How can I set up my mail app to connect with Exchange.

Anonymous
2012-11-08T00:06:40+00:00

Can someone tell me the steps necessary to connect the mail app to exchange?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Email and communications

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Anonymous
2012-11-08T00:12:37+00:00

Greetings,

To setup Exchange on the Surface running Windows RT, please do the following:

To Setup an Exchange account in the Mail app:

1.      From the Windows RT Start screen, tap or click the Mail app tile.

2.      From the Mail app, swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Settings.

(If you're using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, and then click Settings.)

3.      Tap or click Accounts.

4.      Tap or click Add an account.

5.      Tap or click Outlook Exchange, Office 365, Outlook.com.

6.      Enter your Email address and Password.

7.      Tap or click Connect.

Note: If the account is not found and User receives the following “We couldn't find settings for <email address>. Provide us with more info and we’ll try connecting again” is displayed and more information is requested.  Complete the following step to add the account.

8.      Click or tap Show more details.

9.      Enter your Server Address, Domain, and Username. 

Note: You may need to contact your Email Provider or System Administrator to determine the correct values for these fields.

10.  Tap or click Connect.

Issue: If the Mail app will not connect to Exchange Server and you continue to receive the following errors: "Unable to connect. Ensure the information entered is correct" and <Email address> is unavailable” please follow the instructions below.

If you’re encountering this issue, the Mail app may have issues connecting to Exchange with Self-signed certificates.  Make sure Windows have the latest build of the Mail app (version 16.4.4396.1016). To resolve the issue, customers must install the self-signed certificates by following one of the options below:

I.            IT Admins can install a cert signed by a trusted root CA on the server.

a.       This will enable Exchange to work for all clients (without prompting), including Windows RT.

b.      Details on Program Overview            

c.       List of Trusted Root CAs for Windows

II.            Users (or IT admins) can install their server’s self-signed cert on every device in the org

a.       This will enable Exchange to work for Windows RT clients with the installed certificate

b.      See steps below:

Installing self-signed certificates for your Domain’s Certification Authority

 In order for self-signed certificates to work, the administrator needs to provide a certificate file that will be installed on client machines that are to be connected to the server that uses self-signed certificates. The certificates need to be installed to the trusted root certificate authority store for either the current user (doesn't require admin rights but needs to be completed for each user on the machine) or the local machine (requires admin rights and needs to be done only once for a machine).

 **Important:**The following section contains steps that require administrative privileges to perform. Serious problems might occur if these steps are performed incorrectly. Please make sure that you follow these steps carefully. 

Certificates can be installed using the following means:

**Command Line:**Running the following from an admin elevated command prompt will install the certificate to the trusted root certificate authorities for all users using that machine.  

certutil.exe -f -addstore root <name_of_certificatefile>.cer

User Interface:

1.       Double click the certificate file provided by the administrator. This will open a certificate dialog.

2.       From the Certificate dialog, click the “Install Certificate” button located on the general tab. This will open a Certificate Import Wizard Window.

3.       Select the option to install the certificate for only the current user or for the Local Machine.

4.       Select “Place all certificates in the following store”.

5.       Click the browse button to open the store selection dialog.

6.       Select “Trusted Root Certification Authorities”

7.       Once the store is selected, click Ok. This will return you to Certificate Import Wizard dialog and will display the certificate store and certificate to be installed into that store.

8.       Click finish to install the certificate.

If this does not work, please let post below so we can reach out to you to resolve the issue.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-12-30T05:15:28+00:00

    Microsoft is enforcing valid digital certificate usage. Apple and Android are not.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-12-30T05:13:01+00:00

    Ok, put it all together for my issue.

    If you are having issues connecting to your exchange server, try going to the address/owa in internet explorer. Example: if your exchange server is mail.acme.com, put that in IE mail.acme.com/owa

    If you then get a certificate error, import and install the certificate. You must run IE as admin to do this.

    [the how to on this is linked in another post on this topic. Or Google it.]

    Try to set up mail again. If there is complaint about a site url mismatch, go back and open up the box where you imported the certificate, choose the 'details' tab. Select the 'Subject Alternative Name'. Take note of the url listed. (may be more than one)

    If you notice, this certificate url and the exchange server url are not the same. Let's say the certificate url is exch.test.loc

    Open the command prompt window. Ping the exchange server url - no http or https:// in front of it. The ping command will return the ip address. Note the ip address. Say the ip address is 192.168.0.45

    In the early days of the internet, there were no dns servers. There was a 'hosts' file on every pc to map the url to ip address. That hosts file is in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc. The hosts file is hidden by default.  You will need to show the hidden files. Run notepad as administrator. Put a line in at the end of the hosts file

    Ipaddress   url

    Example

    192.168.0.45    exch.test.loc

    Save the file.

    Add the mail account using the url in the certificate.....ie: exch.test.loc

    The mapping will go through the hosts file to get the ip address, and viola, the certificate matches.

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-12-29T16:28:41+00:00

    I am getting the message "To use this account, you need to install a digital certificate on this PC.  Contact your system administrator."  So far I have:

    • Contacted myself (I am the System Administrator - no luck there).
    • Installed a copy of the local certificate then the external certificate as Administrator on the Surface RT. No luck there.
    • Purchased and installed certificate from godaddy and confirmed this is working for owa externally. No luck there.
    • Added autodiscover.domain.local to our server. No luck there.
    • Modified the username and domain a hundred times to get it working no luck there.
    • Confirmed it does work for Office 365? Interesting...
    • Applied all updates available from the store. No luck there.
    • Uninstalled and reinstalled the mail app for Surface RT. No luck there.
    • Checked permissions and changed to Network Admin for the account in Question. No luck there.
    • Tried other apps Ezi Connect / Ezi Mail
    • Rebooted a dozen times.

    All of this has been done over a few days!  I install new email profiles on iphones, ipads everyday for users including the internal exchange server I am attempting to get working.  None of these have domain access, why am I struggling to get this working?  These take less than 10 seconds to complete.  I love the concept but mail should be a seconds problem not a week long task.  I stopped using Microsoft phones years ago because of having to install certificates I figured they would have solved this by now.  As a 15 year veteran of Microsoft Products this is deplorable.  Can someone advise if this is not possible and I will stop looking and return this piece of junk.  Frankly no mail means useless for me.

    Apparently the settings are available through Office 365, I suspect there is some secret squirrel method of getting this work that Microsoft Engineers are aware of.  I was checking out the launch of RT, and the Engineer in charge of the team said that Surface RT was "perfect".  Perfect ha!, your case over heats, measured it today here on a 41 degree day and it was nearly 50 degrees.  Perfect I doubt it.  Perfect means having suitable apps for the task sorry no luck there.  These devices are primarily used for ... email.  And not having email working first time has made me and others clearly so frustrated.  I love the product but no email means I will have to swap it for a boring ipad that I know works.  I hate Apple products.  Don't make me eat an Apple because of a Surface.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-12-19T16:56:07+00:00

    The Exchange ActiveSync policies supported by Windows RT are as follows:

    • Password required
    • Allow simple password
    • Minimum password length (to a maximum of 8 characters)
    • Number of complex characters in password (to a maximum of 2 characters)
    • Password history
    • Password expiration
    • Device encryption required (on Windows RT and editions of Windows that support Bitlocker)
    • Maximum number of failed attempts to unlock device
    • Maximum time of inactivity before locking

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