WHS as a Free Email Server

Setting up your Windows Home Server as an Email Server is fast, easy, and best of all; it is totally FREE!  The best part about is that you can use your Microsoft given WHS hostname as your email address ([email protected]).

There are many commercial packages out there that can accomplish this task very well and some of them even offer a free version for those of us with little money.  However, for easy installation and configuration, I recommend using hMailServer.

hMailServer is very simple to use and offers many of the features that some expensive packages offer at no cost to you.  There are even options for setting up webmail access.

You are going to need to do this work from your WHS and the easiest way for this is to initiate a Remote Desktop connection to your home server.  This will allow you to work on your Home Server as if there were a monitor, keyboard, and mouse attached to it.  This article will also assume that you have some computer knowledge and are able to use RDC or the Add-in Asoft AutoExit, but I will try to be as thorough as possible anyway.

Download hMailServer stable version then install using the default options: Click Here to download

While installing with all the default options, you will eventually be prompted to set up an administrator password.  Make this a strong password as this will allow access to your email server setup.  At the conclusion of the installation you can have the installer automatically launch hMailServer administrator.

At first run, the hMailServer Administrator Connect wizard will be displayed.  This will allow you to automatically connect to your hMailServer when launching the Administrator from your desktop or your start menu.  You can also configure connections to other hMailServers should you have more in your webring.

From the Welcome Screen you can see how the application is setup.  There is a tree on the left with the configuration hierarchy with the configurable options on the right.  At first start, hMailServer will place you under “Welcome” and the only available option is to create a domain.

After clicking “Add Domain” populate the fields with the appropriate information.

1. The domain name would be your WHS address (xxxxxxx.homeserver.com).
2. I recommend using postmaster as the catch-all address.
3. Click Save to keep all of your changes.

After clicking the Save option, the screen will change and add 3 new options and the tree will expand.  Add Account, Add Alias, and Add Distribution List.

For a basic configuration, I wouldn’t really worry about configuring any of the options in the tabs that become available in this screen.  This is a simple installation and configuration tutorial; further experimentation is recommended for your configuration.  You are now able to add your first account to your hMailServer.

1. Fill in the username with your desired email address name.
2. Create a password for the email account
3. Change the Maximum email account size if you wish (I leave mine at unlimited)
   
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