Issue: When an Outlook user (MAPI Client) sends a single instance meeting invite to an Entourage user (MIME Client), Outlook does not stamp the Time Zone (TZ) info on that meeting, when Exchange Server receives it for delivery to Entourage user, it performs a MAPI to MIME conversion, at that time it sees there is no TZ info stamped on it, thus it stamps its own TZ on the meeting and then sends it over to Entourage user. On the other hand recurring meetings are stamped with TZ info by Outlook itself, so there is no such issue with them, i.e. they are not stamped by server with its own TZ.
This will impact you if you (Entourage user) are in a different time zone than your Exchange Server.
This issue can also be reproduced by Entourage user (yourself) by creating an appointment or an All Day Event on your calendar using Outlook as the client while connected to your mailbox, to which you also connect using Entourage. You will see the same banner about TZ in appointment and All Day Event will be a day off (earlier), i.e. if you created it on July 5th using Outlook, it will appear on July 4th when it syncs and appear in Entourage.
Resolution: You will have to call into PSS and get the hotfix in this KB article 925376 (currently available only for Exchange 2003 Server, for Exchange 2007, the fix will be in SP1 which is scheduled to be released later this year, no date announced yet), which describes the issue.
After you apply this hotfix on your Exchange Server and activate it using the Reg Key mentioned in the KB, your Exchange Server will not stamp single instance meetings, appointments and All Day Events with its own time zone, thus when they will get to Entourage or it syncs them down to local database, it will use the local system's time zone (Mac OS in use by Entourage user) to calculate start/end times and you won't see any issue in Entourage, i.e. no warning banner, etc.
[ A note on fix in KB 925376, the fix is in 'excdo.dll' (you can see this in KB), if you have a higher (later) version of this file already present on your Exchange Servers, then all you need to do is to use the Reg Key in the KB to just activate it, no need to install anything. And you will have a later version of 'excdo.dll' if you have recently applied the DST fix, i.e. KB 926666 or any other later updates including 'excdo.dll' file from update.microsoft.com ]
Comments (1)
Posted on February 6, 2008 06:29
Gina:I know Entourage 2008 is the big subject these days on most blogs, but I am still running 2004 and had a question I hope someone may be able to help me out with....
As I said, I am running Entourage 2004 on my Mac (10.4). Everyone else at my company (500+ employees) is on Windows running Outlook.
When I invite people to an event using Calendar, it appears to be working fine. Those who I've sent it to can see it and accept or decline.
The problem...When some invites me to an event, it comes into my mailbox looking just like an email and there is no option to accept or decline. In fact, I would not even know that I am being invited to an event if it was not for the sender asking why I haven't responded. It also does not appear on my calendar.
Is there a preference somewhere that I am missing???? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!
Posted by Gina | February 6, 2008 6:29 AM