Recommend an email SMTP Server (Windows)?

[Searcher2]

Has anyone any experience with SMTP email servers on a Windows platform? I'd like a recommendation or two if possible. Preferably cheap or freeware. It's not going to handle anything major. Cheers!

[Moby-Dick]

what do you want it to do ? SMTP services are built into IIS.

[Searcher2]

Sorry - I should have been clearer. It would just be required to be an internal SMTP email server (max 5 users) with some sort of shared folder facility with the additional requirement of a shared mailbox so that all the users can access incoming mail to a business email. Does that make sense or help?

[Moby-Dick]

It makes sence - how would you want clients to connect to the server ? IMAP/POP3 or MAPI/RPC type connections. Have you purchased an OS already ?

[Jay]

I don't know of any decent free windows based mail servers to be honest. If you are looking at a new server / OS at some point this is looking perfect for SBS Server (not free) To be fair MS Exchange is really worth the money and SBS is even better value, RPC over HTTPS (or outlook anywhere as its called these days) is really very good.

I have used MailSite Fusion in the past and it was pretty good to be honest but I havent used it for a few years now so I don't know if it has kept up with the times.

For a decent free mail server you are going to have to look at a Linux based system. (use VMWare! Its fantastic for this kind of thing, I even run a Linux mail server at home on a Centos VM)

Just a heads up if you do go with exchange, make sure you overspec the space for the datastore, look at the next 5 years, see where you think things may be, spec the datastore space then add 10%. I have seen so many people under spec the datastore area and live to regret it for what would have been a small cost when the server was first installed.

*Edit*

post below beat me to the VMWare comment

[oolon]

To expand Jay's comment vmware server + linux distro would get you all the free servers you would every need for internet services.

[madman045]

I dont know what it's like, but you could try something like this

http://www.hmailserver.com/index.php?page=welcome

But personally I prefer SBS 2008

[Moby-Dick]

I did use Mdaemon a while back , which is far from free , but its not too expensive.

[blueball]

I run Ability Mail Server on my domain. Absolutely love it. Been running about 3 years without a hiccup

Gives you pop3, smtp, imap, webmail, password resets, anti spam, file store, shared address books, etc etc

Will even generate its own certs for https

[rs4847]

Not free and probably overkill for what you want to do, however I've been running Mailtraq for years and does everything I need it to and more.

[Raz316]

I can't comment specifically on shared folders. But I use hmailserver and it seems pretty damn good for a free product

[Searcher2]

It makes sence - how would you want clients to connect to the server ? IMAP/POP3 or MAPI/RPC type connections. Have you purchased an OS already ?

Thanks for all the replies. I think the hmailserver is definitely worth a play to see if it is a goer.

As for the OS. The current system works on a PC which is used as a server. This has XP Professional on it - as do all the clients and this setup has been working fine. A change to Linux is a possibility when a new server is bought (looking at that right now).

As for connection type. We don't want to do POP3 because that downloads everything locally. We want to have it stored on the main mail server and accessed by the clients from there like MAPI.

[peterb]

A mini itx system, Linux, postfix and dovecot - pretty much what I have here and works like a dream.

[pollaxe]

I did use Mdaemon a while back , which is far from free , but its not too expensive.

We use this at work and it's been very good.

[Jay]

A mini itx system, Linux, postfix and dovecot - pretty much what I have here and works like a dream.

my VM is the same except I also have squirrel mail