Outlook 2K return reciepts.

[Tropical Tim]

My ISP,(Bellsouth), tells me that when sending a return receipt,
Outlook 2K places a null value into the "FROM" field of the return
receipt. For that reason, I'm told that the server will not send the
message. Is there a way for me to place an address into the "FROM"
field prior to the return receipt being sent or automaticly?

Thanks,

Tim

 

[Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]]

Tell BellSouth that if they don't accept a null value in the MAIL FROM
field, they are not compliant with Internet mail standards. In particular,
section 4.1.1.2 of RFC 2821 (the defining standard for mail servers, see
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt) specifies that servers are *required*
to accept a null ('<>') MAIL FROM field. Further, section 3 of RFC 2298
(http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2298.txt) *requires* that read-receipts (called
"message disposition notifications" in standards-speak) use a null address,
which is why Outlook 2000 does so. BellSouth needs to either reconfigure or
fix their mail servers to comply with Internet standards.

 

[Tropical Tim]

Thanks Jeff,
I'll send them the info. I appriciate your advice. If they refuse to
fix the problem, is there a way that I might code around it?

Tim Bankerd

 

[Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]]

Unfortunately, no. You could upgrade to Outlook 2002, which has a bug that
uses your address in the MAIL FROM. That was fixed in Outlook 2003, so it
also had the problem with broken mail servers. In 2003, however, we added
code to first try sending the receipt as the Internet standards require, but
if the server rejects the null from address we'll try again with your
address in place. We thus only violate the standards when talking to a mail
server that doesn't follow them. I hope to back-port the Outlook 2003
behavior to SP-3 of Outlook 2002. Outlook 2000 won't be changed, however.

--
Jeff Stephenson
Outlook Development
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Thanks Jeff,
I'll send them the info. I appriciate your advice. If they refuse to
fix the problem, is there a way that I might code around it?

Tim Bankerd



"Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]" <[email protected]> wrote in

Tell BellSouth that if they don't accept a null value in the MAIL FROM
field, they are not compliant with Internet mail standards. In particular,
section 4.1.1.2 of RFC 2821 (the defining standard for mail servers, see
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt) specifies that servers are *required*
to accept a null ('<>') MAIL FROM field. Further, section 3 of RFC 2298
(http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2298.txt) *requires* that read-receipts (called
"message disposition notifications" in standards-speak) use a null address,
which is why Outlook 2000 does so. BellSouth needs to either reconfigure or
fix their mail servers to comply with Internet standards.