Exchange: OWA displays all mailboxes in a directory browsing format

Problem: After some unrelated changes are made to IIS 6.0, Exchange’s Outlook Web Access (OWA) acts differently. The normal login page is replaced by a login dialog box. After logging in, OWA displays all the mailboxes in a browseable directory format instead of the normal OWA content. You can select your mailbox and all folders display in the same manner. Charles Yang from Microsoft presented a solution that (mostly) worked for me in this situation.

Charles Yang wrote:

Generally speaking, this issue should be caused by the IIS default configuration for the website has been changed. Please refer to my suggestion below to see if the issue can be resolved:

1. Navigate to: <server name> | Web Sites | Default Web Site | Exchange.

2. Right-click Exchange and select “Properties”. Click the “Virtual Directory” tab.

3. At the bottom, under “Application Settings”, click the Configuration button.

4. In the Application Configuration window, under “Wildcard application maps”, click “Insert”.

5. In the Add/Edit Application Extension Mapping window, click “Browse”.

6. Browse to “Program Files\ExchSrvr\bin\davex.dll” and click the Open button.

7. In the “Executable:” text box, place quotation marks around the file path.

8. Click OK three times to exit.

(Original Source of Information: Microsoft Windows SBS Newsgroup)

As I said, this worked mostly for me. In my case, “Application Settings” under the “Virtual Directory” tab was pretty much disabled. The only option I had was to “Create” a new application. Once I did that extra step (step 2.5 if you are following the instructions above), I was able to complete the rest of the instructions. The procedure worked without a hitch after that.

This server has had quite a history of losing track of its OWA configuration in IIS, but it has never presented this issue before. The most common issue it has presented is addressed in Microsoft article Q280823. That is the issue where you pretty much only see the message “Loading…” and possibly some “broken images” where the images failed to load.

It is really weird how touchy this server is about its OWA settings. The only changes I am aware of being made to IIS lately was the installation of a new SSL certificate to the Default Web Site. Nothing was altered in OWA. Hopefully this fix will fix it permanently. Hopefully someone else will find this information useful, too!