So what is Autodiscover?
Autodiscover is a feature of Exchange 2007. It is a mechanism used to provide certain functionality to certain e-mail clients, especially Outlook. This means you cannot make full use of Exchange 2007 without Autodiscover configured.
The features Autodiscover provides includes:
- Auto Account Setup
- Downloading the Offline Address Book
- Viewing Free/Busy time in your calendar
- Configuring your Out-of-Office
E-mail clients that make use of Autodiscover includes Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010, Outlook 2011 and Entourage 2008 WSE
Autodiscover is simple to set up for your domain, it only requires that you create a CNAME resource record. CNAME records are a type of DNS record, other types include A records and MX records.
Note: We recommend that you create an Autodiscover CNAME record for every domain on your account that will have Exchange mailboxes, this includes domain aliases and accepted domains.
Creating a CNAME DNS record:
Contact your DNS hosting provider and ask them to create the following CNAME record. If you have access to the control panel for your DNS, you can make this change yourself.
Hostname: autodiscover
Record Type: CNAME
TTL: 86400 (if required)
Address: autodiscover.emailsrvr.com.
Note: Depending on your DNS provider’s requirements, you may need to add the fully qualified domain name as your hostname e.g. if your domain is example.com your hostname would be autodiscover.example.com. instead of autodiscover.
It could take 24 hours or more for this change to take effect, even though most DNS providers update their DNS records within three hours. You may want to ask your DNS provider what their "update time" is.
Checking for the Autodiscover CNAME record:
To confirm your e-mail client, e.g. Outlook 2007, has access to your new Autodiscover record perform the following actions from your Windows computer:
Click the Windows Start button and select Run.
Type "nslookup" and press the Enter key on your keyboard.
Type in the name of the hostname you created above (e.g., autodiscover.example.com), and press the Enter key on your keyboard.
If your records were correctly created, you should receive results similar to the following:
Name: autodiscover.emailsrvr.com
Address: 207.97.200.61
Aliases: autodiscover.example.com
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