Shareware or low cost email server recommendation for Win XP Pro

Hello all. I am helping a startup company with their network and am
looking for a freeware/shareware/inexpensive temporary email server.

The network is very small: eight workstations running XP Pro and one
"server", also running XP Pro. The problem is that they are waiting on
installation of a fractional T1 and that will not be completed for a
month or so and they need to be able to send internal email in the mean
time. Since the company is so small, obviously Server 2003/Exchange is
overkill and they will have POP3 email through their ISP when the T1 is
installed.

They prefer to use Outlook for the client.

Can anyone recommend a good email server to install on the XP server
box that is reasonably easy to maintain and cheap or free? For this
short period (and since there is no internet connectivity yet), we
don't care about any anti-spam tools or virus scanning.

I did find one on the net that looked interesting-- a server from
Capesoft. I am going to take a look at that one.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Bill

Re: Shareware or low cost email server recommendation for Win XP Pro

mcbill20@yahoo.com wrote:

> Hello all. I am helping a startup company with their network and am
> looking for a freeware/shareware/inexpensive temporary email server.

Do yourself and your client a favour and get a second-hand P-III and
stick Linux on it with any of the free MTAs (Sendmail, Postfix, Exim,
Qmail.) You'll be far happier with the reliability of any of those
than with a Windoze-based solution.

It will also remain useful when they finally get Internet connectivity.

> They prefer to use Outlook for the client.

Poor suckers...

Regards,

David.

Re: Shareware or low cost email server recommendation for Win XP Pro

David F. Skoll wrote:
> mcbill20@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> > Hello all. I am helping a startup company with their network and am
> > looking for a freeware/shareware/inexpensive temporary email server.
>
> Do yourself and your client a favour and get a second-hand P-III and
> stick Linux on it with any of the free MTAs (Sendmail, Postfix, Exim,
> Qmail.) You'll be far happier with the reliability of any of those
> than with a Windoze-based solution.

True, but since it is a temporary need, the OP could - if he has
UNIX/Linux expertise (or is willing to learn -, insteall Cygwin [1] and
run exim [2] on it (For the OP: Cygwin is a Linux-compatibile enviroment
for/on MS-Windows and exim is a MTA ('mailserver') similar to sendmail.)

Alternatively he could try Hamster [3]. I'm not sure if Hamster can
handle multi-user/multi-PC and "internal"/local mail. I use Hamster for
News/Usenet and for that it would fit the multi-user/multi-PC and
internal/local bill. (For the OP: Hamster is a 'small', 'personal' mail
and News server. It is mainly a 'proxy', i.e. it sits between your
mailer/newsreader and your actual mail/news server, but as I said, at
least for News, it also has multi-user/multi-PC and internal/local
server facilities.)

> It will also remain useful when they finally get Internet connectivity.

That is probably a key point: *If* they want to keep or have a mail
server in the future, then it's best to bite the bullit now and install
a Linux system.

[1] http://cygwin.com

[2] http://cygwin.com/cgi-bin2/package-grep.cgi?grep=exim

[3] http://www.tglsoft.de/misc/hamster_en.htm

Re: Shareware or low cost email server recommendation for Win XP Pro

Why not simply use an embedded email server from NCT-Technology? You
take it out of the box, hook it up to your lan, configure the IP
parameters, your domain names, the useres and there you go. All
through a built in HTTP user interface.

www.nct-technology.com

Not only you get a easy to setup mail server, it also contains a top
notch spam filter at the same time with NO running costs, free,
automated future firmware upgrades, e-mail push technology to name
just a few features the deivce is haveing.

Asuming you are US based, you can order it here:

http://www.ees-usa.com/

Prices start at : $570 - and remember, this INCLUDES the hardware...

Markus

PS: if you configure it as a relay, it serves as a very cheap but
hightly effective spam filter in front of other existing mailservers
like Exchnage etc.

PPS: Being an NCT employee I'm obviousely biased, but just thought you
might want to know about this alternative.

Re: Shareware or low cost email server recommendation for Win XP Pro

I have a server product that's free and runs on Windows quite well. It's
running only on about a dozen or so sites, but it has been running there for
years - I suppose I should have been better at marketing .

http://www.floatingbear.ca/botdocs/ will link you to the documentation and
the download site. Since I gave up freelancing after 12 years for a "real"
job support is rather spotty, but feel free to contact me if you have any
questions.

Also if you browse around http://www.tucows.com you'll find some other
alternatives.

Good Luck

--
Andrew Butchart
andrew@floatingbear.ca


wrote in message
news:1112828099.477912.272540@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com.. .
> Hello all. I am helping a startup company with their network and am
> looking for a freeware/shareware/inexpensive temporary email server.
>
> The network is very small: eight workstations running XP Pro and one
> "server", also running XP Pro. The problem is that they are waiting on
> installation of a fractional T1 and that will not be completed for a
> month or so and they need to be able to send internal email in the mean
> time. Since the company is so small, obviously Server 2003/Exchange is
> overkill and they will have POP3 email through their ISP when the T1 is
> installed.
>
> They prefer to use Outlook for the client.
>
> Can anyone recommend a good email server to install on the XP server
> box that is reasonably easy to maintain and cheap or free? For this
> short period (and since there is no internet connectivity yet), we
> don't care about any anti-spam tools or virus scanning.
>
> I did find one on the net that looked interesting-- a server from
> Capesoft. I am going to take a look at that one.
>
> Any recommendations would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
> Bill
>

Re: Shareware or low cost email server recommendation for Win XP Pro

mcbill20@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hello all. I am helping a startup company with their network and am
> looking for a freeware/shareware/inexpensive temporary email server.
>
> The network is very small: eight workstations running XP Pro and one
> "server", also running XP Pro. The problem is that they are waiting on
> installation of a fractional T1 and that will not be completed for a
> month or so and they need to be able to send internal email in the mean
> time. Since the company is so small, obviously Server 2003/Exchange is
> overkill and they will have POP3 email through their ISP when the T1 is
> installed.
>
> They prefer to use Outlook for the client.
>
> Can anyone recommend a good email server to install on the XP server
> box that is reasonably easy to maintain and cheap or free? For this
> short period (and since there is no internet connectivity yet), we
> don't care about any anti-spam tools or virus scanning.
>
> I did find one on the net that looked interesting-- a server from
> Capesoft. I am going to take a look at that one.
>
> Any recommendations would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks.
> Bill
>


Bill,

Try mercury mail. www.pmail.com.

AK

Re: Shareware or low cost email server recommendation for Win XP Pro

In article <1112828099.477912.272540@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>, says...

> Can anyone recommend a good email server to install on the XP server
> box that is reasonably easy to maintain and cheap or free? For this
> short period (and since there is no internet connectivity yet), we
> don't care about any anti-spam tools or virus scanning.

I am with AK. Try Mercury Mail.

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint

Re: Shareware or low cost email server recommendation for Win XP Pro

Wow! I am _REALLY_ impressed! A free product that installs easily and
works this well...

I downloaded Mercury and installed and configured it. The installation
took about five minutes and the configuration took about 10 minutes.
Naturally, the "Microsoft Outhouse" setup was the most time-consuming
and difficult.

Within one half hour of downloading I was sending and receiving test
messages from different machines. And I absolutely love the status and
logging windows. Why can't Microsoft figure out how to write software
like this???

Thank you all for the other suggestions as well. As for the NCT server
suggestion, well, it would be hard to justify $570 and shipping time,
etc. for something that will only be used for one month at the most.
All they really need is to be able to send internal email (and keep it
in the same place that their eventual internet email will be) until
they have their domain and internet set up.

As for the LINUX suggestions, well, they don't have a single person in
the office that can do more than use Word, Excel and Outlook, let alone
any kind of system administrator. At this point, I doubt that they will
pay for someone to come in regularly for admin, so the simpler the
better.

Thanks again.
Bill

Re: Shareware or low cost email server recommendation for Win XP Pro

>Thank you all for the other suggestions as well. As for the NCT server
>suggestion, well, it would be hard to justify $570 and shipping time,
>etc. for something that will only be used for one month at the most.
>All they really need is to be able to send internal email (and keep it
>in the same place that their eventual internet email will be) until
>they have their domain and internet set up.

I'm very sure you would keep it longer than a month. Especially after
you can experience the performance of the integrated spamfilter :-) I
have to admit though that I haven't read your post closely enough with
regard to this one month timeframe thing. Thanks for looking at my
reply anyways.

Markus