Exchange 2003 ESM for Windows Vista released

from the Readme:
Installing Exchange System Manager on the same computer as Microsoft Office Outlook is not supported

Who would want to do something crazy like use Vista, and manage an exchange server and have outlook installed on that workstation...

I was ALMOST excited.. right until the point it said you cannot install this on a computer that is also running Outlook.  Wahoo, so if I needed a separate computer to run the tools why not just run XP.  For that matter, why not just run XP and never install Vista.  This does not ENCOURAGE me to use Vista, it does the exact opposite.

This is nice, but it won't let you install it requires the Exchange Server MAPI Client and Collaboration Data Objects 1.2.1 install. Unfortunately, you can't install this if you're running any version of Outlook on the machine. Almost had it. Guess it's back to Remote Desktop sessions into the Exchange 2003 server for me.

As a system / network administrator of Windows Server 2003 and Exchange 2003 for a small area, this has been one headache for me about deciding to implement a Vista machine for my office use. Difficult to get the client management installations of server applications to install and run. Yes, I can go into a remote session, but sometimes, it's just easier to open a direct app on your personal desktop to manage the same functionality.

Thanks for all the comments!

To be fair though - the inability to run Exchange ESM and Outlook on the same machine is nothing new. The problem is that Exchange 2003 ESM requires MAPI and Outlook also has it's own MAPI DLLs which are all different and mixing those up can and will create issues.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/266418

Only with Exchange 2007 this goes away.

Will this run on a 2008 terminal server? I have wanted to set up an Exchange 2003 management console using the remote app and if it works this would be great!

To be fair you could STILL run the two on the same machine with no problems because Outlook was smart enough to relocate its DLLs.  Outlook would specifically fix itself when you did this.

Apparently 5 years later we've lost that ability.  Which, in essence makes this release useless.

This is NEW. I realize and understand the interaction needed for different dll's and they way they need to be registered and why this doesn’t work blah... blah...  

But on every workstation I have used to administer an Exchange 2000/2003 environment I could install the management tools on a workstation which had outlook. This does not fix the issue that I must Remote desktop into the server to administer it or keep on Windows XP as my primary system.

Common... when will we really be able to have the ESM on Vista....

I had though it was only that you couldn't install Outlook on an Exchange server. I have allways used Outlook and ESM on the same workstation in the past.

Had my hopes up. Overall a fairly useless release. If I am going to have a second machine to run ESM I might as well just have an XP machine (which I already do for running ESM).

One vote for Outlook and ESM on the same workstation, close to eight years now. So if you could help us, digin and check which parts are not working when we do have the combination like this.

And my personal recommendation has always been, never use server it that is not needed. High available systems you are the bigest risks for breaks. Like accidentally you do shutdown and not logoff.