Subject: RE: too many "Out of Office AutoReply"

From: "David Lemson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 19:32:16 -0700

> David,
> 
> Thanks for the step-by-step instructions.  I'm curious, 
> though - the usual heuristic for most "vacation 
> auto-responders" has been to 
> not send responses to any message which didn't include the 
> recipient's address in the to or cc header field.  Is there a way 
> to configure Exchange to use that heuristic?
> 
> Keith

At this time, there is no way to configure Exchange to do that.  Most of
our customer feedback has been that our current configuration scheme,
which allows per-domain configuration, meets our customers' needs.  

Based on recent customer input (including this thread's input), we are
currently evaluating adding that feature.  I can't promise when it will
make it into the product, but I do agree that it is a good thing to do.

David

---
David Lemson
Lead Program Manager
Exchange Server
Microsoft Corporation
[email-masked]

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 23:49:05 -0400

> which allows per-domain configuration, meets our customers' needs.

that's unfortunate.  of course your customers are not the ones being harmed
(at least, not directly) when their mailers inappropriately reply to 
messages from mailing lists. 

the per-domain configuration serves a different purpose - that of not 
disclosing your customers' absences to outsiders.  that's a useful and 
valuable feature for those who want to enable it. it just doesn't happen 
to fix this particular problem. 

Keith

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From: Gene Gaines <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 04:08:20 -0400

David,

Why in god's name would any email program worth 2 cents
not have this feature?

Gene
[email-masked]

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From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 08:50:10 -0400

> Why in god's name would any email program worth 2 cents

That's easy; for a long time (although this seems to be less true
today), Microsoft apparently had a strong bias of trying very hard to
hire the best and the brightest --- of people fresh out of college.
Heaven forfend that they actually hire people with industry
experience.

As a result, a lot of things which most people would consider common
sense and common practice don't actually happen until after the first
couple of versions of the program are released and people scream
bloody murder.  (After all, good vacation hueristics have been around
for well over a decade.)  

However, when MS Exchange finally has this feature, no doubt their
marketing folks will trumpet how they "invented" it.  After all, this
is the sort of thing which is why they claim they need the "freedom to
innovate".

						- Ted