Any way to get the MAPI libraries?

[Cain T. S. Random]

Is there any way to get the MAPI libraries so that a third-party program can
interface with Exchange without having to have Outlook installed?

They used to come with Windows, but as of Windows 2000, they don't. You can
download the core MAPI libraries from some Web sites, e.g. Novell, but
they're way out-of-date and don't include the Exchange support, presumably
because they're for interfacing with a Novell-made MAPI server.

Any suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks!

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You would use Extended MAPI -- see http://www.outlookcode.com/d/mapi.htm.
C++ and Delphi only, however.

See http://www.outlookcode.com/d/sec.htm for other ways to avoid the
security prompts.

 

[Dmitry Streblechenko \(MVP\)]

AFAIK you can contact Microsoft and ask for the MAPI distributables.
Otherwise you need to install either Outlook, Exchange or Exchange Admin to
have the Extended MAPI system.
You can also use one of the standard protocols supported by Exchange, e.g.
WebDAV.

Dmitry Streblechenko (MVP)
http://www.dimastr.com/
OutlookSpy - Outlook, CDO
and MAPI Developer Tool

 

[Cain T. S. Random]

Extended MAPI have I in all sorts and flavors. I need the mapi32.dll, etc.
files to distrubute with our Extended MAPI product, however. If what Dmirty
says is true, though, I'm basically beggared.

 

[Cain T. S. Random]

Yeah, that's the beggared part: me begging Microsoft. Does anybody have any
contacts in the Exchange group there, or should I start the begging at the
front door?

We plan on having to use WedDAV to do multiplatform development, but we were
hoping to put that off for the next version. Making the MAPI libraries
available seems like a very reasonable request, doesn't it? I mean, someone
bought a copy of Exchange Server and X many licenses... shouldn't they be
able to use whatever product they want with it? If not, Microsoft is
essentially "bundling" Outlook (unless people use Web Access, yes, I know).
And we all know the conotations of "bundling".

Thanks, Sue!

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

Dmitry is always right. <g> But he did say you should be able to contact
Microsoft to get them. I don't know whether they're redistributable any
longer, though. It's been years since I've seen a new standalone Extended
MAPI product. (Time to start thinking about WebDAV?)

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

This is nothing new. Microsoft has bundled Outlook with every version of
Exchange since 5.0 SP something.

 

[Russell Mangel]

This is great question... Please, if you call Microsoft and ask for the MAPI
libraries, please update us on your findings.

Microsoft, are you reading this newsgroup?
Please answer this question.

Thanks
Russell Mangel
Las Vegas, NV

 

[Russell Mangel]

Your statement: Time to start thinking about WebDAV?

Insinuates that WebDAV could do all of the things that MAPI can do.

IMHO, WebDAV is only suitable for light-duty web applications.

Heavy-duty proccessing at the client side is and will remain the domain of
MAPI client API's:
Outlook Object Model, CDO 1.21, and Extended MAPI.

I tried using WebDAV for some Heavy-Duty client processing using Windows
Forms, and I was very dis-appointed:
1. You can not retrieve all needed message properties in one query.
2. You can get these message properties, but it takes several trips to IIS
web server.
3. Performance is much slower, than MAPI API's, especially when dealing with
large attachments.
4. Dealing with the XML responses from IIS via Exchange, is not trival.

If challange anyone to write a program like Microsoft's Exchange Utility,
"ExMerge.exe", using WebDav.

Thanks for hearing my "Rant".

Russell Mangel
Las Vegas, NV

 

[Cain T. S. Random]

Yes, Russell, that was another consideration of mine. I haven't tired
WebDAV (except the bastardized HTTPMail that Hotmail uses), but I expect
it's slower, and I'm not sure all the low-level properties we want (e.g. the
binary recurrence schedule data) are made available.

I really hope we can find some way to get the MAPI libraries made available.
On the other hand, most people have Office...