I know a lot of people have been having tons of issues involving the htc mail connecting to exchange activesync to get their email, contacts and calendar. It is hit or miss whether it worked for lots of folks...

I couldn't get it working for the life of me, so took the easy way out and un-checked "use ssl 128 bit" on the exchange server, and it started working... However, this creates a huge security issue, leaving your exchange outlook web access unencrypted. I accepted this fact for a couple weeks, as I needed the email support really bad for a project I was working on... Now that I'm done with that project, I returned to this issue, definitely wanting to plug the security hole I so reluctantly opened up. Telling myself i will NOT drop a $20 for touchdown exchange client, after being told that my incredible has "exchange support"...

After about 6 hours of scrubbing through microsoft kb's I discovered the answer...

Exchange ActiveSync and Outlook Mobile Access errors occur when SSL or forms-based authentication is required for Exchange Server 2003 (ms kb 817379)

Use Resolution method #2. Which creates a virtual directory (with no ssl access) that is only accessible by the same server computer. You still set up the inc email client the same, including checkmarking the "this server requires a ssl connection" What happens is your inc can now authenticate by SSL to the exchange web access, and it then redirects access locally on the server to the newly created virtual directory.

in a nutshell, it just ends up working!

Caveat, you either need to be the exchange server admin to do the tasks in the method #2, or know the exchange server admin at your company (and bring him nice techie toys) LOL...

I've only tested this on our exchange 2003 standard server. I have no idea what to do with a 2007 server... I understand the exchange 2010 server also has no official support either, but is currently being worked on.

I just thought i'd throw this out there for those who still may be having this issue... If it helps even one other company besides ours, it was worth the effort!

 

On our exchange server, forms based auth was already disabled. That was the first thing I looked at. and since it was disabled, I didnt re-enable it after it was all said and done.

It all has something to do with exchange being able to serve it up without SSL encryption. Essentially this work around provides the secure ssl that is needed to keep the inc client connection secure, and fakes not having ssl on the server by re-routing the ssl /exchange site to the non-ssl /exchange-oma virtual site.