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How to View Email Headers in Common Email Programs

Below are ways to view the advanced headers of email messages in some common email programs. This is useful for identifying spam, and illegitimate email account use within a company.

Outlook 2007
With the message in its own window, click the message tab, look at the options block, and click the small button with the arrow on it (bottom right corner). This will open the message options. The Internet Headers will be displayed at the bottom of the box.
If the message isn’t open in its own window, right-click the message and select Message Options.

Outlook 98, 2000, 2003
With the message open, click on View -> Options. Near the bottom you will see a section called “Internet Headers.” Select the options accordingly.

Hotmail
Go to Options -> Preferences -> Under Headers click Advanced Headers

Thunderbird
In the menu, go to View -> Headers and select All.

Eudora Pro
With the message open, double-click the “blah blah” icon (left of subject field) to reveal the advanced headers.

Outlook Express
Highlight the message and go to File -> Properties -> Detail Tab -> OK. The properties box will then display the fill headers. Press Message Source.

Resolve Exchange Server 2000 Error: 80004005

This error in the Exchange System Manager is a generic MAPI error code, but not necessarily a MAPI error.

Unfortunately there is no clear cut cause to this error, but performing the following steps should fix the problem.

  1. Check the version number of w3svc.dll on your Exchange 2000 Server. It should be 5.0.2195.1600. A higher version of this dll was used in a post Windows 2000 SP1 hot fix, but broke PF in Exchange Manager. The easiest solution is to copy the w3svc.dll file from the Windows 2000 SP1 CD.
  2. You may also try the following:
    Open IIS Admin Manager, Expand “Default Website” or whichever website Exadmin is under. Right-click and select properties of Exadmin. Go to the Directory Security Tab. Click Edit under “Anonymous Access and Authentication Control.” Check “Integrated Windows Authentication.”
  3. Also check to see if the Exadmin directory is set to use only SSL. This has been known to cause the error as well.

SPF Records for Windows Email Servers

Creating an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record helps prevent other servers from spoofing your email address and also helps other servers determine whether or not your messages are spam. However, without widespread use of SPF at the moment, the latter isn’t very effective.

SPF Records use reverse DNS to check if a sending email address is valid. For example, if you see an email from info@iishacks.com it may or may not be from me. A server will perform a reverse DNS check for iishacks.com to see if the sending machine is authorized to send that message. If the SPF Record is on my server and I authorize only my server to send messages from IISHacks, then only messages sent from info@iishacks.com from my server will show up as valid.

More and more email servers are using SPF records as a way to sort and rank possible spam. If a sending server does not have an SPF record or is not an authorized sender of a server with an SPF record, some email servers will flag that message as spam or else reject it completely. Large email hosting companies are already incorporating SPF as a spam tool.

If you host your own email server but your DNS/MX records are hosted somewhere else (ex. Godaddy) you can login to their administrative panel and follow their steps to create and publish an SPF record. If you host your own DNS you can follow the steps at openspf.org to create a valid SPF record and then follow the steps below to implement it into your Windows server.


Go to Start –> Programs –> Administrative Tools –> DNS


Expand the DNS tree, under Forward Lookup Zones select the domain you wish to create an SPF record for. In the white space, Right-Click and select Other New Records…



Select Text (TXT) in the Resource Record Type dialog box, click Create Record…



Type in the SPF record data in the Text: area, click OK. Reference the openspf.org wizard to create the SPF data.



Exchange server reported error 0x8004010F

‘Microsoft Exchange Server’ reported error (0x8004010F) is received when trying to send and receive email on Outlook 2000/2003 with Exchange Server 2003. It occurs when Outlook hasn’t synchronized the offline address book properly, or it has been corrupted or missing.

If the OAB is missing, the server might be pointed to the wrong location of the address book.

  1. Open Exchange Manager
  2. Double-click Servers
  3. Double-click on Server Name
  4. Double-click on Storage Group (Ex. First Storage)
  5. Right-click on it and select “Properties”
  6. Make sure there is a server listed in the box. If not, browse to it.

If the Offline Address Book (OAB) is corrupted, you must rebuild it.

  1. Open Exchange Manager
  2. Double-click Recipients Folder
  3. Double-click Offline Address List
  4. Right-click on it and select “Rebuild”

Exchange server reported error 0x8004011D

‘Microsoft Exchange Server’ reported error (0x8004011D): ‘The server is not available. Contact your administrator if this condition persists.’

This is a familiar error for many people. In my experience of diagnosing and fixing exchange issues, 9 / 10 times there has been an information store being dismounted due to an underlying service crashing.

Let’s go through a few basic steps to narrow it down:

  1. Check to see that all MSExchange Services are started. (MSExchangeES, MSExchangeIS, MSExchangeMTA, MSExchangeSA)
  2. If any of these are not started, start them!
    net start MSExchangeES /yes
    net start MSExchangeIS /yes
    net start MSExchangeMTA /yes
    net start MSExchangeSA /yes
  3. Check to see if the Information Stores are mounted. Exchange Manager -> Servers -> Server Name -> First Storage Group -> Right-click on Mailbox Store and select “Mount Store” if dismounted.
  4. Perform a database check.
    C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr>bin\eseutil /mh mdbdata\priv1.edb
  5. Sometimes the error code will be thrown when a database is “dirty.” Doing the above check reveals what state the database is in, if you see State: Dirty Shutdown, then you must make sure all transaction logs from the checkpoint and later are present, then mount the store. If the logs are gone, you have to repair the database using Eseutil /p to make the database consistent to start. This can result in data loss, so back up everything beforehand just in case. After running Eseutil /p, run Eseutil /d to defrag the database. Then run the Information Store integrity checker Isinteg.exe -fix. Running these commands should fix any problems associated with a dirty database, and allow the stores to be mounted again. Please do make sure you have 1.5 – 2 times the database file size in free space on the drive for the system to work.