How to correctly install and configure CodeTwo Exchange Sync

This article is obsolete - see the User's manual to learn how to install and configure the latest version of CodeTwo Exchange Sync.

Problem:

How to correctly install and configure CodeTwo Exchange Sync?

Solution:

• If you are new to CodeTwo Exchange Sync, first of all, you need to know that CodeTwo Exchange Sync is a server-side application that works only in environments with Microsoft Exchange Server On-premises. If you are looking for a program that would synchronize your Exchange mailboxes in a hosted environment (e.g. Exchange Online / Office 365), please let us know as we may develop such a program in the future.
• If you are the end user of the software, make sure to contact your IT department or Local Network or System Administrator to consult on the installation as you need to have full administrative permissions to be able to install the program.
• CodeTwo Exchange Sync supports multi server environments, but only homogenous ones - mixed environments are NOT supported (two or more Exchange Servers in different versions). In most cases only single instance of the program will be required in your network as the program connects to your CAS server to get access to all your mailbox stores. Be aware that CodeTwo Exchange Sync is designed to synchronize mailboxes and Public Folders with each others, not to synchronize two Exchange Servers nor to migrate data between those. For the latter we recommend our CodeTwo Exchange Migration software.
• The installer file, the list of supported systems as well as a link to the version history are available on this website.

Installation process and requirements:

If you already have CodeTwo Exchange Sync installed or had it before but want to re-install and there still are or previously were synchronization tasks deployed please make sure you backup your settings and cache files prior to re-installation. If you do not do this, configuring identical synchronization tasks in new installation will result in duplicated items. See this article on which files should be backed up.

1. To uninstall previous installation of CodeTwo Exchange Sync please consult this article.
2. CodeTwo Exchange Sync uses MAPI to access mailboxes. It is better not to install the program on a workstation where MS Outlook 2007 or older, Outlook 2016, or other applications using MAPI are present (e.g. older releases of BlackBerry Enterprise Server) because conflicts may occur between these programs or MAPI limits might be reached. Please either uninstall other software or install our program on a different machine. There are some installation limitations, depending on your version of Exchange Server and Outlook. See detailed requirements
3. CodeTwo Exchange Sync will install two components: the Synchronization service and the Administration Panel. As both of them use MAPI to list and access users mailboxes they must be executed by users that meet certain requirements. Please note that the initial connection to Exchange after software installation will use the account you are currently logged on for both: the Administration Panel and the Synchronization Service connection, so make sure you can put a check next to each one of the below requirements for this account. You will be able to reconfigure the Synchronization Service to use a different account later on (but still the one that would meet the below requirements).
   1. The user is a Domain Admin account that has read and write access to Exchange mailboxes.
   2. The account is located in the main users container in your Active Directory - it is not recommended to place that account in a sub-container.
   3. The account is mailbox-enabled - log in to OWA, set locales if prompted, send/receive an email.
   4. The account is active - log on to the machine with its credentials to make sure it works prior to configuring a synchronization service for it.
   5. The account is not hidden from the Exchange Address List.
   6. Using spaces, special or national characters in user account names is strongly unrecommended.
   7. If you synchronize public folders, make sure the account has necessary rights to public folders see: Synchronization of public folders
   8. If you have changed the account used to run the synchronization service and following it the service does not start, see: How to run the Exchange Sync service under a newly created user.
4. CodeTwo Exchange Sync requires that some specific IIS settings must be set. See this article on how to do this.
5. Run the installer file and install the program on a local hard drive along with the MS CDO if prompted to do so.
6. If asked about the Exchange Server version that means our program was not able to connect to your Autodiscover. Please consult this article on how to proceed with configuration in such scenario. Be aware that in environments where Autodiscover could not be located it will not be possible to configure the synchronization service for a different user than the one that is currently logged in.
7. You can now configure the service and your synchronization tasks, see the manual on that.