Thanks first for a great tool - just got it running on exchange2007 as a service - all well! [As a thought on the side: if you run it as service there seems no way to configure or change anything as the process remains without a window - is there a way to change that or upon starting a 2nd instance of POPc to have that one be the UI for the running service instead of a second process?]

Main topic though: Is there any way to 'force' the connector to do an immediate download? Now I am polling like every five minutes so the user when waiting for an immediate mail has to wait that too?

Thanks - and thanks again for a great solution! Donation will follow ...

tb

Unfortunately I haven't done any testing on Windows 2008 or Exchange 2007 with POP Collector as yet. With Windows 2003, POP Collector runs as a service but is configured via the UI. When you open POP Collector, it automatically checks to see if the service is running and stops it. You then have the UI so can configure while it is running. Once you close the UI, the service is automatically restarted.

It may well be that the above does not work in Windows 2008 - though I will test on this soon (I do have access to a 64 bit server on which I can do this, it is just the time that is lacking for this at the moment!).

From the UI, you can force POP Collector to do an immediate download (there is a Collect Now button). But you do of course need to get the UI up.

It should be that even if POP Collector on Windows 2008 doesn't detect and close a related service, the UI should still work - so if you were expecting an email you could fire up the UI and Collect Now.

Of course, the best solution (and I hate to say this ) would be to configure the mail system to not need POP Collector - i.e. mail comes directly into Exchange. This way, mail is delivered immediately anyway. I tend to use POP Collector as a backup email system now. The server receives mail directly, but the backup MX is set to the ISP. POP Collector is then configured to check the ISP account periodically in case of connection issues that caused the backup MX to be used for delivery.

I am running some tests on POP Collector under Windows 2008 currently. The service installation tools from the Win2k3 resource kit still work, so I can update the program to allow the install on Windows 2008 as well.

The configuration of POP Collector will need to be changed for Windows 2008 - it will need it's own data directory to which it has full permissions. The main problem currently is that it doesn't have write permissions to it's Program Files folder (which is standard under Vista and above), and currently that is used as the data folder.

I'll look into updating fully for Win2k8 support, but it is likely to take a few days.

Hm, it seems when running under 2k8 as service there is no problem here. I am running under NT Authority\System. I only saw two PC instances when I started the UI - if I understand you correctly you're updating the configuration and then do a restart in case you find a running procedd or service. All well!

Being just a 2 people organization I am fully happy with fetching mail from the few pop boxes as is and keep our server behind NAT. The only addition I would like is to enable force collection from a client machine (I know you can do it at the server). Seems though this needs some trigger mechanism that isn't there, so I guess I'll just keep a local collect account configured for manual invoke.

Thanks again - great tool!
tb

I think your answer of having a local installation for quick collect is the easiest one. There isn't a remote utility, and no plans for one (though I will look at this for EmerSMTP when I finally get back on to that project).

PC does work under Win2k8, as various people have used it and told me. It was never designed for it though, and has a few issues due to the way it works (mainly using it's Program Files folder for data). I will look at these issues to get it working the same way it does with 2k3, which will include an auto-installation of the service and then being able to detect the service when UI is run.