Acknowledgments

No project like this is ever a solo effort. Besides the authors, who typically get most of the credit, we were lucky to have a great deal of help from various quarters.

Many, many folks at Microsoft helped pinpoint the right answers to often-obscure questions; special thanks to Chris Harris, Paul Bowden, and Alex Seigler for their helpful suggestions and scripts, and to the denizens of the Exchange product discussion mailing lists for asking questions that helped us identify what readers might want to know about the most.

We were fortunate to have a number of Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) as contributors, too. Tom Meunier joined the team midway through the book and contributed recipes in several chapters (especially Chapter 8, where his willingness to risk the integrity of his Windows Mobile smartphone helped us quite a bit); Outlook MVP Patricia Cardoza also contributed several recipes to Chapter 8. MVPs Siegfried Weber and Glen Scales provided help through their blogs and web sites, which contain a wealth of useful minutiae on various Exchange and Outlook scripting topics.

We are particularly grateful to John Peltonen and Peter Kelly of 3Sharp LLC. They willingly put up with our distraction and the hours of work time spent researching and writing over the past year. All of our coworkers at 3Sharp provided support and encouragement time and again.

Robbie Allen, our editor, contributed some recipes from his own Active Directory Cookbook, as well as providing advice on how to make the recipes more useful and applicable. His emails reminding us of missed deadlines were always polite, and he worked hard to help us produce the best possible book. Thanks also to our technical reviewers: William Lefkovics, Joe Richards, Tony Murray, and Michael B. Smith (all MVPs), plus Greg Hoyle of Shell. They made invaluable suggestions (and caught some really embarrassing errors); any remaining shortcomings or mistakes are ours, not theirs.

Once the writing and technical editing was done, O'Reilly's capable and professional production staff took over.

From Paul

I would like to thank the many people whose knowledge, experience, and willingness to share helped make this book possible. It was a privilege to work with Missy, Devin, Tom, Patricia, and Robbie on this project. I'd also like to thank the Exchange product team, many of whose members (particularly in PSS and product management) made great efforts to help us get answers when we needed them. Most importantly, I could never have written this book without the love and support of my dear wife, Arlene, and our three terrific sons, David, Thomas, and Matthew. My eternal love and thanks go to them.

From Missy

I'd first like to thank my husband, Bryanfor believing in me, for letting me spend the time necessary to do all of the things this crazy field requires of me, and for being there, always. I cannot imagine not having you by my side, supporting me, encouraging me. My daughters, Bryce and Natalie, light up my life, and bring me such great joy every day. I'm so proud to be your mommy, and thankful for having you both! I'd also like to thank my mom, Peggy Rae Sapienza, for teaching me that women can do anything, and for putting up with me when I told her I would NOT like working with computers, no matter what she said . . . .

I'd also like to thank Paul Robichauxfor believing that I could learn how to script, and for making me believe it, too, for his encouragement and wonderful mentoring skills over the years. Paul's always said that I taught him a lot of what he knows about Exchange, but he's taught me more about what I can do and how I can grow in new ways than I can explain in mere words. Working with Paul, Devin, Tom, Robbie and everyone else was a great experience.

MVP Joe Richards earns a special mentionhe shared his wisdom with this humble Exchange MVP and loaned me a script or three. Only he can call me "GUI girl" and get away with it.

And I don't know where I'd be today if it weren't for Chip Yamasaki and Danny Bateman, who actually believed that I could actually manage 120 Exchange 4.0 sites, and who talked the folks at OSHA into taking a chance on me and giving me my first "real" IT job. Thank you both for helping me get the door open, and for teaching me so much.

Finally, thanks to the fine people at Quest Software, who gave me a great job when this book was almost completed, and who were wonderful about letting me finish working on it.

From Devin

I first thank my wife, Stephanie, and my daughter, Treanna, and son, Alaric. As my evenings and weekends were stolen away, they maintained good attitudes, kept me fed and entertained, and provided desperately needed grounding with the world outside my office. I next thank my mother, Tonne; she helped encourage both my love of computers and my dream of writing books by teaching me writing and typing. My father, Larry, was a source of strength and encouragement in the dark hours when deadlines slipped and words refused to come. Working with Paul, Missy, and Tom has been the highlight of my career; I thank them for being so willing to share their experience, knowledge, and encouragement with me. They are more than my colleagues and mentors; they are also my friends. Robbie patiently answered my questions, gave advice and feedback, and eased my first-time jitters. Thanks also to the many Microsoft employees who brought me forward to drink from the well of knowledge and helped find good answers to difficult questions. Martin Tuip provided another sounding board for my questions and also runs two highly useful Exchange-focused mailing lists (Exchange2000 and Exchange-2003) on Yahoo! Groups; he and the list members gave me good guidance.