Programmatically Binding Agents

Now that you have learned how to create and program agents, you might be wondering how you can bypass the Agents tab in Outlook and programmatically install and bind your agents to events in Exchange Server. The Exchange Event Service provides an object library that allows you to create and delete agents and their respective bindings on your server. This object library makes it easier for you to pull out information about the agents in your system as well as install agents into multiple folders. The following section describes the object library provided for these services and discusses a sample application, named Agents Install, that uses this object library to allow you to programmatically create and delete agents on your Exchange Server.

Exchange Event Service Configuration Library

The object library for the Event Service configuration is stored in a file named Esconf.dll. This file is usually installed in the exchsrvr\bin directory on your server. When working with Visual Basic, you can add a reference to this type library either by searching for Esconf.dll or by finding the name Microsoft Exchange Event Service Config 1.0 Type Library in the Available References list box. Once you add a reference to it, you can use the object browser to browse through the different objects in the library. Figure 12-18 shows the object hierarchy for the Exchange Event Service Configuration library.

Figure 12-18 The object hierarchy for the Exchange Event Service Configuration library.