Exchange 5.5, 2000, 2003

Anti-Spam Filtering for Microsoft Exchange

Spam Reader is an anti-spam add-on for Outlook which works with Microsoft Exchange mail boxes. The anti-spam software has full support of Microsoft Exchange mail servers. Spam filtering algorithm was successfully tested with the following configuration: Microsoft Exchange v.5.5, 2000, and 2003 with Microsoft Outlook 2000, XP, 2003, and 2007.


Note: Previous version 5.0 of Microsoft Exchange was not tested. So, Spam Reader might have some problems (see below) with spam filtering in this case.

How to turn on anti-spam protection for Exchange?

You don't need to do anything special: Spam Reader automatically determines the fact that Outlook works with Microsoft Exchange and starts spam filtering for all incoming messages from your default Exchange mail account. Just make sure you install Spam Reader under user account with administrative rights, all the other settings will be done by Spam Reader.

What is the cached mode of Exchange and does Spam Reader work with it?

For the first time cached mode was introduced in Outlook 2003. All previous MS Outlook versions don’t have this option. Working in cached mode Outlook creates local copy of all user’s data from the server. Using these local data the program allows working with mail, calendar, notes, and tasks without permanent interaction with Exchange server. Every several minutes Outlook synchronizes all changes between the local database and the server: receives new messages, transmits messages that have be sent, saves all changed items. The user can work as usual with Outlook even if the Exchange server is down for some time: all the changes will be synchronized with Exchange right after the server is up again. This is a very useful feature, especially for users who have slow Internet connection with a MS Exchange server.

Spam Reader has full support of cached mode: it tracks all incoming messages from both the Exchange mail account placed on server and the local copy of user’s data. Therefore it doesn’t matter if the user is in cached mode or not – Spam Reader correctly catches spam in your Inbox in any Outlook configuration.

What are the important points in work with Microsoft Exchange?

Interaction with MS Exchange has the following specific points:

Spam Reader must be installed under user account with administrative rights because otherwise Spam Reader will work incorrectly with MS Exchange. However at the same time spam filtering process for SMTP mail account will work correctly.

Spam Reader checks only incoming messages from the default Exchange mail box. All the messages from any additional Exchange mail boxes are not filtered. This is a special feature of Spam Reader.

In case of using an Exchange account Outlook Rules can be stored in two different places: on the server and locally (on the user’s computer). According to the program design all the rules stored on the server are executed there before a message is transmitted from the server to the user’s computer. Therefore spam filtering will always be done after the server rules and Spam Reader option "Do not check messages matched to Outlook Rules" will work only with locally stored Outlook Rules.

Common problems for anti-spam software for Exchange

Often anti-spam add-ons for Outlook are not able to catch junk messages downloaded from Microsoft Exchange server. But at the same time spam messages that Outlook receives from POP3/SMTP mail servers are filtered correctly. Why is there such a difference between POP3/SMTP and Microsoft Exchange mail servers?

Incorrect filtering happens because Outlook uses different protocols to work with Exchange and SMTP servers. Therefore any anti-spam filter must support both of these protocols in order to properly work with both Exchange and SMTP types of mail servers. If an anti-spam add-on misses any detail of work with MS Exchange then spam filtering of incoming messages might be incorrect. A degree of "not working" depends on the quality of a spam filter architecture: sometimes a spam filter doesn’t catch any spam at all, sometimes it catches correctly only junk messages arrived when Outlook is launched but doesn’t filter spam arrived earlier.

Outlook Spam Filter