Discovered a MAJOR BUG in WP8 (PORTICO). Using Miscrosoft Exchange and email alias

[farzonalmaneih]

I have a corporate Exchange 2007 account for work. My corporate email account has several Alias's. This is very common in a company email account. For example: Primary email David.Jones@MyCompany.com, Alias DJones@MyCompany.com.

When setting up my Company Microsoft Exchange 2007 email account on my WP8 phone (Nokia 920 with all updates), I have discovered a major bug. When I setup the account, I set it up with my primary email address (as I should). This works and sets up just fine. After first setting up the account, it even lists my primary email account and that it's syncing (this is under Settings/System/Email+Accounts).

After it completes syncing, the email address listed under accounts in "Settings/System/Email+Accounts" shows not my primary email address anymore, but instead it shows one of my alias's. While I noticed this weeks ago when I bought my phone, I just ignored it. This is because when I go to send an email, it always sends under my primary email address. I just figured this was some sort of visual bug and not a functional one.

Well today I figured out that the Calendar app has been sending out meeting invites with my alias email address instead of my primary email address. MAJOR BUG. I had a client ask me what this other email address is. They figured it was me, but didn't recognize my alias.

So the bottom line problem is:

1. that when I setup my Exchange email account on WP8, it configures itself for my alias email address and not my primary one. Even though I set it up with my primary email address.
2. The email app functions normally and sends email under the primary email address.
3. The calendar app, when sending meeting requests from the phone, sends these requests using the alias.

I have tweeted the Microsoft phone support, but I am thinking I need to call someone at Microsoft. Any recommendations on who I should call? My company was just about to standardize on these phones and this is a show stopper.

 

[iamtim]

This does not happen on my Portico'ed Lumia 820, using Exchange Server 2010.

 

[farzonalmaneih]

This does not happen on my Portico'ed Lumia 820, using Exchange Server 2010.

Thank you for the feedback. I wonder if this is an Exchange 2007 + Windows Phone 8 issue (using them in combo). I have just now removed and re-added my exchange account from my phone 3 times. Same result. I have even removed the alias email account from the Exchange server temporarily. Though, I have about 5 alias's. The phone just picked a different alias instead. It really doesn't want to use my primary email address. This is really frustrating.

 

[iamtim]

That's what I was thinking, that it might be an Exchange Server 2007 "thing".

 

[inteller]

complaints about WP and Exchange 2007 are quickly becoming about as valid as the Exchange 2003 complaints. Mainstream support has ended for that product. Time to tell IT to get with the present.

 

[farzonalmaneih]

That's what I was thinking, that it might be an Exchange Server 2007 "thing".

Take a look again. On the receiving side, I looked at the email header of the Calendar invitation. The email header does come from my primary email address. THOUGH, the calendar invitation (the invite.ICS) has the alias in there. So the email goes out right but the Calendar invite file has the alias address in it.

I am going to love having to explain this one to Microsoft. I feel like tech support is not going to see the problem, because it's not obvious on the surface.

 

[farzonalmaneih]

complaints about WP and Exchange 2007 are quickly becoming about as valid as the Exchange 2003 complaints. Mainstream support has ended for that product. Time to tell IT to get with the present.

I hear you. Though, Microsoft does support it until 2017.

I do believe this is purely a Windows Phone 8 issue and not Exchange 2007 one. But only time will tell.

 

[tk-093]

Are you a large enough company that you have a Microsoft Account/Sales contact. That's probably a good place to start.

I tried to reproduce it on my 822 (non portico, Exchange 2010 and no luck.)

 

[farzonalmaneih]

Considering I don't have this issue on the iPhones, Andriod, and blackberry phones here, I would say this is an issue Microsoft needs to address. They are being pretty responsive on Twitter, so hopefully I get somewhere with them.

 

[farzonalmaneih]

Are you a large enough company that you have a Microsoft Account/Sales contact. That's probably a good place to start.

I tried to reproduce it on my 822 (non portico, Exchange 2010 and no luck.)

Thank you very much for trying. I really appreciate it.

If not too much of a problem, do you mind try sending to a gmail account. When you receive the invite it should come under the primary email, but when you click the "More Details >>" link in gmail (which looks a the invite.ICS file), it should show the alias.

Thank You

 

[tk-093]

Considering I don't have this issue on the iPhones, Andriod, and blackberry phones here, I would say this is an issue Microsoft needs to address. They are being pretty responsive on Twitter, so hopefully I get somewhere with them.

Can you reproduce it with other user accounts? Hopefully they figure something out.

 

[inteller]

I hear you. Though, Microsoft does support it until 2017.

I do believe this is purely a Windows Phone 8 issue and not Exchange 2007 one. But only time will tell.

That is extended support and they are not going to fix it when it works fine with exchange 2010 as others have pointed out.

 

[MRE Inc]

Hi,

First of all, this is NOT a WP8 bug or a WP8 PORTICIO bug and I will tell you why:

I've been a Windows Mobile user ever since 2002 on my mobile phones. I've used pocket outlook ever since for my mail accounts and the problem/bug you mention already happened to me with Windows Mobile 6.5 on my HTC Touch Diamond back in 2008.

For work I design, implement and manage Microsoft Windows networks based on Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange. Just for testing purposes I bought my own domain name back in 2007 and I set up an Active Directory with Microsoft Exchange 2003 SP1 (the verion with real push mail) in my network at home. This worked well, but I noticed the same you noticed with the aliases. Calender appointments were sent with the alias. Back then I had a HTC Touch Diamond with WM6 on it. Push mail, calendar and contact sync all worked perfectly but I also noticed the alias problem. I set up my account on my device with my primary email address but when going to settings, I noticed one of my aliasses was shown.

Two years ago I decommisioned all my servers at home and bougth an Exchange 2007 plan at Godaddy. That was on Exchange 2007 and also on Exchange 2007 I noticed this alias problem. I was never able to solve it.

3 months ago I switched from Godaddy to Microsoft Office 365 (Exchange Online Plan 1). This is on Exchange 2010. I haven't set up an alias, but I will test this tonight and see if the bug still exists. At this moment I own a Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone 7.5. I have set up my Exchange Online account on it. I will do a test and add several email aliasses to my primary email address and see what happens.

Furthermore, last summer, when I still was on Exchange 2007 and I had an alias on my primary mailbox, I send out 1 appointment to friends who use gmail. When they accepted the appointment I saw that the reply address they send the appointment confirmation to, was my alias address. Very strange.....

I will let you know my results and I considder this also as a major bug.