Chat clients unable to authenticate against chat community when users try to log on to an Exchange 2000 chat server

Chat clients may receive the following error message when users try to log on to an Exchange 2000 chat server:

This behavior can be caused after an Exchange Server administrator changes the default authentication to prevent anonymous connections.

When an Exchange Server administrator enables chat client authentication, the administrator must define a user or group with certain user permissions. The following steps grant users the appropriate permissions needed to log on to chat successfully:

1. Start Exchange System Manager. To do this, click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
2. In the left pane of Exchange System Manager, locate the Chat Communities container, and double-click it to expand it. The different chat communities appear. By default, there is one labeled Default-Chat-Community.
3. In the left pane of Exchange System Manager, right-click Default-Chat-Community, and then click Properties.
4. Click the Security tab on the Properties dialog box.
5. On the Security tab, follow the steps outlined below:
   1. Click the Add button.
   2. Click the appropriate object from the Select Users, Computers, and Groups dialog box.
   3. Click the Add button.
   4. Under the Users permissions area, click the newly added object, and click to select the Allow permission check box for the object.

This article assumes that an administrator has turned off anonymous access on purpose. If anonymous access is turned on, all chat users should be able to log on without a problem.

If you want anonymous access turned on, your Internet Relay Chat (IRC) clients must support the ability to pass authentication to the server. Microsoft Chat supports passing authentication to a chat server.

To enable security with Microsoft Chat:

1. On the View menu, click Options, and then click Servers.
2. Add your chat server to the list.
3. Choose an IRC user name and password for the sever that you just added.
4. Type your user name and password.