THE CUTTING EDGE: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : Dial F for Frustration When Configuring Microsoft Exchange

One of the great virtues of Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 95 was supposed to be the way it would make connecting to the Internet easy. Take e-mail, for instance. Windows 95 comes with a module called Microsoft Exchange, which is set up to handle e-mail from the Microsoft Network. But you can also configure it to handle e-mail from the Internet, CompuServe, and an office network.

At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. I spent the better part of a day trying to do this, and several times even managed to make it work, as if the program has chosen to tantalize me with its possibilities even while withholding them.

All in all, however, the experience was extremely frustrating, and so before I take solace in the medicinal supply of Knob Creek that I keep on hand for these computer-inspired mental health emergencies, I wanted to give fellow users some warning.

They’ll need it. Windows 95 has already sold more than 7 million copies, and Microsoft Exchange is built into every one of them. It’s clear that Windows 95 will replace Windows 3.1 as the predominant computer operating system. In other words, sooner or later, you too will face Exchange.

To get Exchange to work with Internet e-mail, you first have to download Microsoft’s free Internet Explorer module at https://www.microsoft.com; it comes with a World Wide Web browser. (CompuServe users can use Exchange to service their accounts, too; just GO WINCON and visit the Exchange Plug-Ins library for the necessary software.)

Unfortunately, Exchange has a number of infuriating shortcomings. I found Internet configuration to be difficult, for instance, and the booklet that Microsoft issues with Windows 95 in place of a manual was no help at all. Neither were the on-screen help files. Neither were the two third-party manuals (total cost $47.95) that I bought.

When I finally groped my way to a proper set-up, Exchange locked up repeatedly, tried to dial the wrong service provider, sometimes dialed when it was closed, wouldn’t dial when it was open, and taunted me with such useful error messages as “The MAPI spooler has exited unexpectedly. Close all mail-enabled applications before attempting to log on again.”

Some of these troubles seem to stem from Netscape Navigator 2.0, which for some reason installed its own add-on software for Exchange. I found that this caused problems with Exchange, as did some users on the CompuServe Windows 95 Forum.

Even when I could get Exchange to work, it didn’t work well. It was slow--I suspect it scoffs at my paltry 8 megabytes of RAM--and acted cryptically. It also lacks some of the most basic features any e-mail program must have. It can’t import any data into its address book, for instance, and often wouldn’t capture addresses from incoming e-mail the way it was supposed to, something Microsoft said appears to be a bug. Exchange doesn’t even have a “signature” feature for adding boilerplate to the end of a message.

And unfortunately for the legions of bulletin board users, Exchange doesn’t support the .qwk mail standard used by bulletin board systems nationwide.

One of the weirdest things about Exchange is that it puts an equal sign at the end of every line in a text message sent to some non-Exchange users. Outgoing mail looks fine, and I only discovered them by sending myself e-mail at some of my other accounts. (Some users on CompuServe’s Windows 95 Forum report =20 at the end of every line.)

I think you can make Exchange stop doing this by turning off MIME, which I won’t get into now, but that’s inconvenient as well as stupid.

Exchange offers some advantages in a corporate setting or for Microsoft Network users. It permits e-mail to be sent with some formatting, or with spreadsheets or graphics embedded, for instance. But most users just want to send text and the occasional attached file, and for those of us belonging to this vast herd, Exchange just isn’t ready for prime time.

If you have full-blown dial-up Internet access, you’ll probably want Eudora or Pegasus for e-mail. You can get these and other Internet programs by pointing your World Wide Web browser at https://cwsapps.texas.net/.

If you have accounts at various on-line services, as I do, it’s probably worth waiting for the much-delayed version 3.0 of The E-mail Connection by ConnectSoft Inc., which promises to handle e-mail from America Online, CompuServe, Prodigy, MCI Mail, the Internet, and network mail systems like cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail, as well as faxes and paging. The product is due for release in mid-December. A free, Internet-only version has won high marks from critics and is available at https://www.connectsoft.com/.

Now if only they’d build in .qwk mail support.

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Daniel Akst welcomes messages at: Dan.Akst@latimes.com. His World Wide Web page is at: https://www.caprica.com/~akst/