[[APi]TheMan]

This is for those of you stuck in Exchange environments that have moved over to Entourage 2004 from Outlook 2001. In Outlook 2001 it was very easy to prompt for domain credentials before even displaying the inbox. No username/password = no viewing mail.

I have not found a way to do this on Entourage 2004 as of yet. While 2004 is an awesome step up from using Outlook in Classic and even Entourage v.X (I wouldn't even touch that one), I miss and need this feature. There are bunches of people at the university which I support that deal with important data. There is the "Choose Identity" feature that displays available identities upon startup (Available when you choose "Switch Identity" from the Entourage menu), but that doesn't require passwording.

Anyone got a hint? Thanks

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally posted by [APi]TheMan:
I have not found a way to do this on Entourage 2004 as of yet. While 2004 is an awesome step up from using Outlook in Classic and even Entourage v.X (I wouldn't even touch that one), I miss and need this feature. There are bunches of people at the university which I support that deal with important data. There is the "Choose Identity" feature that displays available identities upon startup (Available when you choose "Switch Identity" from the Entourage menu), but that doesn't require passwording.

It is not possible to password the entry to a mailbox in Entourage 2004 (nor in v.X for that matter). From the Entourage Help:

A password is not required to switch identities in Entourage, but identities are stored as part of your Mac OS user account. To ensure that your identity information is accessible only by you, do not share your Mac OS user account with other users. To learn how to create Mac OS user accounts, see Mac OS Help. For more information about identities, see Entourage Help.

Bummer. I guess that I see two options here, which might be very viable options now that I think of it:

• Enable screensaver passwords.
• Log out when you're away from your computer (or even cooler, use Fast User Switching).

While screensaver passwords would protect computer access while you step away, it seems that logging out or switching to the LoginWindow would be a better choice, as that is more or less the access gate of the Mac OS X security model. Having said that, if I was worried about people accessing my inbox, screensaver passwords seem like they couldn't hurt as an additional step.

Maybe Microsoft should add a suggestion for either of the above, no? Surely the majority of people using Entourage/Outlook are in larger corporations and most likely deal with some sort of confidential or sensitive information.

I guess on the Windows side in a Micrsoft exchange environment, Outlook 2003 uses the domain credentials for logging into the inbox. This seems more like how OS X is now, where authorization is needed once when logging into the computer initially. But even then, Windows can "Lock the computer" when they walk away. I guess this is where the screensaver password comes in, eh? (There is also DeskShade which usually does a pretty good job of locking the desktop, but it's not free). Maybe we can hope for this feature in Tiger? Or is Fast User Switching exactly that?

Interesting bunch of thoughts, eh?

[erage]

What makes the info in your Inbox more important or sensitive than the documents on your computer? For me, both are equally sensitive and deserve equal protection. Having a password that only protected my mail is a bit like having really great security at about half of the world's airports. Bad people will just exploit the weak security.

Even if you did protect your Inbox with a password, since I have access to your files, if I wanted to read you mail I'd just copy the database out of your Microsoft User Data folder and then open it in BBEdit and read through it at my leisure.