be treated as internal and allowed to be accesses.

Example: Domain = Domain.local

select configure and input domain.local

**Please note this configuration is per OWA Virtual Directory **

Now its time for the user to configure thier end……

1. Logon to OWA
2. Select Documentation from the menu

3. Click “Open Location”

4. Input the UNC Path too the file share you want to access

**The Windows SharePoint Services and Windows file share integration feature is available only in the Exchange 2007 Outlook Web Access Premium client and when either Basic or forms-based authentication is used.***
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123700(EXCHG.80).aspx