Quick Look: Unlock your Exchange Server
Lots of examples help you make use of a wealth of interfaces.
- By Damir Bersinic
- December 01, 2001
One of the great things about Exchange 2000 is that Microsoft has provided
the hooks to extend the basic email functionality of the product and make
it into a workflow management system. Basic document routing functionality,
contact management and other features are in the product, but you can't
just flip a switch to turn them on. To make them work properly you need
to do some basic programming.
Developing Applications with Exchange 2000 provides you with the basics
you need to program an Exchange 2000 environment. It starts with minimal
coverage on installing Exchange 2000, and then gets into what Exchange
provides for a programmer. The best parts of the book are the sections
dealing with the use of ADO and ExOLEDB, as well as CDO, to program Microsoft
Exchange 2000. There's also some information on how to use Exchange clients
(OWA, Outlook, Exchange IFS and Digital Dashboards), but the real meat
on these topics is also in the CDO section.
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Pro: Explanation of ADO, ExOLEDB, and
comprehensive coverage of CDO.
Con: Lackluster attempt at explaining Exchange admin
and XML.
Verdict: If you're programming Web-based or VB apps
to access Exchange 2000 data stores, this book provides good
info and great deal of code to show how it's done.
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If you're new to Exchange 2000 programming, this book is a good starting
point with its many code examples and straightforward style. Experienced
Exchange 5.5 developers can use it as a tool to see how things have changed.
Anybody already heavily into Exchange 2000 programming will most likely
find it of limited use. It is not intended to serve as a guide on how
to install and administer Exchange 2000, so if this is your need, look
elsewhere.
About the Author
Damir Bersinic, MCSE, MCDBA, MCSA, MCT, is an independent consultant, trainer and author.