Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 As A Windows Service How To

[James Bourne]

How To Run Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 as a Windows Service with FireDaemon

To quote: Outlook 2003 provides an integrated solution for managing and organizing e-mail messages, schedules, tasks, notes, contacts, and other information.

Outlook 2003 can be run as an interactive system service with FireDaemon. This approach allows you to start Outlook (and hence collect/forward/auto-reply to email) without being logged into your machine and for Outlook 2003 to be restarted if it crashes.

Before you begin: make sure you patch up Outlook 2003 (O2K3) to SP2 via http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/of...e/default.aspx.

Basic Outlook 2003 Setup

1. Login as the user you intend to run O2K3 for. This user will need Administrative privileges. Install O2K3 and patch up to SP2. Start O2K3 and create a profile along with one or more email accounts. O2K3 should be able to send / receive email perfectly before attempting to run it under FireDaemon. Once that is done quit out of O2K3.

2. Windows Error Reporting and Popup Control

O2K3 often throws up popups and can crash (especially when network connectivity is limited). This post shows you how to address these issues. This step is not mandatory.

FireDaemon Configuration

1. Install FireDaemon Pro into the directory of your choice (eg. C:\Program Files\FireDaemon). FireDaemon can be downloaded from here.

2. Start the FireDaemon GUI



3. Click on the "Create a new service definition" button in the toolbar (or type Ctrl+N) and enter the information into the fields as you see below. Obviously adjust paths to suite your installation. Pay special attention to the Parameters list.



The Parameters list defines which Outlook profile to load. The default being "Outlook". If you have multiple Outlook profiles or have renamed the default profile then change the profile name accordingly. If the profile name contains spaces remember to enclose the profile name in double quotes. For example: "my outlook profile". The Parameters list can be left blank if you just want to use the default profile for the user you intend to run O2K3 as.

O2K3 support a multitude of command line parameters. You can find out more about them here.

4. You will need to run the FireDaemon service as the user you just setup the profile and email accounts for. Click on the Settings tab, type in the Logon Account (or browse if you are using a Domain account) along with the corresponding password. Also check the Interact with Desktop check box. ENSURE this user has administrative privileges otherwise O2K3 will not run interactively.



5. Click on the Dependencies tab. Make sure the O2K3 service depends on the Workstation (lanmanworkstation) or other late starting service.



6. That's it! Your done. Click on the Install button. Your O2K3 will be installed as a system service and started automatically.





Also, don't forget you can export your FireDaemon service configuration as XML. Simply drag and drop the service configuration from the FireDaemon GUI onto your desktop.

You might also want to read this.

Issues ... other problems? Please post in the Public Support Forums!