thank you its now working great thanks to your help [:)]

hi there

im totally lost and dont know where to start so i

thought i would ask here for a little help.

xampp on windows 7 (x86), i have setup a phpbb3 forum on the same

computer. this is a stand alone computer with no other computers

connected at all. i am trying to setup the mercury mail server so that i

can use it with my forum but i am not sure how to do this. i have just

setup a free domain name from no-ip.com so that i could use it with the

newly created forum and was hoping i could use the same name for the

smtp section but i dont know what i need to enter into the fields on

mercury to do this. any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

The help file that comes with Mercury is your best resource.

Start at the start and work your way throught the setup.

If you have any specific queries about a particular aspect of it, come back and ask.

ok thanks, i'm sure i will be back with more questions [:D]

ok i'm back and with more questions already [:D]

my first question is when i look in services i see two Mercury services installed, one called Mercury and another called Mercury32 is this normal?

2nd question is, when i start XAMPP Control Panel i have Mercury ticked as installed as a service and running with greed light however when i click the Admin button next to it nothing happens? i cant seem to change any settings.

3rd question is, because i am running windows 7 x86 should i run all the apps in the Mercury folder under the xp service pack 3 compatability mode?

it seems that most of my issues are because i am using windows 7, would be nice for a new release to work fully with windows 7 in the near future so newbies like me wouldnt have to go through all this [:S]

I've no idea how XAMPP does it so can't really help with that, although I would expect there should only be one instance running.

I would recommend, if it's possible, removing Mercury from XAMPP and setting it up from the official installer.

As for Windows7-newbie-ization, I wouldn't hold your breath. I imagine it is low on the priority list.

If you want to run it on Win7 you will have to jump through MS's hoops.

i notice mercury.exe will start up fine if i open the folder and click it from there so i guess thats a start [:D]

i tried to send mail to the localhost account and seemed to work fine now. i have setup a free domain name from no-ip.com but how would i set it up in mercury so that my lil forum could use it for registration? ive read the documentation many times and im still lost.

Make sure to stop the service before running it directly, or you will get very confusing results when changing settings with two instances running.

Your forum software is not using it for registration, it is using it to transfer email messages. [:)]

You need to configure the "core module" options to set the correct "hostname" and "local domains". The defaults for the rest of the "core module" options are probably OK, but it depends on your environment.

You will also need the "SMTP server module" (MercS) set correctly to allow connections from your forum machine, in your case should be 127.0.0.1, and TO DENY RELAYING FROM THE INTERNET.

You will also need to set up a "SMTP client module", either MercE or MercC, in your case probably MercC as you seem to be on a dynamic IP.

You will need to enter the settings for your ISP's SMTP server and any required authentication info.

Lastly, you will need the POP3 or IMAP4 (or both) server module to retrieve/read emails from your Mercury Mail server with your favorite client.

i have a static IP, My IP never changes but when i signed up with my ISP i was offered the choice of a Dynamic IP or Static IP and chose Static to avoid complicaions.

yey finally got it to work after days n days n days of constand messing about [H]

there is one strange thing though which i cant figure out, when i start up mercury and admin it i notice its all offline and i have to click on [file] > Enter offline mode and then i have to  click Leave offline mode and then it all seems to be online and working. not sure why i have to do that but any tips would be greatly welcome. thanks for your time

There is a known bug in the MercuryX scheduler module that can cause that behavior. Try disabling MercuryX (unless you actually require it).

/Rolf 

how do i disable that? sorry for my n00bness but i am a total novice user. thanks

Config menu -> Protocol Modules -> untick any that are not required.