ZCO and Outlook 2010 Beta Problem

[mefish]

Love Outlook...
Oh well at least most of my settings were still there.

So a couple of other questions just to make sure I have this down. When I copy over these registry settings I presume that the zdb needs to be in teh same directory as on the original machine or am I wrong?

Secondly, any guess if this will work copying the reg entries from my XP machine to my Win7 machine?

Thanks again for your help.

[mefish]

Sorry I guess this is an extension of the post above...

So the clean install did the trick. Seems to be running finebut now i have the issue that on all of these systems I will have to download all the new messages each time so...

Just to clarify on the configuration you noted above.
1. I assume that the zdb needs to be in the exact location on the second machine as it was on the first right? Same directory structure etc...
2. Any guesses if this same modification can be done between a winXP system and a Win7 system?

I'll explain a little more. What I did before ZCS was take the same pst and move it from machine to machine via syncing and then in each profile specify the pst to use. I then made sure not to leave the messages on the server as it would download all of them over and over on each machine. Zimbra doesn't appear to have that feature that I can tell it to use a specific ZDB already on a system but rather is looking for the ZDB wherever it installed to (or the reg keys are pointing to). I did install the ZDB to my email backup folders but it adds a directory struture of microsoft\appdata\etc...

If I could point it to teh same ZDB that would be great but I think it would still want to sync all the emails and calendar items so it would create duplicates right without the registry settings you described above? or am I way off here...
Thanks

[fsiegel]

It would be much easier if the zdb were in the same location on the second machine. It is possible to move it, but then you would have to go deep into the registry, find the proper GUID under the messaging subsystem, and change the binary value for prop 0x6700001f, which you really don't want to do.

Windows 7 should be ok since in the registry, it's above the Wow6432Node stuff.

As far as pointing to the same zdb, did you try a roaming profile on a shared drive?

Also, FWIW, the .zdb is pretty much the same as a .pst. You can rename a .zdb to a .pst and it will behave the same (pretty much). Not sure I recommend this approach, but it would probably work for your purposes. But then of course, you're not really using Zimbra in the way it was intended.

[mefish]

The issue with renaming it though or for that matter connecting to it is I cannot tell Zimbra what zdb to use right? It creates it when you point it to a subdirectory.

I'm gonna have to think about this one. If I cna map the same file structure, sync the systems and then direct Zimbra to the same folder structure that might work although I don't know if it will correct the issue of receving all the new emails.

I travel a lot and so int he course of a week I may get 2000 emails so I am not too excited about syncing 2000 emails nd 100 appts on the laptop each time I get ready to hit the road.
Just trying to avoid that by using the same zdb and config so that there is limited syncing going on.
Thanks

[fsiegel]

Sounds more like an issue with cached Outlook than Zimbra. That's just the way it works. But it would seem that if you wanted to mess with the registry, you could get it to work.

Maybe for travel, it's easier just to use the web client.

[mefish]

Originally Posted by fsiegel

Sounds more like an issue with cached Outlook than Zimbra. That's just the way it works. But it would seem that if you wanted to mess with the registry, you could get it to work.

Maybe for travel, it's easier just to use the web client.

Well the issue in using the web client is that when you are in a meeting with a client and you need an attachment but have no internet access in their secure facilities, you can't get to the web client. I had a PM that tried this approach and i constantly had to pull docs out of my email for her to work with in meetings.

Changing the file extension isn't really valid here either as I would then have to setup a normal outlook profile and that defeats the whole purpose for calendar sharing etc right as it will just act as a pop account and not a ZCS account?

Just trying to figure out how I might be able to make this work for me in a more efficient manner.

Thanks

Update:
So I tried to point two different machines and their profiles (named exactly the same) to the same folder hoping that the one would recognize the zdb from the other profile and therefore not go through the entire syncing excercise but this doesn't appear to work. It is creating a zdb with a -1 extension instead of using the zdb that was present.
Is there no way to force zimbra to use the same zdb and sync "memory" so that when you open it after moving it to your other machine it doesn't go through the sync process for all the emails and appts that you have received since the last sysc on the "other" machine? Where does ZCS store the sync data? Is there a way for me to point the config on one machine to the same zdb and sync config files that I move over (sync using syncback) from the other machine?

The sync with ZCS even after a couple of days traveling took about 15 minutes which is going to most likely be an hour or better when i am travleling for any extended period and return home to my office desktop. Not only is the amount of time a problem but having all those alarms go off and then there always seem to be some that do not clear even though you have dismissed them already is a problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
As a histroical note I will tell you how I did this on my previous configuration just using pop accounts. All I had to do was setup the Outlook profile and point it to the same pst as I used on the other computer (syning the computers using syncback) and then set the mail settings to NOT leave messages on the server. For those of us that get thousands of emails a week this worked extremely well to not have to get all the emails new and to sync calendar and contacts on the various systems that I use. I now need/want to employ ZCS since I can share calendars and give access to my calendar to an admin to help out with scheduling.

I rather doubt that I am the only person that has dealt wiith this but maybe everyone else was okay with the inconvenience of the long sync process. BTW - If version 6 fixes this and I can setup some other kind of profile (I think you said a roaming profile) I can address this witht eh ops team and see if this is viable but I would really like to know for a fact that this fixes my problem before employing staff to perform an upgrade etc...

[mefish]

So I figured out how to trick the system into syncing.

On each computer you have to setup the profile under the same naming convention for the zimbra account (zimbra is the default). You then have to sync each system with the server just as you do normally but once the sync is done you can move the zdb to an external folder (Ver 5). After setting up the zbd in the folder that you want to sync between computers you then delete all the files in that shared folder and then tell the next machine to move the zdb to that folder. The reason you have to delete is that if it sees another zdb with the same profile name it changes the naming convention and adds a "-1" to the zdb.
Once this is done with all machines you can then use a tool to sync the folder between the various machines you use and the system does not do a complete sync but instead recognizes that the zdb you are working with has been synced.
It is not really this simple to keep track of everything and the initial sync on each system can take a while. I had only about 3000 emails in my current account and it took the system almost 2.5 hours each to do the initial sync.
The main thing is make sure you setup the profiles with exactly the same naming convention and then before you "move the zdb" delete teh zdb from the shared folder.

I seem to have a little problem using the same zdb with Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2010 but I assume this to be an issue with Outlook. Probably using version 6 of ZCS and ZCO fixes this or has other ways to setup other profiles that you can use like the "roaming" profile but for me the above method worked albeit a PITA to set it all up. Literally took 1.5 days to figure it out and get everything working.

If there are problemswith this config I will post them here in the future.
Good luck everyone and thanks for your help.