Setting Up a Microsoft Mail Workgroup Postoffice on a Windows NT Server

The following sections explain the concepts and procedures related to setting up and administering Mail in Windows NT.

Creating a Workgroup Postoffice

This section explains how to create a workgroup postoffice (WGPO). The person who creates the WGPO should plan to manage it. Creating the WGPO requires that you complete the following actions:

• Verify that there is enough disk space on the computer where you will install it.
• Create the WGPO and an account for the administrator.
• Share the WGPO so that all users in your workgroup can use it.

Planning for Disk Space

Before creating a WGPO, verify that your computer meets the following requirements.

On the computer where the WGPO will be installed, there must be:

• 360K of available disk space for an empty postoffice.
• 16K of available disk space for each user account.

On each user's computer, there must be:

• Enough available disk space for each user's mailbox, depending on the number and type of messages stored in a mailbox. A typical small mailbox requires about 100K of disk space; a large mailbox can use several megabytes of disk space.

Creating the Postoffice and the Administrator Account

After you verify that the computer has enough disk space to create a WGPO, you can create a WGPO and an administrator account. The administrator account is the first account you create in the WGPO. After you create the administrator account, you can modify it, but you cannot remove it.

This section describes how to create the WGPO on a computer running Windows NT Workstation or Windows NT Server. If you want to create the WGPO on a network server, see Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5 System Guide.

Important

The computer where you create a WGPO must be turned on at all times so that users can exchange mail.

You should create only one WGPO per workgroup. Only the users connected to the same WGPO can communicate with each other.

To create a WGPO and the administrator account

1. Start Mail.

   If a WGPO has not been assigned to your workgroup, Mail starts the workgroup postoffice Manager and causes the Welcome To Mail dialog box to appear, as described Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5 System Guide.

2. In the Welcome To Mail dialog box, click the Create A New Workgroup Postoffice, and then click OK.

   A message reminds you that there should be only one WGPO in a workgroup and that you will be responsible for managing any new WGPO you create.

3. To create a new postoffice, choose the Yes button.

   To return to the Welcome To Mail dialog box so that you can connect to an existing postoffice, choose No.

4. In the Create Workgroup Postoffice dialog box, select a location for the WGPO. You can create the WGPO either on your hard drive or on a network server:
   • To create the WGPO on your hard drive, select a drive from the Drives box and a directory from the Create WGPO In list, and then click OK.
   • To create the WGPO on a network server, click the Network button, and then select a server and shared directory from the dialog box. Then click OK.
5. In the administrator Account Details dialog box, fill in the appropriate information to create the administrator account.

   When you fill in this dialog box, type names that are easy to read. You can use extended characters (such as letters with accents), but it is not recommended. Only alphanumeric characters are allowed in the Mailbox and Password boxes. The Postoffice Manager is not case-sensitive; that is, "BLAKER," "BlakeR," and "blaker" are considered to be the same.

   Click OK.

6. When the message reminds you to share the WGPO directory that you just created, click OK.

Important If you are not able to create a WGPO, it is probably because you don't have enough disk space or, if you are creating the WGPO on a server, because you don't have write permission on that server. In either case, the solution is to find another location with enough disk space and where you have sufficient privileges to create the WGPO.

Sharing the Workgroup Postoffice

After you create a WGPO, you must share the WGPO directory that contains the data files with all users on the postoffice.

To share a workgroup postoffice on a Windows NT Workstation computer

1. Open File Manager, and select the WGPO directory.
2. From the Disk menu, click Share As.
3. In the Share Name box, type a name for the postoffice. The default name is WGPO.
4. If you want to, you can enter a comment in the Comment box.

   This comment appears in the Connect Network Drive dialog box.

5. In the User Limit box, set a limit on the number of users who can connect to the shared directory at the same time.

   By default, no limit is set.

6. Click the Permissions button and give all members of the postoffice Full Control access to the WGPO share.

   For information about setting permissions, press F1 while the Access Through Share Permissions dialog box is displayed.

7. In the New Share dialog box, click OK.

   In the File Manager window, the WGPO directory is shown as a shared directory.

To share a WGPO on a Windows NT Server computer

1. Create a directory on the Windows NT Server computer where the WGPO will be located. This can be a primary or backup domain controller.
2. Share the directory you just created. Make sure you don't share the parent directory.
3. Provide full access permissions to the directory.
4. Create a WGPO as explained in "Creating a Workgroup Postoffice."

After you create a WGPO, the Postoffice Manager command appears on the Mail menu when you start Mail. This command appears only on the computer where you create the WGPO. After you create a WGPO and an administrator account, you can use the Postoffice Manager to manage the WGPO in the following ways:

• Add users to the WGPO
• Modify existing user accounts
• Remove users from the WGPO
• Manage the disk space where the WGPO is stored

For more information, see Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5 System Guide.