Recipe8.5.Configuring Freedoc Access for OWA 2003

Recipe 8.5. Configuring Freedoc Access for OWA 2003

Problem

You want to control whether OWA 2003 users can access documents stored directly in public folders.

Solution

Using a graphical user interface

1. Log on to your Exchange front-end server.

2. Open the Registry Editor (regedit.exe).

3. Select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSEx-changeWeb\OWA registry key.

4. Choose New DWORD Value from the Edit menu; name the new value EnableFreedocs.

5. Double-click EnableFreedocs and set the value as appropriate:

   
   

   0 (the default)

   Makes freedocs completely inaccessible from within OWA 2003

   
   

   1

   Allows access to freedocs from back-end servers only

   
   

   2

   Allows freedoc access from servers listed in the AcceptedAttachmentFrontEnds registry value

   
   

   3

   Allows unrestricted freedoc access from any FE or BE in your organization

6. Quit the Registry Editor.

7. Restart the Exchange server.

Using a command-line interface

The following command sets the EnableFreedocs value on your front-end server:

> reg add HKLM\System\currentcontrolset\services\MSExchangeWeb\OWA     /v EnableFreedocs /t REG_DWORD /d <value>

where <value> is a value from the list in step 5 above.

Using VBScript

' This code creates the EnableFreedocs key and reboots the server ' ------ SCRIPT CONFIGURATION ------ strOWA = "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeWeb\OWA\" strFreedoc = strOWA & "EnableFreedocs" ' ------ END CONFIGURATION --------- Set objWSH = wscript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") objWSH.RegWrite strFreedoc, 3, "REG_DWORD" WScript.echo "Successfully created key"

Discussion

Exchange has long allowed you to store documents directly in public foldersnot as attachments to a public folder post, but in the same way that you'd put a document in a filesystem folder. These documents are called freedocs and have a message class of IPM.Document (instead of the IPM.Post type used for regular postings). OWA 2003 changed the way that OWA users interact with them. In OWA 5.5 and OWA 2000, users could directly open freedocs; OWA 2003 changed this behavior because freedocs might contain macro code that would be executed on the OWA machine when the document was opened.

However, this default restriction is a serious inconvenience for sites that use a lot of freedocs, so Microsoft thoughtfully provided a way to turn it off. The default setting is safer, and you should leave it alone unless you actually need to grant your users access to freedocs. In that case, the next safest approach is to enable freedoc access only from back-end servers.

See Also

MS KB 834743 ("HTTP 403 (Forbidden)" error message when Exchange 2003 users try to use Outlook Web Access to access a freedoc that is located in a public folder)