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Krista Thorwald: Today we are going to talk about Microsoft® Exchange offline address books and using them with Microsoft Outlook®. My name is Krista Thorwald. I am working with Microsoft in Product Support Services, and I'm currently in Exchange Escalation Services.

Today we are going to go over an introduction to the offline address book (slide 2). If you have not used this before, basically this feature allows Outlook clients to download the address book locally. With older versions of Outlook, we could only use a classic online or offline mode. With Outlook 2003, we have a new mode called cached mode. By default that configures the client to use the offline address book when you're not connected to the server, or even when you are connected to the server.

The agenda for today's WebCast (slide 3) is, first, we'll talk about the server; then we will talk about the client. With the server we will talk about how you configure the offline address book and different options you have. Then we will talk about how it works, how it's actually built. With the client, there are two modes that I mentioned previously, cached mode and the classic offline mode. You can configure the client to use the OAB in those two ways.

We will also talk about the files that are downloaded to the client after you have configured the client to use this OAB. We will also talk about logging. Sometimes things don't work as you expect, so the first place to go is logging. So we will talk about that. At the end of the presentation, there will be a few resources and a question and answer session.

Throughout this WebCast I will be using the term offline address book, or OAB (slide 4). I will also mention the term offline address list, or OAL. During this WebCast I will use OAB interchangeably and generically to refer to both the offline address book and the offline address list. When working with the client, that is always referred to as the offline address book. The offline address list comes in with server terminology.

So to begin, we'll talk about the Exchange server configuration (slide 5). Configuring offline address books is done using Exchange System Manager. When you open Exchange System Manager, expand the Organization Name, expand Recipients, and then you can click the offline address list. You will have a default offline address list. That can be removed. You can add new ones, or you can modify the default offline address list or any address list that you have present.

The offline address list on the server has several different things that you can configure (slide 6). You can configure the offline address list server, the address lists to be included in the offline address book when the offline address book is built and the files are generated, as well as Exchange 4.0 and 5.0 compatibility.

The offline address list server is the server that builds the files that the client will be downloading. This server will need access to the global catalog server. It will also need access to a public folder store. The public folder store will contain system folders, and we will talk about the system folders in just a little bit.

The server that you specify should also contain the appropriate language locale. The OAB can only use the sort locale and character set of the server where it is generated. For example, if you have an Outlook client that is Spanish connecting to an Exchange server, you can add the Spanish locale to the Exchange server. However, the primary locale is going to be whatever was installed; let's say English. When the OAB is generated, it will use the English locale.

If clients were working online, they would be able to use their local character set, their local sort order, and that sort of thing. But the offline address list will only use what's generated. So if you have different languages, you may want to create two offline address books and use different servers with the appropriate language locale.

Also, with the different offline address books, you can specify which address list will be used by which mailbox store, and we will talk about that next.

The address list specifies what data is going to be available in the offline address lists. You can add multiple address lists here. However, the Outlook client can only download one address list.

If there are multiple address lists in the offline address book, the client will be prompted on which address list it should download. The update interval, by default, only runs once daily. You can definitely change this by clicking the Customize button. Also take note that because it only runs daily, if you were to create a new account at 6:00 A.M., yet the offline address book was built at 5:00 A.M., that new account would not be available in the offline address list until it is rebuilt.

The Exchange 4.0 and 5.0 compatibility check box is not used with Outlook clients. This check box is here for older clients. Older clients include the Exchange 4.0 and 5.0 clients, as well as Outlook 8.03 and earlier versions. This check box is cleared by default. If you do select this, more time will be needed to generate the OAB files, and more room will be taken in the public folder database.

You can specify which offline address list the mailbox store will use (slide 7). It is very common to use this when you have different physical locations; when you have different languages, which we already talked about; or when you want to restrict the OAB use, such as in a hosting environment.

Let's say you have two physical, separate locations, but they are connected by a wide area network. You may not want all your clients to go over that wide area network to get the offline address list. One thing you can do is create two offline address lists and generate them on different servers. Let's say you have one in Colorado and one in New York. On the Colorado mailbox store you can specify the Colorado offline address book, and the same thing in New York.

Another example would be a hosting environment. You might have one company hosted for one mailbox store, and you can specify which offline address list they can see. The same thing with the other company: If you have another offline address book, again, on their mailbox store, you can specify the second offline address list.

After you have configured the offline address list and have all the data specified the way want it, the address books have to be built. The first thing that happens is, after you configure the OAB, it's written to Active Directory (slide 8). This is to the global catalog server, and it's why the offline address book server needs to have access to the Active Directory. After the configuration is written the store maintenance will create the high-level system folders.

After the high-level folders are created, another process, running under the System Attendant, will call an OABGen file to create the different Version 2 and Version 3a system folders, which we will talk about in more detail in a little bit. The OABGen will also read the address list that you've specified to use. It will actually call that data and build the files for the offline address book.

After the offline address book has been generated, the OABGen also maintains differences. We will talk about those files in greater detail. If you are having Active Directory issues or public folder issues, those can affect the offline address book. So you may want to address those first, before creating offline address books.

Store maintenance (slide 9): This is run under the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service, also called the Store.exe. You can see when store maintenance will run on your server. If you look at the mailbox store properties, you will see when it's scheduled to run. To do that, you open your Exchange System Manager, navigate to your server, find the OAB server name that you specified in the offline address book, open your storage group name, your mailbox store, and then click Properties. Clicking the Database tab will show the maintenance interval. Normally it will run from 12:00 midnight to 4:00 A.M. When that's run, these top-level folders will be created.

To view these top-level folders in Exchange System Manager, expand the folders, and then right-click Public Folders, and you will be able to view System Folders. Under System Folders there will be OFFLINE ADDRESS BOOK, which will be there by default. Store maintenance will create the two folders that you see here on your slide, the EX folder. For each administrative group you will have one of these folders.

For each offline address book you will see the /o folder, and that's represented here by the first organization with the addrlist under the OABs. Then you will see the offline address book name. In this case it's the default offline address list that's normally built with the server by default. So that's what system maintenance will create.

After system maintenance has been run you can see that the OABGen will create two more folders, the OAB Version 2 and the OAB Version 3a folders (slide 10). The OABGen is called by the Exchange System Attendant, otherwise known as the Mad.exe. OAB Version 2 will be used by Outlook 2003 clients in ANSI mode. That's also called non-Unicode mode. We'll talk more about that when we get to the client. Version 3a is used for the Outlook 2003 Unicode mode. Outlook 2003 Unicode mode is new. Older versions of Outlook can use the Version 2 folder. So only Outlook 2003 can be specified for Unicode mode.

After the Version 2 and the Version 3a folders are built, the OABGen will create a message and post that into these folders (slide 11). That message will contain attachments that have all the OAB files. You can open these messages and see the attachments in there. They are in compressed format, so it will be difficult, if you open the attachments, to see what's inside of them. But you can make sure that the message and the files are in the folder.

With Exchange 2003 we have a Content tab. You can click that Content tab. If you are prompted for credentials, you should enter a mailbox that has access to this offline address list. Then you will be able to log in and see this.

You can also see these messages by logging into Outlook Web Access with the HTTP or HTTPS, if you have a certificate. You enter the server name, then /public, then /non_IPM_subtree. After you get there, you will see OFFLINE ADDRESS BOOK, and you can open that, navigate to the Version 2 or the Version 3a folders, and then you can see the contents of those messages.

You may see several messages in those folders. For the Version 2 folder — remember, that's the ANSI version or the non-Unicode — there are many attachments (slide 12) that will be on the message. The Browse2.oab file, that's the centerpiece. That points to all the other data in all the other files. It keeps them all straight.

The Details2.oab file is only downloaded with full details, which we will talk about when we get to the client section. This includes more information than if you select No Details. Also, the Details2.oab would not be downloaded if you do not specify Full Details, but it will be built on the server if people want to use that.

The Rdndex2.oab file is used for distinguished name lookups. Anrdex2.oab will be used for ambiguous name resolution. That's when you have two names that closely match one another.

The Lngxxx2.oab file is the template data. This xxx here specifies the locale ID. So you might have several Lngxxx2.oab templates or files in there. The Macxxx.oab is the template data for Macintosh.

Now all those files will be in one message, and that will be the entire .oab. But after you start generating differences to the .oab, you might see other messages with just the Changes.oab file. So any changes from the last time the offline address book was generated will be saved in the Changes.oab. That's the Version 2 folder.

In the Version 3a folder we have the same files, except they are named a little bit differently. They have an _u in them for Unicode. So, for example, you have a Browse2_u.oab or a Details2_u.oab. Again, the Browse2, Details2 Rdndex, Anrdex, Lng, and Mac, all those .oab files will be attachments in one message, in the OAB Version 3a folder. And again, you will see Changes.oab on separate messages, to track differences.

After all the files are built and have been posted to the folders, the Outlook client can start downloading the OAB. There are two ways you can configure Outlook 2003 to use the offline address book (slide 13). Traditionally, we used an offline mode. That classic offline mode is still used with Outlook 2003. We do have a new cached mode. When you specify that, that mode will use the OAB.

Cached mode (slide 14) automatically downloads and uses the OAB. Cached mode uses many local files while you're still connected and active on the network. You can determine if your client is in cached mode. When you open Outlook, right-click the Mailbox folder. That's going to appear in the upper-left side. You click Properties. After you do that, you'll see an Advanced button. When you click the Advanced button, that will bring you to another page, and you will be able to see the Advanced tab. Halfway down you will see Use Cached Exchange Mode. If that is selected, you will be copying the OAB files locally.

The other way to use Outlook 2003 with the OAB is to use the classic offline mode (slide 15). If you're not using cached mode, you can still go into the mailbox folder and get Properties. Again, on the Advanced button, you'll see the Advanced tab. If Cached mode is cleared, you can see that there will be an Offline Folder File Settings button. You click that, and then you will have an option to Enable Offline Use, and you can follow the rest of the prompts. You will be prompted to create an OST file. And then after that's created, you can do a send/receive, which will download all the mail, as well as the offline address book, to the client.

When you download the offline address book in classic mode, you will see a prompt to download different things. By default, Download changes since last Send/Receive will be selected. What this means is after you've successfully downloaded the OAB files to the client, the next time you connect, instead of downloading the whole offline address book again, you can download the changes only. That's what that box is for. That's what that Changes.oab is for on the server.

The Information to download: You can select to download Full Details or No Details (slide 16). If you are in cached mode, there is a way to get to this page. You do want to leave it at Full Details. Cached mode is optimized for Full Details. If you have limited hard drive space, however, and you're working in classic mode, you may want to select No Details. That Details2.oab file that we talked about previously will not be downloaded if you select No Details.

You can also choose your address book. Now, by default, there will be only one address book. So if you click the drop-down arrow, you'll only see one address list here. However, if you have added multiple address lists, this is where the client can specify which address list it wants to download. Whether you're using cached mode or a classic offline mode, you will download the files to the local hard drive on the Outlook computer.

You can see which files will be downloaded (slide 17), and we talked about the ANSI or the non-Unicode, as well as the Unicode files. So depending on what you have set, it will depend if you were going to connect to Version 2 folder or the Version 3a. In Outlook 2003, if you right-click your mailbox folder and then click Properties, again, we'll get to that Advanced button and that Advanced tab. In the Advanced tab you will see the Mailbox Mode section, and then you will determine if it's Unicode or if it's running in non-Unicode or ANSI mode.

No matter which mode you're running in, the files will be downloaded to the hard drive, by default, under your Documents and Settings, under your Windows® alias or Windows user account, the Local Settings folder, then the Application Data folder, under Microsoft and under Outlook (\Documents and Settings\WindowsAlias\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\).

Notice that this is by Windows alias, not Outlook profile. Therefore, it's recommended, if you are using cached or classic offline mode, that you have a separate Windows logon into the computer for every single Outlook profile. That way you won't run into problems downloading and maintaining the offline address books.

The file names (slide 18) are a bit different than the server. The client can connect to the server, and then it will use those files, uncompress them, and download and rename them to the client's hard drive. If you are using Unicode mode, the client will connect to the OAB Version 3a system folder. And then it will take those files, the files will be copied to the hard drive and be renamed to ubrowse.oab, udetails.oab, and so on. So you can probably guess the Browse2_u.oab is extracted and is named ubrowse.oab.

The updndex.oab is a little bit confusing. That is extracted from the Rdndex server file. So there are two files that will be extracted from the Rdndex, both the urdndex.oab, as well as the updndex.oab.

The templates file (utmplts.oab): that's from the Lng file, with the code page. That's where that file comes from. That's also a little bit confusing.

Now each of these files has their own purpose. The ubrowse will be the distinguished name and, again, the pointers to all these other files that will be used. The udetails will only be downloaded if the Full Details has been selected. If No Details is selected, this file will not be available on the client machine.

The urdndex is the relative distinguished name. This updndex keeps track of changes to domain names for the e-mail addresses. The uanrdex deals with ambiguous names, and the utmplts file is used with templates. Now, if you download the changes, the changes will be downloaded and then integrated into these files into the client machine.

The ANSI or non-Unicode files (slide 19), these are downloaded from the OAB Version 2 system folder on the server. Again, these look very similar to the Unicode files, but they don't have a "u" in front of them. There is a chance that you might see both sets of files when you look on the client hard drive. There are some cases when you have done an upgrade, different Outlook profiles, and things like that. You might see two sets of files. However, only one will be used. So if you have upgraded or you have changed from ANSI mode to Unicode mode, only the Unicode files would be updated.

If you do see old, left-over files, you can delete the old set if they are not being used. If you manually delete the files that are being used, the next time the client connects, it will perform a full download of the offline address book.

So you have set up Outlook. You have set up the Exchange server. Everything should be working. But sometimes there's something else going on. The first place to start would be logging (slide 20). With older versions of Outlook, we logged all the synchronization errors to the Deleted Items folder, to a message there. That has changed with Outlook 2003. We now use the Synchronization Failures folder. That would be the first place to look on the Outlook client if you have trouble with downloading the files.

On Exchange Server we use event logging. You can increase the logging level by going into the Exchange System Manager, going to the server that generates the offline address book files, and there is a Diagnostics Logging tab. In that Diagnostics Logging property sheet you will see the MSExchangeSA.

With the MSExchangeSA there will be a category for OAL generator. Normally you would start by setting the logging level to minimum, and that should give you some idea of why the server is not generating the offline address list. Maybe it cannot connect to the system folder, or something like that, to write the file. So Diagnostics Logging will be the first place to set that. If the minimum logging level does not help, set it to maximum. But that will fill up your event log, especially if there are a lot of errors. So you may want to use that only for troubleshooting.

So here is how this works. Let's take an example. Let's say you cannot download the offline address book and the client is receiving errors. One of the most common errors is the MAPI_E_NOT_FOUND_ERROR. That's a pretty generic error, which basically means it cannot connect to the system folder to download the messages.

Let's say you've done a little bit more troubleshooting and you've created a public folder on the same server where the system folders are located, and the client can connect to that fine. Let's go look at the server side. Now you know you can go and see if those messages are available in the system folders. Let's say they're not available there. That's when you would use the Exchange server diagnostics logging and go in and find out why it cannot be generated.

There are many additional resources (slide 21) that you can use to troubleshoot any offline address book errors. There is a great article, 811870, and that's for troubleshooting offline address book download issues. Also, if you're hosting virtual organizations, I highly recommend article 822940. That gives you a step-by-step plan to create different address lists, which you can then use with the offline address book. It talks about setting permissions and exactly how to segment those different offline address books for the different companies.

If you are not familiar with support.microsoft.com, I also highly recommend that as a resource.

Also, don't forget your Help files. In Exchange Server you would want to search under "offline address list." On the Outlook client, you can search on "offline address book" or "offline address list," and you can get a lot of information that way.

In summary (slide 22), we talked about the Exchange 2003 server. We talked about configuring the offline address book, as well as how it works behind the scenes. For Outlook 2003, we also talked about the different ways you can specify how to download or when to download an offline address book, as well as what files are downloaded. We talked about logging, both from the client and the server, and that is the best place to start if you have been having issues. And we briefly touched on resources.

Next we will start taking questions, but before we do so I do want to thank all of you for attending this WebCast. Thank you.

Otto Cate: Before we jump into the Q&A section, I'd like to share a couple of quick program notes with our listeners. For any information on future events or to review any of our sessions on demand, feel free to visit our main Support WebCast site at support.microsoft.com/webcasts/.

So with that, let's answer some questions that were submitted during the presentation. The first one is: Is OAL new to Office 2003?

Krista: The OAL was introduced with Exchange 2000. So Exchange 5.5 and earlier versions did use the terminology "offline address books."

Otto: Can we access a shared contact list so that it is set up as a public folder in offline mode or cached mode? If that's possible, how do you set it up to work that way?

Krista: The public folders, other than the built-in system folders, are not synchronized with the offline address book. By default, they're also not synchronized with Outlook. If you want to use that offline, you would create a public folder shortcut, add that into Outlook, and then you can specify the public folder for synchronization.

Otto: My Outlook Web Access users often complain that they cannot check names against our public folder contacts. How can I use offline address books or lists to allow my OI users to check names against both a public folder contact list and, of course, their own contacts, without having to use RPC over HTTPS?

Krista: Unfortunately, public folders are not a part of the offline address books. If you wanted to check names with the offline address book, you will need to have that address in an address list. Some people do create contacts and things like that. You can add those into your offline address book by creating an address list with those and adding that to the offline address book, or putting them in your Global Address List, and then they will be built.

However, you can copy public folders. You can synchronize them locally. With the other questions we talked about, you can create a public folder favorite, and you can synchronize any public folders that way. As far as with any folders within the mailbox, you can also synchronize those locally. As far as checking names, there is no good way to do that with the different folders and things like that.

For all the checked names, you can add the different address lists into your address list check name.

Otto: Can you download more than one OAB?

Krista: More than one OAB is not supported. Unfortunately, you can only download one OAB. Now, during the OAB you do have multiple address lists; so not only are you limited to one OAB, but you are limited to one address list within the OAB.

If you would like more information, you probably need to create a larger set. So create one address list for all the information for the one offline address book. In that case, with all the accounts, if you add that address list to the offline address book, you would be able to use all the names in there. But only one offline address list can be downloaded.

Otto: We're currently using Exchange 2000 and primarily Outlook 2000. I, along with my team, happen to be using Outlook 2003. We have seen some inconsistent results in having the OAB files updated on our clients. Is there any special configuration that the Outlook 2003 client needs to have to automatically come down from a server?

Krista: If you are using older versions of Outlook to the server, that will only have the Version 2 folder. So that would be the ANSI or the non-Unicode mode. If you add Outlook 2003 into the environment, there is a possibility that you could be attempting to download the Unicode files. With an Exchange 2000 server, those will not be available. Unicode mode is only available with Exchange 2003, so you'll want to make sure that Outlook is using non-Unicode or ANSI mode.

If you are having trouble or you are seeing inconsistencies, check your logging and see if you're getting errors or those sorts of things. We have seen many different issues with the system folder being on a different server, in a different location, and the clients have intermittent network issues downloading that.

If you are using a single Windows profile for multiple Outlook profiles, you're going to have problems. You want to make sure that you only have one Windows user account per Outlook profile. That will resolve a lot of the issues. But definitely check your logging and see if there are issues with downloading on the client.

Otto: How would I change the location on the client where the OAB files are stored? For instance, suppose I wanted to store them on drive D?

Krista: There is a registry setting to do that. Unfortunately, it's not published publicly. We are working on an article, which will be published within the next few months, with that information.

Otto: How do I add additional attributes to the offline address book, such as custom attributes?

Krista: There is no way to do that at this time. Even when you download the full details, you won't see every single entry that's also available on the Exchange server address list, and there is no way to add additional details into that details file.

Otto: Can you control how often the client updates OAB?

Krista: After the offline address book is successfully downloaded, it uses an internal timer and it will download the update every 24 hours. You can also use Send/Receive. If you click there, you can select Download Now for the offline address book.

Otto: That was the final question in the queue, so I'm going to wrap up our session today.

I wanted to thank Krista for coming out and giving us a great presentation and working through the questions. Of course, as always, I'd like to thank you, our listeners, for attending today's event. We certainly hope that this information was helpful to you and your business, and we look forward to seeing you again in the near future.

Thank you, everyone, and have a great day.