No More POP3 in WS08. Now What?

Microsoft doesn’t offer POP3 service in Windows Server 2008. For those of you who want to test e-mail functionality in a Virtual PC environment or with MOSS 2007, installing Exchange server could be too taxing as far as resources are concerned (not to mention the cost) for just using SMTP in a development, testing or training environment. Here are a few solutions.

Solution #1

One option that some people have utilized is a freeware mail server. ArGoSoft Mail Server Freeware might be worth looking into. You can download the freeware mail server from ArGoSoft.

I should point out that I have not used this server and can’t give you any insights at this time. It is a freeware product so use it at your own risk. Obviously, it would not be wise to use this freeware version in a production environment.

Solution #2

Another solution, which might even work better, is to use Visendo SMTP (POP3) extender for Windows Server 2008. You can download the x64 and x86 versions from Visendo’s Web site. This is ideal for a development, training or testing environment.

I haven’t had a chance to test this solution either but I hope to give this option a try as soon as I get a chance. If you have had experience with either of these solutions, I would love to hear from you.

Solution #3

MailEnable Standard Edition offers a free POP3 server that works great in Windows Server 2008 R2. I recently tried version 4.26 and absolutely loved it. MailEnable is easy to install and configure and you can be up and running in a couple of minutes. You can download MailEnable here.

Update: Added Solution #3 on 11/21/10.