Get outlook web access OWA working without reboot on II6 Exchange 2003

The system service with a process id of 4 on 2003 servers listens on port 80 and 443. I checked this with another 2003 exchange email server to be close to sure of that being correct. It too has the system service, not an IIS service, with process id of 4 listening on 80 and 443.

I changed the port the default web site uses on the problem outlook web acess (OWA) web server to 81, restarted the services. Still couldn't connect with localserver:81 but now telnetting to port 80 worked. Just get a blank line is displayed when telnetting to port 80 (II6) unlike smtp that sends some text. Before the change to 81 for the default web site, the error returned by telnetting to port 80 was "connection refused". Changed the IIS default web site back to 80 saved, restarted the IIS service again and the default page loads and the OWA page also loads. As of now, no reboot of the server is required. Hope the fix holds.

Could try this solution on other servers that have IIS not responding and of course leads to OWA not working. Don't know if the same solution applies to 2008 server with exchange 2007 or 2003 server with exchange 2007 but some varient of the steps might just do the same.

This exchange 2003 server's access via port 80 (default web browser port) was working fine then suddenly IIS and OWA stopped working. I've seen this all too often over the years and ussually meant the server had to be rebooted.


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Attachment.ashx Message when Opening Attachment in OWA Exchange 2007

Message window hangs when trying to open or save attachment using Outlook Web Access (OWA) with Exchange 2007 on a Vista computer with IE7 (Internet Explorer 7).

Attachment.ashx Error Message when Opening Attachment in OWA 

I recently ran into a situation where all of the users in an Exchange 2007 organization environement were able to open attachemnts using Outlook Web Access (OWA) against Microsoft Exchange 2007 server without a problem except for a few.

One of the users that wasn't able to open, run, or save an attachment using OWA was getting a message that said:

Geting file information: attachment.ashx from mail.{servername}.com

The message included the flying paper from left to right - the usual animation seen when transfering files in explorer or downloading files with Internet Explorer. This message would be displayed but would never go away and of course the user could open, save or viewer the attachment through Outlook Web Access.

Run Attachments from OWA Email

Well, if any of you encounter this problem and think there is something on the Exchange server that could fix the problem don't bother wasting your time or making any settings changes as the solution won't be found there. You've probably already drilled down and found some of the differences with the user's computer that isn't able to open attachments with Outlook Web Access and commonalities with those users that could view, save, or run attachments through OWA. If the trouble computer has another browser on it like FireFox, try that browser and you'll see that FF works and since it works, then the server or the users account in the domain has nothing to do with the problem.

Windows 7 with IE8 

If the problem user ... I mean the problem computer, is Vista with IE7 then the setting that is most likely causing the problem for you is the one located in the Security cetegory under the Advanced tab after clicking Tools > Internet Options from the Internet explorer menu bar.

Do not save encrypted files to disk 

Un-check the box next to the setting 'Do not save encrypted files to disk". Once un-checked and the option is saved, open a new browser window and then try to open or save the attachment in Outlook Web Access again, you'll probably have better results.

If the information contained in this post helped solve your problem, please post a comment saying so or link to this post from your blog or site so more people can find the answer more quickly.

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