Here's the script:
I have SBS 2011 with Exchange 2010 on, but we don't use Exchange at all (all attempts to remove it have failed) running in a domain called UKOFFICE. We have an imap server at mail.ourdomain.com and i've made an autodiscover.xml file that specifies settings to the mail server at mail.ourdomain.com and i host it at https://ourdomain.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml with all relevant IIS changes e.g. to ensure the page is returned as a HTTP 405 response
SBS has users like UKOFFICE\some.user, and the SBS wizard also made them an email account in exchange, of some.user@ourdomain.com
When I launch outlook for the first time I see a wizard that tries to configure a mail account
It seems this wizard gets an email e.g. some.user@ourdomain.com from active directory based on properties of the currently logged on user
If I don't alter any of its proposed settings in the wizard, then I don't see the password boxes appear, and if I click NEXT outlook ends up configured as though the Exchange server is the mail server
If i make even a minor amend to the email address, such as adding a character and deleting it again, the password boxes appear.. I type the relevant password, and this time, outlook goes off to https://ourdomain.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml and configures itself for imap.. exactly what i want
But the only way to achieve this is to change the mail address so the password boxes appear
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So far I've tried editing the autodiscover site on the SBS server's IIS (i.e. https://UKSERVER.UKOFFICE.local/autodiscover/autodicover.xml) to give info of our externally hosted IMAP, just incase outlook was ending up contacting that site for discovery info
I've also tried editing Active Directory Sites And Services , path: CN=Autodiscover, CN=Protocols, CN=UKSERVER, CN=Servers, CN=Exchange Administrative Group, CN=Administrative Groups, CN=First Organization, CN=Microsoft Exchange, CN=Services -
I tried editing the serviceConnectionPoint here to be the full url
https://ourdomain.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml but Outlook still finds the exchange server. I read that keywords attribute is used to determine if the server is in-site or out-site but I'm not sure how it's used - possibly Outlook is determining that
the exchange server is local and just using it, and ignoring or not even checking the autodiscover.xml
Can anyone tell me where autodiscover is looking to end up configuring the exchange server rather than using the site i've prepared (https://ourdomain.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml ) - this site correctly gives the relevant info but i dont think it gets used by outlook because something outlook does causes it to end up in the unused exchange server
Thanks!