Wednesday, January 12, 2005

I needed a User, not a mailbox!

I use my SharePoint site as an extranet. Granted it's not perfect, since I need a license for each user I create that connects to it, but that's ok, for now. I really don't want to get into licensing on this Blog ... yet. I wanted to configure my CompanyWeb so my family could get into it and post pictures and have discussions.

All was working well, until one day one of my family members had a brilliant idea. "How do I show these pictures to our friends?"

The delema, do I un-restrict read access, or create a new user for viewing. I decided to do the latter, the thing that I wanted to do was to not have a mailbox for this particular user. Can I still use the Add User Wizard?

Of Course I could!

Actually, when running through the Add User Wizard, when creating the username, simply delete the email alias from the screen, and the wizard prompts you "Are you sure you want to create a user without a mailbox?". Clicking on Yes simply makes this happen.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does this "user" count towards your licensed users? I think I've been having a hard time distinguishing what counts towards the 5 that are included, and what doesn't. Is it just computers that are connected to the domain? Or any "user" that authenticates?

Thanks!

Sean Daniel said...

Good question, yes unfortunately any user that authenticates against SBS in any form (anonymous users do not take up licenses), takes up a license.

All I can comment on at this time is "we feel your pain"