When Outlook forgets the user’s Exchange password

On the one hand Exchange’s RPC over HTTPS functionality is a cool feature if you wanna use Outlook behind a firewall which permits only a small range of ports (e.g. a public Internet connection). But otherwise the configuration of that technique could be the hell on earth For example the certificate handling with IE7 (simply create a certificate on the Windows server and exactly import this one on the client machine). There’re lots of HOWTO’s on the Internet – my favourite among others is this one here.

So let’s assume that RPC over HTTPS works perfectly in your network. Among other quaint things it could happen that Outlook suddenly forgets your Exchange password. Although you clicked “Remember password” before, at once Outlook shows the login dialog while starting. Isn’t it funny?

The solution for that problem is to define a principal name for the certificate created on the Windows server. Just open the Exchange account settings on your client machine. Follow “More Settings”, “Connection” and “Exchange Proxy Settings”. At the upcoming dialog type your FQDN (including the “msstd:” prefix) as shown in the figure below. Now Outlook will keep your password – again.