Question : Excel files in OWA public folders

Hello experts,

I am trying to open an excel file in public folders using OWA. When I click on the file the window opens and says the website has declined to show you this page. Another item that I think may be related is in options when you click the password reset button. The window for that pops up and says this page cannot be displayed. It seems that you can use OWA for most things but for some things it looses your credentials or something. We use https and have a SSL certificate. I do know that when we access the site it only works if you use http which then redirects you to the https site. If you do not use that and go strait to the https and try to log in it says this page cannot be displayed. I am thinking that it is something with our setup and have no clue what it could be. Please help. Thanks in advance!

Answer : Excel files in OWA public folders

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with your setup, there are just a few things which are turned off out-of-the-box which are causing the behaviour you are seeing.

The "Change Password" feature is enabled by default in OWA 2003, but it actually links to a virtual directory in IIS. By default, this virtual directory doesn't exist, thus the 404 File not found error. You have two options:
a) Install the OWA Admin tool (which I recommend you get anyway: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4BBE7065-A04E-43CA-8220-859212411E10&displaylang=en). Using OWA Admin, you can turn off the "Change Password" button in OWA, or alternatively
(b) create and enable the functionality of the IISADMPWD virtual directory in IIS, which will allow the change password button to work and users to change their passwords remotely. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555071

Your Excel files are known as "Freedocs" (Free or floating documents) since they reside directly inside a public folder. By default, Exchange does not allow access to Freedocs via OWA for "Security" reasons, and the default behaviour is to respond with a HTTP 403 Forbidden error message. To change this default behaviour, you will need the OWA Admin tool again (see above, option a). On running the tool, select the "Attachment Handling" section, scroll to the bottom of the page and set the appropriate option in the "Enable Freedocs" section. Alternatively, the change can be implemented via the registry editor: http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Enabling-Freedocs-access-OWA2003.html

Matthew
-tigermatt