Hi,
I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
SMTPEmail and X400Email.

Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
through the code, no problem.

In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
email address of ProxyAddresses?
3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).

In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
modifying an AD contact.

Thanks very much for any help,

Hello,

when you mail-enable a contact or user, the RUS (Recipient update service) 
will set the necessary attributes. This will, however, take some time (I 
believe up to two minutes).

It will set the proxyAddresses according to the recipient policies defined 
in the system manager.

> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable 
> on
> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the
> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
You should create another recipient policy or modify an existing one.

And those secondary emails would get a smtp: prefix instead an SMTP: prefix, 
since the all-upper-case entry defines the default address.

> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:)
> email address of ProxyAddresses?
Yes


> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or
> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an
> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For
> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the
> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email 
> on
> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
You should change the recipient policy. The RUS will take care of the rest.

> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what 
> other
> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating 
> and
> modifying an AD contact.
Just call mailenable when creating the object.

Best regards,
Henning Krause

"T Ray Humphrey"  wrote in message 
news:BFF263F7-AD96-4682-A13D-1A0850904441@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. 
> At
> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I 
> have
> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing 
> to
> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: 
> ProxyAddresses,
> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
>
> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During 
> a
> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and
> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight
> through the code, no problem.
>
> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that
> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable 
> on
> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the
> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:)
> email address of ProxyAddresses?
> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or
> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an
> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For
> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the
> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email 
> on
> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
>
> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what 
> other
> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating 
> and
> modifying an AD contact.
>
> Thanks very much for any help,

Thanks for your prompt response. I see I need to provide information I didn't 
before. 

The web application is the front-end for an Exchange hosted solution. It is 
used by administrators to manage users, groups, and contacts in their 
assigned OU. It acts a bit like the Property pages in AD, exposing only those 
attributes I allow them to manage. I'm aware of the RUS and its creation of 
addresses for me. But I must allow my users to set any alternate address they 
like, as well as change primary and alternate addresses at will. I don't 
think the RUS would help me here.

"Henning Krause" wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> when you mail-enable a contact or user, the RUS (Recipient update service) 
> will set the necessary attributes. This will, however, take some time (I 
> believe up to two minutes).
> 
> It will set the proxyAddresses according to the recipient policies defined 
> in the system manager.
> 
> > 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable 
> > on
> > each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the
> > alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
> You should create another recipient policy or modify an existing one.
> 
> And those secondary emails would get a smtp: prefix instead an SMTP: prefix, 
> since the all-upper-case entry defines the default address.
> 
> > 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:)
> > email address of ProxyAddresses?
> Yes
> 
> 
> > 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or
> > alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an
> > existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For
> > existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the
> > call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email 
> > on
> > the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
> You should change the recipient policy. The RUS will take care of the rest.
> 
> > In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what 
> > other
> > calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating 
> > and
> > modifying an AD contact.
> Just call mailenable when creating the object.
> 
> Best regards,
> Henning Krause
> 
> "T Ray Humphrey"  wrote in message 
> news:BFF263F7-AD96-4682-A13D-1A0850904441@microsoft.com...
> > Hi,
> > I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. 
> > At
> > the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I 
> > have
> > read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing 
> > to
> > call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: 
> > ProxyAddresses,
> > SMTPEmail and X400Email.
> >
> > Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During 
> > a
> > debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and
> > calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight
> > through the code, no problem.
> >
> > In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that
> > the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
> > 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable 
> > on
> > each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the
> > alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
> > 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:)
> > email address of ProxyAddresses?
> > 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or
> > alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an
> > existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For
> > existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the
> > call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email 
> > on
> > the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
> >
> > In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what 
> > other
> > calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating 
> > and
> > modifying an AD contact.
> >
> > Thanks very much for any help, 
> 
>

1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
denotes primary address.

2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.

3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
attributes as well.

In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
to use though they don't have full functionality.

Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!


--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
www.joeware.net


---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---

         http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm



T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
> 
> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
> through the code, no problem.
> 
> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
> email address of ProxyAddresses?
> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
> 
> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
> modifying an AD contact.
> 
> Thanks very much for any help,

Hi Joe,
Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
very vanilla example.

I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
update it.

The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
the magic property? 

Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
painful death!

Ray

"Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:

> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
> denotes primary address.
> 
> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
> 
> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
> attributes as well.
> 
> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
> to use though they don't have full functionality.
> 
> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
> 
> 
> --
> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> www.joeware.net
> 
> 
> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> 
>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> 
> 
> 
> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
> > the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
> > read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
> > call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
> > SMTPEmail and X400Email.
> > 
> > Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
> > debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
> > calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
> > through the code, no problem.
> > 
> > In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
> > the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
> > 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
> > each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
> > alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
> > 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
> > email address of ProxyAddresses?
> > 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
> > alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
> > existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
> > existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
> > call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
> > the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
> > 
> > In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
> > calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
> > modifying an AD contact.
> > 
> > Thanks very much for any help,
>

Do you mean the Alias field on the Exchange general tab?

That is the mailnickname attribute.



--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
www.joeware.net


---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---

         http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm



T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> Hi Joe,
> Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
> on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
> TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
> set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
> documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
> very vanilla example.
> 
> I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
> Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
> appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
> E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
> property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
> update it.
> 
> The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
> Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
> This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
> the magic property? 
> 
> Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
> painful death!
> 
> Ray
> 
> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> 
>> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
>> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
>> denotes primary address.
>>
>> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
>>
>> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
>> attributes as well.
>>
>> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
>> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
>> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
>> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
>> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
>> to use though they don't have full functionality.
>>
>> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
>> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
>> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
>>
>>
>> --
>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>> www.joeware.net
>>
>>
>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>
>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>
>>
>>
>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
>>> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
>>> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
>>> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
>>> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
>>>
>>> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
>>> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
>>> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
>>> through the code, no problem.
>>>
>>> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
>>> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
>>> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
>>> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
>>> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
>>> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
>>> email address of ProxyAddresses?
>>> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
>>> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
>>> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
>>> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
>>> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
>>> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
>>>
>>> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
>>> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
>>> modifying an AD contact.
>>>
>>> Thanks very much for any help,

No, Joe, the Alias field is at the top of the tab. Since our application 
manages email for many domains, we generate a value for that at contact 
creation time, it never changes, and we don't expose it to the user. 

The E-mail field is right under it. In my testing, I modified ProxyAddresses 
and SMTPEmail in CDOEXM calls (not using ADUC/ESM). If I look at the 
properties of that contact in ADUC now, the ProxyAddresses and SMTPEmail are 
as I set them, but the E-mail field on the Exchange General tab still shows 
an old "SMTP:BlahBlah@WoofWoof.com". So modifying the properties that I did 
had no effect on this field.

Continued thanks,
Ray

"Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:

> Do you mean the Alias field on the Exchange general tab?
> 
> That is the mailnickname attribute.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> www.joeware.net
> 
> 
> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> 
>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> 
> 
> 
> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> > Hi Joe,
> > Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
> > on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
> > TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
> > set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
> > documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
> > very vanilla example.
> > 
> > I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
> > Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
> > appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
> > E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
> > property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
> > update it.
> > 
> > The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
> > Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
> > This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
> > the magic property? 
> > 
> > Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
> > painful death!
> > 
> > Ray
> > 
> > "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> > 
> >> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
> >> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
> >> denotes primary address.
> >>
> >> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
> >>
> >> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
> >> attributes as well.
> >>
> >> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
> >> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
> >> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
> >> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
> >> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
> >> to use though they don't have full functionality.
> >>
> >> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
> >> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
> >> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >> www.joeware.net
> >>
> >>
> >> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>
> >>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>> Hi,
> >>> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
> >>> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
> >>> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
> >>> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
> >>> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
> >>>
> >>> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
> >>> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
> >>> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
> >>> through the code, no problem.
> >>>
> >>> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
> >>> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
> >>> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
> >>> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
> >>> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
> >>> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
> >>> email address of ProxyAddresses?
> >>> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
> >>> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
> >>> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
> >>> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
> >>> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
> >>> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
> >>>
> >>> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
> >>> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
> >>> modifying an AD contact.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks very much for any help,
>

What version of Exchange? I am looking at the Exchange General Tab in 
Exchange Server 2003 and I see a field for MailBox Store and one for 
Alias. Other than that I have three buttons for setting delivery 
options, etc.



--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
www.joeware.net


---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---

         http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm



T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> No, Joe, the Alias field is at the top of the tab. Since our application 
> manages email for many domains, we generate a value for that at contact 
> creation time, it never changes, and we don't expose it to the user. 
> 
> The E-mail field is right under it. In my testing, I modified ProxyAddresses 
> and SMTPEmail in CDOEXM calls (not using ADUC/ESM). If I look at the 
> properties of that contact in ADUC now, the ProxyAddresses and SMTPEmail are 
> as I set them, but the E-mail field on the Exchange General tab still shows 
> an old "SMTP:BlahBlah@WoofWoof.com". So modifying the properties that I did 
> had no effect on this field.
> 
> Continued thanks,
> Ray
> 
> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> 
>> Do you mean the Alias field on the Exchange general tab?
>>
>> That is the mailnickname attribute.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>> www.joeware.net
>>
>>
>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>
>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>
>>
>>
>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>> Hi Joe,
>>> Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
>>> on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
>>> TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
>>> set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
>>> documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
>>> very vanilla example.
>>>
>>> I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
>>> Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
>>> appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
>>> E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
>>> property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
>>> update it.
>>>
>>> The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
>>> Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
>>> This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
>>> the magic property? 
>>>
>>> Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
>>> painful death!
>>>
>>> Ray
>>>
>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>
>>>> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
>>>> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
>>>> denotes primary address.
>>>>
>>>> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
>>>>
>>>> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
>>>> attributes as well.
>>>>
>>>> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
>>>> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
>>>> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
>>>> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
>>>> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
>>>> to use though they don't have full functionality.
>>>>
>>>> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
>>>> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
>>>> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>
>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
>>>>> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
>>>>> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
>>>>> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
>>>>> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
>>>>>
>>>>> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
>>>>> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
>>>>> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
>>>>> through the code, no problem.
>>>>>
>>>>> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
>>>>> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
>>>>> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
>>>>> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
>>>>> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
>>>>> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
>>>>> email address of ProxyAddresses?
>>>>> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
>>>>> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
>>>>> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
>>>>> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
>>>>> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
>>>>> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
>>>>>
>>>>> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
>>>>> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
>>>>> modifying an AD contact.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks very much for any help,

Ahh. You are probably looking at a User. The Exchange General tab is 
different for a contact. Therein lies the beginnings of my problem...

Ray

"Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:

> What version of Exchange? I am looking at the Exchange General Tab in 
> Exchange Server 2003 and I see a field for MailBox Store and one for 
> Alias. Other than that I have three buttons for setting delivery 
> options, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> www.joeware.net
> 
> 
> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> 
>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> 
> 
> 
> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> > No, Joe, the Alias field is at the top of the tab. Since our application 
> > manages email for many domains, we generate a value for that at contact 
> > creation time, it never changes, and we don't expose it to the user. 
> > 
> > The E-mail field is right under it. In my testing, I modified ProxyAddresses 
> > and SMTPEmail in CDOEXM calls (not using ADUC/ESM). If I look at the 
> > properties of that contact in ADUC now, the ProxyAddresses and SMTPEmail are 
> > as I set them, but the E-mail field on the Exchange General tab still shows 
> > an old "SMTP:BlahBlah@WoofWoof.com". So modifying the properties that I did 
> > had no effect on this field.
> > 
> > Continued thanks,
> > Ray
> > 
> > "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> > 
> >> Do you mean the Alias field on the Exchange general tab?
> >>
> >> That is the mailnickname attribute.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >> www.joeware.net
> >>
> >>
> >> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>
> >>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>> Hi Joe,
> >>> Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
> >>> on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
> >>> TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
> >>> set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
> >>> documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
> >>> very vanilla example.
> >>>
> >>> I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
> >>> Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
> >>> appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
> >>> E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
> >>> property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
> >>> update it.
> >>>
> >>> The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
> >>> Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
> >>> This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
> >>> the magic property? 
> >>>
> >>> Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
> >>> painful death!
> >>>
> >>> Ray
> >>>
> >>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
> >>>> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
> >>>> denotes primary address.
> >>>>
> >>>> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
> >>>>
> >>>> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
> >>>> attributes as well.
> >>>>
> >>>> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
> >>>> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
> >>>> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
> >>>> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
> >>>> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
> >>>> to use though they don't have full functionality.
> >>>>
> >>>> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
> >>>> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
> >>>> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >>>> www.joeware.net
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>>>
> >>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>>>> Hi,
> >>>>> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
> >>>>> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
> >>>>> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
> >>>>> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
> >>>>> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
> >>>>> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
> >>>>> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
> >>>>> through the code, no problem.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
> >>>>> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
> >>>>> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
> >>>>> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
> >>>>> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
> >>>>> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
> >>>>> email address of ProxyAddresses?
> >>>>> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
> >>>>> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
> >>>>> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
> >>>>> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
> >>>>> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
> >>>>> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
> >>>>> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
> >>>>> modifying an AD contact.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks very much for any help,
>

Ah sorry, my fault, you have been saying mailenabled all of this time 
and I looked at a mailbox enabled object.

That email address should be the targetAddress.

--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
www.joeware.net


---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---

         http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm



T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> Ahh. You are probably looking at a User. The Exchange General tab is 
> different for a contact. Therein lies the beginnings of my problem...
> 
> Ray
> 
> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> 
>> What version of Exchange? I am looking at the Exchange General Tab in 
>> Exchange Server 2003 and I see a field for MailBox Store and one for 
>> Alias. Other than that I have three buttons for setting delivery 
>> options, etc.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>> www.joeware.net
>>
>>
>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>
>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>
>>
>>
>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>> No, Joe, the Alias field is at the top of the tab. Since our application 
>>> manages email for many domains, we generate a value for that at contact 
>>> creation time, it never changes, and we don't expose it to the user. 
>>>
>>> The E-mail field is right under it. In my testing, I modified ProxyAddresses 
>>> and SMTPEmail in CDOEXM calls (not using ADUC/ESM). If I look at the 
>>> properties of that contact in ADUC now, the ProxyAddresses and SMTPEmail are 
>>> as I set them, but the E-mail field on the Exchange General tab still shows 
>>> an old "SMTP:BlahBlah@WoofWoof.com". So modifying the properties that I did 
>>> had no effect on this field.
>>>
>>> Continued thanks,
>>> Ray
>>>
>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>
>>>> Do you mean the Alias field on the Exchange general tab?
>>>>
>>>> That is the mailnickname attribute.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>
>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>> Hi Joe,
>>>>> Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
>>>>> on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
>>>>> TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
>>>>> set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
>>>>> documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
>>>>> very vanilla example.
>>>>>
>>>>> I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
>>>>> Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
>>>>> appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
>>>>> E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
>>>>> property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
>>>>> update it.
>>>>>
>>>>> The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
>>>>> Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
>>>>> This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
>>>>> the magic property? 
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
>>>>> painful death!
>>>>>
>>>>> Ray
>>>>>
>>>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
>>>>>> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
>>>>>> denotes primary address.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
>>>>>> attributes as well.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
>>>>>> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
>>>>>> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
>>>>>> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
>>>>>> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
>>>>>> to use though they don't have full functionality.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
>>>>>> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
>>>>>> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>>>
>>>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
>>>>>>> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
>>>>>>> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
>>>>>>> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
>>>>>>> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
>>>>>>> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
>>>>>>> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
>>>>>>> through the code, no problem.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
>>>>>>> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
>>>>>>> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
>>>>>>> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
>>>>>>> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
>>>>>>> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
>>>>>>> email address of ProxyAddresses?
>>>>>>> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
>>>>>>> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
>>>>>>> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
>>>>>>> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
>>>>>>> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
>>>>>>> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
>>>>>>> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
>>>>>>> modifying an AD contact.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks very much for any help,

So here is the problem. TargetAddress is read-only. It is set by calling 
MailEnable. MailEnable only seems to work for mail enabling new contacts, not 
for modifying existing contacts. Way down near the beginning of this post I 
mentioned that a debug step-through with enough delay between the contact 
creation and the MailEnable produces an error - I was wondering if MailEnable 
won't work if the RUS has come through and created the SMTP: address (our RUS 
would create an SMTP: that we don't want -- an "internal" address that a 
contact wouldn't use). If I create a contact and then MailEnable right away, 
no problem (our RUS then creates an smtp: address -- I'm not real savvy about 
RUS, but I think that's what's happening).

Anyway, back to my problem. I can't set TargetAddress as it's read-only. For 
existing contacts, I can't call just MailEnable. Setting ProxyAddresses 
doesn't set TargetAddress. So, how the heck do I modify an SMTP: address for 
an existing contact? Do I have to call MailDisable then MailEnable?

At the risk of wearing out my welcome, let me ask, should I be calling 
MailEnable for user objects I create too? I don't currently. Instead, I call 
CreateMailBox. That seems to work fine, but this whole discussion has me 
questioning everything.

Many thanks,
Ray

"Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:

> Ah sorry, my fault, you have been saying mailenabled all of this time 
> and I looked at a mailbox enabled object.
> 
> That email address should be the targetAddress.
> 
> --
> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> www.joeware.net
> 
> 
> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> 
>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> 
> 
> 
> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> > Ahh. You are probably looking at a User. The Exchange General tab is 
> > different for a contact. Therein lies the beginnings of my problem...
> > 
> > Ray
> > 
> > "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> > 
> >> What version of Exchange? I am looking at the Exchange General Tab in 
> >> Exchange Server 2003 and I see a field for MailBox Store and one for 
> >> Alias. Other than that I have three buttons for setting delivery 
> >> options, etc.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >> www.joeware.net
> >>
> >>
> >> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>
> >>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>> No, Joe, the Alias field is at the top of the tab. Since our application 
> >>> manages email for many domains, we generate a value for that at contact 
> >>> creation time, it never changes, and we don't expose it to the user. 
> >>>
> >>> The E-mail field is right under it. In my testing, I modified ProxyAddresses 
> >>> and SMTPEmail in CDOEXM calls (not using ADUC/ESM). If I look at the 
> >>> properties of that contact in ADUC now, the ProxyAddresses and SMTPEmail are 
> >>> as I set them, but the E-mail field on the Exchange General tab still shows 
> >>> an old "SMTP:BlahBlah@WoofWoof.com". So modifying the properties that I did 
> >>> had no effect on this field.
> >>>
> >>> Continued thanks,
> >>> Ray
> >>>
> >>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Do you mean the Alias field on the Exchange general tab?
> >>>>
> >>>> That is the mailnickname attribute.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >>>> www.joeware.net
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>>>
> >>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>>>> Hi Joe,
> >>>>> Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
> >>>>> on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
> >>>>> TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
> >>>>> set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
> >>>>> documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
> >>>>> very vanilla example.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
> >>>>> Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
> >>>>> appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
> >>>>> E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
> >>>>> property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
> >>>>> update it.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
> >>>>> Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
> >>>>> This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
> >>>>> the magic property? 
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
> >>>>> painful death!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Ray
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
> >>>>>> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
> >>>>>> denotes primary address.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
> >>>>>> attributes as well.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
> >>>>>> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
> >>>>>> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
> >>>>>> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
> >>>>>> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
> >>>>>> to use though they don't have full functionality.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
> >>>>>> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
> >>>>>> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >>>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >>>>>> www.joeware.net
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>>>>>> Hi,
> >>>>>>> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
> >>>>>>> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
> >>>>>>> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
> >>>>>>> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
> >>>>>>> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
> >>>>>>> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
> >>>>>>> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
> >>>>>>> through the code, no problem.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
> >>>>>>> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
> >>>>>>> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
> >>>>>>> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
> >>>>>>> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
> >>>>>>> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
> >>>>>>> email address of ProxyAddresses?
> >>>>>>> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
> >>>>>>> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
> >>>>>>> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
> >>>>>>> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
> >>>>>>> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
> >>>>>>> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
> >>>>>>> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
> >>>>>>> modifying an AD contact.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Thanks very much for any help,
>

When you mailenable a user or contact you specify the target address in 
the mailenable call.

Once that is set, the only way to change it that I am aware of is to go 
outside of CDOEXM and set the attributes directly with ADSI or LDAP API 
calls.

When you do that, the RUS should set that address as the primary SMTP 
and then add a secondary based on the recipient policy. For instance if 
I have a recipient policy that sets an SMTP address to be 
mailnickname@joe.com it will take an object (user or contact) that has 
been mail enabled with a specified targetaddress of someone@joeware.net 
it will set the targetAddress and primary SMTP in the proxyAddresses to 
be someone@joeware.net and set a secondary SMTP of mailnickname@joe.com.

You only want to mailbox enable objects if you need an actual mailbox 
for the object. If there is already a mailbox somewhere (On Exchange or 
whatever) anywhere else, then use a mailenabled contact (if they don't 
need to auth on the local forest) or mailenabled user (if they need to 
auth).

When you create a contact or a user, the RUS shouldn't be touching the 
object until you have mailenabled or mailboxenabled the object. If you 
are experiencing something else, it means your code is setting 
attributes on the object creation that it probably shouldn't be.



--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
www.joeware.net


---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---

         http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm



T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> So here is the problem. TargetAddress is read-only. It is set by calling 
> MailEnable. MailEnable only seems to work for mail enabling new contacts, not 
> for modifying existing contacts. Way down near the beginning of this post I 
> mentioned that a debug step-through with enough delay between the contact 
> creation and the MailEnable produces an error - I was wondering if MailEnable 
> won't work if the RUS has come through and created the SMTP: address (our RUS 
> would create an SMTP: that we don't want -- an "internal" address that a 
> contact wouldn't use). If I create a contact and then MailEnable right away, 
> no problem (our RUS then creates an smtp: address -- I'm not real savvy about 
> RUS, but I think that's what's happening).
> 
> Anyway, back to my problem. I can't set TargetAddress as it's read-only. For 
> existing contacts, I can't call just MailEnable. Setting ProxyAddresses 
> doesn't set TargetAddress. So, how the heck do I modify an SMTP: address for 
> an existing contact? Do I have to call MailDisable then MailEnable?
> 
> At the risk of wearing out my welcome, let me ask, should I be calling 
> MailEnable for user objects I create too? I don't currently. Instead, I call 
> CreateMailBox. That seems to work fine, but this whole discussion has me 
> questioning everything.
> 
> Many thanks,
> Ray
> 
> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> 
>> Ah sorry, my fault, you have been saying mailenabled all of this time 
>> and I looked at a mailbox enabled object.
>>
>> That email address should be the targetAddress.
>>
>> --
>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>> www.joeware.net
>>
>>
>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>
>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>
>>
>>
>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>> Ahh. You are probably looking at a User. The Exchange General tab is 
>>> different for a contact. Therein lies the beginnings of my problem...
>>>
>>> Ray
>>>
>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>
>>>> What version of Exchange? I am looking at the Exchange General Tab in 
>>>> Exchange Server 2003 and I see a field for MailBox Store and one for 
>>>> Alias. Other than that I have three buttons for setting delivery 
>>>> options, etc.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>
>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>> No, Joe, the Alias field is at the top of the tab. Since our application 
>>>>> manages email for many domains, we generate a value for that at contact 
>>>>> creation time, it never changes, and we don't expose it to the user. 
>>>>>
>>>>> The E-mail field is right under it. In my testing, I modified ProxyAddresses 
>>>>> and SMTPEmail in CDOEXM calls (not using ADUC/ESM). If I look at the 
>>>>> properties of that contact in ADUC now, the ProxyAddresses and SMTPEmail are 
>>>>> as I set them, but the E-mail field on the Exchange General tab still shows 
>>>>> an old "SMTP:BlahBlah@WoofWoof.com". So modifying the properties that I did 
>>>>> had no effect on this field.
>>>>>
>>>>> Continued thanks,
>>>>> Ray
>>>>>
>>>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Do you mean the Alias field on the Exchange general tab?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That is the mailnickname attribute.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>>>
>>>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi Joe,
>>>>>>> Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
>>>>>>> on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
>>>>>>> TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
>>>>>>> set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
>>>>>>> documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
>>>>>>> very vanilla example.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
>>>>>>> Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
>>>>>>> appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
>>>>>>> E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
>>>>>>> property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
>>>>>>> update it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
>>>>>>> Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
>>>>>>> This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
>>>>>>> the magic property? 
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
>>>>>>> painful death!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Ray
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
>>>>>>>> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
>>>>>>>> denotes primary address.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
>>>>>>>> attributes as well.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
>>>>>>>> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
>>>>>>>> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
>>>>>>>> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
>>>>>>>> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
>>>>>>>> to use though they don't have full functionality.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
>>>>>>>> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
>>>>>>>> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>>>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>>>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>>> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
>>>>>>>>> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
>>>>>>>>> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
>>>>>>>>> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
>>>>>>>>> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
>>>>>>>>> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
>>>>>>>>> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
>>>>>>>>> through the code, no problem.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
>>>>>>>>> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
>>>>>>>>> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
>>>>>>>>> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
>>>>>>>>> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
>>>>>>>>> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
>>>>>>>>> email address of ProxyAddresses?
>>>>>>>>> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
>>>>>>>>> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
>>>>>>>>> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
>>>>>>>>> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
>>>>>>>>> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
>>>>>>>>> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
>>>>>>>>> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
>>>>>>>>> modifying an AD contact.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Thanks very much for any help,

Thanks for your detailed explanations, Joe. You revealed what no MS 
documentation and no KB article has.

Cheers,
Ray Humphrey

"Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:

> When you mailenable a user or contact you specify the target address in 
> the mailenable call.
> 
> Once that is set, the only way to change it that I am aware of is to go 
> outside of CDOEXM and set the attributes directly with ADSI or LDAP API 
> calls.
> 
> When you do that, the RUS should set that address as the primary SMTP 
> and then add a secondary based on the recipient policy. For instance if 
> I have a recipient policy that sets an SMTP address to be 
> mailnickname@joe.com it will take an object (user or contact) that has 
> been mail enabled with a specified targetaddress of someone@joeware.net 
> it will set the targetAddress and primary SMTP in the proxyAddresses to 
> be someone@joeware.net and set a secondary SMTP of mailnickname@joe.com.
> 
> You only want to mailbox enable objects if you need an actual mailbox 
> for the object. If there is already a mailbox somewhere (On Exchange or 
> whatever) anywhere else, then use a mailenabled contact (if they don't 
> need to auth on the local forest) or mailenabled user (if they need to 
> auth).
> 
> When you create a contact or a user, the RUS shouldn't be touching the 
> object until you have mailenabled or mailboxenabled the object. If you 
> are experiencing something else, it means your code is setting 
> attributes on the object creation that it probably shouldn't be.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> www.joeware.net
> 
> 
> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> 
>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> 
> 
> 
> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> > So here is the problem. TargetAddress is read-only. It is set by calling 
> > MailEnable. MailEnable only seems to work for mail enabling new contacts, not 
> > for modifying existing contacts. Way down near the beginning of this post I 
> > mentioned that a debug step-through with enough delay between the contact 
> > creation and the MailEnable produces an error - I was wondering if MailEnable 
> > won't work if the RUS has come through and created the SMTP: address (our RUS 
> > would create an SMTP: that we don't want -- an "internal" address that a 
> > contact wouldn't use). If I create a contact and then MailEnable right away, 
> > no problem (our RUS then creates an smtp: address -- I'm not real savvy about 
> > RUS, but I think that's what's happening).
> > 
> > Anyway, back to my problem. I can't set TargetAddress as it's read-only. For 
> > existing contacts, I can't call just MailEnable. Setting ProxyAddresses 
> > doesn't set TargetAddress. So, how the heck do I modify an SMTP: address for 
> > an existing contact? Do I have to call MailDisable then MailEnable?
> > 
> > At the risk of wearing out my welcome, let me ask, should I be calling 
> > MailEnable for user objects I create too? I don't currently. Instead, I call 
> > CreateMailBox. That seems to work fine, but this whole discussion has me 
> > questioning everything.
> > 
> > Many thanks,
> > Ray
> > 
> > "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> > 
> >> Ah sorry, my fault, you have been saying mailenabled all of this time 
> >> and I looked at a mailbox enabled object.
> >>
> >> That email address should be the targetAddress.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >> www.joeware.net
> >>
> >>
> >> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>
> >>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>> Ahh. You are probably looking at a User. The Exchange General tab is 
> >>> different for a contact. Therein lies the beginnings of my problem...
> >>>
> >>> Ray
> >>>
> >>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> What version of Exchange? I am looking at the Exchange General Tab in 
> >>>> Exchange Server 2003 and I see a field for MailBox Store and one for 
> >>>> Alias. Other than that I have three buttons for setting delivery 
> >>>> options, etc.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >>>> www.joeware.net
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>>>
> >>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>>>> No, Joe, the Alias field is at the top of the tab. Since our application 
> >>>>> manages email for many domains, we generate a value for that at contact 
> >>>>> creation time, it never changes, and we don't expose it to the user. 
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The E-mail field is right under it. In my testing, I modified ProxyAddresses 
> >>>>> and SMTPEmail in CDOEXM calls (not using ADUC/ESM). If I look at the 
> >>>>> properties of that contact in ADUC now, the ProxyAddresses and SMTPEmail are 
> >>>>> as I set them, but the E-mail field on the Exchange General tab still shows 
> >>>>> an old "SMTP:BlahBlah@WoofWoof.com". So modifying the properties that I did 
> >>>>> had no effect on this field.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Continued thanks,
> >>>>> Ray
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Do you mean the Alias field on the Exchange general tab?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> That is the mailnickname attribute.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >>>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >>>>>> www.joeware.net
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>>>>>> Hi Joe,
> >>>>>>> Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
> >>>>>>> on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
> >>>>>>> TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
> >>>>>>> set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
> >>>>>>> documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
> >>>>>>> very vanilla example.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
> >>>>>>> Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
> >>>>>>> appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
> >>>>>>> E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
> >>>>>>> property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
> >>>>>>> update it.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
> >>>>>>> Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
> >>>>>>> This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
> >>>>>>> the magic property? 
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
> >>>>>>> painful death!
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Ray
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
> >>>>>>>> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
> >>>>>>>> denotes primary address.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
> >>>>>>>> attributes as well.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
> >>>>>>>> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
> >>>>>>>> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
> >>>>>>>> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
> >>>>>>>> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
> >>>>>>>> to use though they don't have full functionality.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
> >>>>>>>> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
> >>>>>>>> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
> >>>>>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
> >>>>>>>> www.joeware.net
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> Hi,
> >>>>>>>>> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
> >>>>>>>>> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
> >>>>>>>>> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
> >>>>>>>>> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
> >>>>>>>>> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
> >>>>>>>>> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
> >>>>>>>>> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
> >>>>>>>>> through the code, no problem.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> In addition to that timing issue, I have a couple of other questions that 
> >>>>>>>>> the documentation and code samples don't seem to cover:
> >>>>>>>>> 1) How do I set up an alternate email address? I wouldn't call MailEnable on 
> >>>>>>>>> each address, would I? Must I set ProxyAddresses manually? Should the 
> >>>>>>>>> alternate email be "smtp:" instead of "SMTP:"?
> >>>>>>>>> 2)Related to above, does MailEnable particularly set the primary (SMTP:) 
> >>>>>>>>> email address of ProxyAddresses?
> >>>>>>>>> 3) What if I want to modify an email address later (either primary or 
> >>>>>>>>> alternate)? I always seem to get an error when calling MailEnable on an 
> >>>>>>>>> existing contact with existing primary and alternate email addresses. For 
> >>>>>>>>> existing contacts, I've tried just setting ProxyAddresses and skipping the 
> >>>>>>>>> call to MailEnable, but it doesn't update other properties, such as Email on 
> >>>>>>>>> the General tab and Email on the Exchange General tab (in AD Properties).
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> In short, I guess I need more details on when to call MailEnable, what other 
> >>>>>>>>> calls to make or properties to set, and in what order, when both creating and 
> >>>>>>>>> modifying an AD contact.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Thanks very much for any help,
>

Yeah the Exchange docs, especially around what the attributes are and 
how to do things programmatically sucks pretty bad. You may want to 
check out the book in my signature as I have a chapter in there on 
writing scripts for Exchange that you might find useful. It is taken 
from a chapter I wrote for the Windows Server Cookbook. It is also going 
to make it into the Active Directory Cookbook Second Edition whenever 
that comes out.

--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
www.joeware.net


---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---

         http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm



T Ray Humphrey wrote:
> Thanks for your detailed explanations, Joe. You revealed what no MS 
> documentation and no KB article has.
> 
> Cheers,
> Ray Humphrey
> 
> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
> 
>> When you mailenable a user or contact you specify the target address in 
>> the mailenable call.
>>
>> Once that is set, the only way to change it that I am aware of is to go 
>> outside of CDOEXM and set the attributes directly with ADSI or LDAP API 
>> calls.
>>
>> When you do that, the RUS should set that address as the primary SMTP 
>> and then add a secondary based on the recipient policy. For instance if 
>> I have a recipient policy that sets an SMTP address to be 
>> mailnickname@joe.com it will take an object (user or contact) that has 
>> been mail enabled with a specified targetaddress of someone@joeware.net 
>> it will set the targetAddress and primary SMTP in the proxyAddresses to 
>> be someone@joeware.net and set a secondary SMTP of mailnickname@joe.com.
>>
>> You only want to mailbox enable objects if you need an actual mailbox 
>> for the object. If there is already a mailbox somewhere (On Exchange or 
>> whatever) anywhere else, then use a mailenabled contact (if they don't 
>> need to auth on the local forest) or mailenabled user (if they need to 
>> auth).
>>
>> When you create a contact or a user, the RUS shouldn't be touching the 
>> object until you have mailenabled or mailboxenabled the object. If you 
>> are experiencing something else, it means your code is setting 
>> attributes on the object creation that it probably shouldn't be.
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>> www.joeware.net
>>
>>
>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>
>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>
>>
>>
>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>> So here is the problem. TargetAddress is read-only. It is set by calling 
>>> MailEnable. MailEnable only seems to work for mail enabling new contacts, not 
>>> for modifying existing contacts. Way down near the beginning of this post I 
>>> mentioned that a debug step-through with enough delay between the contact 
>>> creation and the MailEnable produces an error - I was wondering if MailEnable 
>>> won't work if the RUS has come through and created the SMTP: address (our RUS 
>>> would create an SMTP: that we don't want -- an "internal" address that a 
>>> contact wouldn't use). If I create a contact and then MailEnable right away, 
>>> no problem (our RUS then creates an smtp: address -- I'm not real savvy about 
>>> RUS, but I think that's what's happening).
>>>
>>> Anyway, back to my problem. I can't set TargetAddress as it's read-only. For 
>>> existing contacts, I can't call just MailEnable. Setting ProxyAddresses 
>>> doesn't set TargetAddress. So, how the heck do I modify an SMTP: address for 
>>> an existing contact? Do I have to call MailDisable then MailEnable?
>>>
>>> At the risk of wearing out my welcome, let me ask, should I be calling 
>>> MailEnable for user objects I create too? I don't currently. Instead, I call 
>>> CreateMailBox. That seems to work fine, but this whole discussion has me 
>>> questioning everything.
>>>
>>> Many thanks,
>>> Ray
>>>
>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ah sorry, my fault, you have been saying mailenabled all of this time 
>>>> and I looked at a mailbox enabled object.
>>>>
>>>> That email address should be the targetAddress.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>
>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>> Ahh. You are probably looking at a User. The Exchange General tab is 
>>>>> different for a contact. Therein lies the beginnings of my problem...
>>>>>
>>>>> Ray
>>>>>
>>>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> What version of Exchange? I am looking at the Exchange General Tab in 
>>>>>> Exchange Server 2003 and I see a field for MailBox Store and one for 
>>>>>> Alias. Other than that I have three buttons for setting delivery 
>>>>>> options, etc.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>>>
>>>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>>>> No, Joe, the Alias field is at the top of the tab. Since our application 
>>>>>>> manages email for many domains, we generate a value for that at contact 
>>>>>>> creation time, it never changes, and we don't expose it to the user. 
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The E-mail field is right under it. In my testing, I modified ProxyAddresses 
>>>>>>> and SMTPEmail in CDOEXM calls (not using ADUC/ESM). If I look at the 
>>>>>>> properties of that contact in ADUC now, the ProxyAddresses and SMTPEmail are 
>>>>>>> as I set them, but the E-mail field on the Exchange General tab still shows 
>>>>>>> an old "SMTP:BlahBlah@WoofWoof.com". So modifying the properties that I did 
>>>>>>> had no effect on this field.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Continued thanks,
>>>>>>> Ray
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Do you mean the Alias field on the Exchange general tab?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That is the mailnickname attribute.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>>>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>>>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Hi Joe,
>>>>>>>>> Thank you for saying out load that CDOEXM sucks. I was trying to be polite 
>>>>>>>>> on this forum because I thought I might offend someone, but I have spent WAY 
>>>>>>>>> TOO much time trying to guess which property to set: write a test program, 
>>>>>>>>> set a property, go to ESM and see what's changed. It's not as if the 
>>>>>>>>> documentation has any information beyond the briefest description and the 
>>>>>>>>> very vanilla example.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I modified my test program to call MailEnable only when creating contacts. 
>>>>>>>>> Otherwise, I set ProxyAddresses to change emails, using SMTP: and smtp: as 
>>>>>>>>> appropriate. I also set the SMTPEmail property, which seems to drive the 
>>>>>>>>> E-mail field on the General tab in ADUC for the contact. I don't know if that 
>>>>>>>>> property is critical for sending emails, but for consistency, it's right to 
>>>>>>>>> update it.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The one field I can't find a property for is the E-mail field on the 
>>>>>>>>> Exchange General tab. When I change ProxyAddresses, that does not update. 
>>>>>>>>> This property seems like it might be critical for sending emails. Do you know 
>>>>>>>>> the magic property? 
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Thanks so much for your help. And here's hoping that CDOEXM dies a quick and 
>>>>>>>>> painful death!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Ray
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> "Joe Richards [MVP]" wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> 1a. You would set the additional proxyAddresses values.
>>>>>>>>>> 1b. Yes, they should be prefixed with smtp: in lowercase, uppercase 
>>>>>>>>>> denotes primary address.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> 2. Yes, it is based off the Recipient Policy that applied to the user.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> 3. If you want to change the primary address you should change the other 
>>>>>>>>>> attributes as well.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> In general, the CDOEXM interfaces for Exchange enabling objects (either 
>>>>>>>>>> mailbox or mail enabled) pretty much suck ass. They are a light attempt 
>>>>>>>>>> at giving functionality. As you may have surmised, MSFT doesn't actually 
>>>>>>>>>> use those methods in their own tools such as ESM or ADUC. They use MAPI 
>>>>>>>>>> calls and then put together these mechanisms for people outside of MSFT 
>>>>>>>>>> to use though they don't have full functionality.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Allegedly this is all fixed in E12 as they toss out CDOEXM and WMI 
>>>>>>>>>> interfaces and replace it with MONAD (or PowerShell if you prefer) but I 
>>>>>>>>>> heard the exact same thing when E2K3 was coming out, it is all fixed!
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>> Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
>>>>>>>>>> Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
>>>>>>>>>> www.joeware.net
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> ---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>          http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> T Ray Humphrey wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>>>>> I have an ASP.NET web application that is creating contact objects in AD. At 
>>>>>>>>>>> the time of contact creation, I want to enable emails to that contact. I have 
>>>>>>>>>>> read about MailEnable from IMailRecipient, and that seems to be the thing to 
>>>>>>>>>>> call. The documentation states that it sets the properties: ProxyAddresses, 
>>>>>>>>>>> SMTPEmail and X400Email.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Mostly that works, but there does seem to be some timing involved. During a 
>>>>>>>>>>> debug session, if I wait long enough between creating the AD contact and 
>>>>>>>>>>> calling MailEnable, it fails (lets say 30 seconds). If I step straight 
>>>>>>>>>>> through the code, no problem.
>>>>&