XFOR: Internet Mail Service May Not Save Turfed Messages or Saves Them to an Unexpected Location

Spoofed messages coming into Exchange Server from the Internet Mail Service may not be saved as configured in the Windows NT registry. The spoofed messages may be saved on the system drive or not at all.

The Exchange Server Administrator program in Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5 Service Pack 1 provides a dialog box (Configuration-Connections- Internet Mail Service-Connections-Message Filter) for adding originator domains and user names to the "Turf" table. The Turf table is then used to filter out incoming messages. If incoming messages are from a user or domain in the Turf table, the message is not delivered to the Exchange Server recipient. Instead, it is deleted, or saved in a Turf directory. This directory is set by default in the Exchange Server Administrator program to be C:\Turfdir. You can change this location by adjusting the following registry key: However, every time you add a domain or user to the Turf table through the Message Filter in the Exchange Server Administrator program, the Turf directory is reset to the default location. If the default location does not have a Turfdir directory created, the messages will not be saved.

For more information on Turf tables and Turf directories, please see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base articles:

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Exchange Server version 5.5. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

Component: Administrator Program

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.5. This problem was first corrected in Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 3.