I think the best solution (which is not always easy) is to spend the extra time to educate the end user on the problems that can occur on the client machine and how to fix common problems themselves.
For example: All of our users use Outlook 2000 for mail access (other than occasional web access). And all users are forced to use SMTP AUTH. The desktop users rarely have a problem, but the laptop users seem to have more problems. We have noticed that the problems are typically machine or user related. WinME is problematic for us. Win2k is almost flawless. Most problems occur when the "Server requires SMTP Authentication" checkbox becomes unchecked (don't know why). Now that the users understand the problem is with the OS or Outlook and how to solve it, they check that first, fix it and are on their way. Other problems are "pilot error", where the user setup a new Outlook account (ie. at home) and forget to set the "Server requires SMTP Authentication" checkbox or try to use other obscure clients that their "mother's friend's brother-in-law's shipping-department-guy's chat-room-aquaintance's dog groomer" said would work!!! :-) As another example, I have a friend that has his mail hosted by a company that I'm sure is reading this (hi, Mike)! Somehow he gets his SMTP Auth messed up regurlarly. Then he calls Mike and me and I usually find that somehow he or his machine changed the SMTP auth settings on his Outlook. But now he knows how the check that first before calling anyone. Overall, we have had very few problems with SMTP AUTH. On my own laptop, it has never failed to work, even over dialup or on foreign client networks, through heterogeneous firewalls, across VPNs, etc. Todd --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html to be removed from this list. An Archive of this list is available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Please visit the Knowledge Base for answers to frequently asked questions: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/
