How to quickly verify if Autodiscover is working

Autodiscover is an Exchange service which, after successful configuration, helps admins and users save tons of time. Thanks to Autodiscover, Outlook clients are automatically configured, after as little as entering user’s e-mail address and password upon first login. Its job does not end there, it is required to ensure Outlook-Exchange connectivity later on. Therefore, it is crucial to diagnose problems with the service as quickly as they occur. In this guide I will show 2 quick and easy ways to do that.

Using Powershell

Checking Autodiscover connection for a user is as simple as using a single cmdlet:Test-OutlookWebServices for the user you want to diagnose, i.e.

Test-OutlookWebServices -identity: [email protected] –MailboxCredential (Get-Credential)

The cmdlet first checks if it can connect to Autodiscover service and specifies its URL. Then it checks connectivity with all services defined by Autodiscover xml records, namely: Availability Service, Offline Address Book and Unified Messaging. The final result is a very short yet informative table:

Using Outlook

Another way to verify Autodiscover service is by using an Outlook in-built tool. In order to do that, you have to follow those simple steps:

1. Turn on MS Outlook, find its icon in the system tray and right-click it while holding ctrl key. From the context menu, choose “Test E-mail AutoConfiguration…”.
   
   

   

2. Here, you can enter user’s credentials of the e-mail account you want to check. In order to verify Autodiscover service, check “Use Autodiscover” box and click “Test”. Autodiscover URL and information whether the connection succeeded can be found under Log tab.
   
   

   

Both methods are quick easy to use and let you verify if Autodiscover Service works fine; however, it is clear that the latter has the advantage of requiring nothing more than Outlook. Furthermore, it provides more data, which comes in handy especially in case of an error. What is more, this tool can also be used to check EWS (Exchange Web Services) URL, OOF (Out of Office) URL on the Results tab, or to take a look at Autodiscover XML configuration file.

Autodiscover service is closely connected to the topic of migration – that is when it is especially prone to crashing and, at the same time, when its well being is crucial.

For those of you using Exchange 2007, check this article to see if maybe you should start planning your migration.

If you want to make migration much simpler and easier, check those CodeTwo products:

• CodeTwo Exchange Migration
• CodeTwo Office 365 Migration