Quick Look: Unlock your Exchange Server

Lots of examples help you make use of a wealth of interfaces.

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.

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.

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.

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