XCON: DSUseCat Key and the Message Categorizer (231729)

SUMMARY

The Message Categorizer examines every message that come into an SMTP server and determines the course of action. The messages may be destined for the local store, a remote host by means of the message transfer agent (MTA), or a remote host by means of SMTP. The Categorizer also handles Distribution List (DL) expansion.

The DSUseCat registry key governs the state (enabled or disabled) of the Message Categorizer.

MORE INFORMATION

The Categorizer is shipped as part of the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system. However, by default, the Message Categorizer is set to "disabled" when Windows 2000 is initially installed. When Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server is installed, the Categorizer is automatically set to "enabled."

State of Message Categorizer	DSUseCat key value
Disabled	0x0000000
Enabled	0xFFFFFFF

Each virtual server instance has independent control of the Message Categorizer state. You can ascertain the value of the DSUseCat key in the metabase at the following location:

/smtpsvc/Virtual Server Instance/RoutingSources

The following is an example of a metabase dump of the RoutingSources for a virtual server instance. It shows the DSUSeCat key value to be 0xfffffff (Categorizer enabled) after Exchange 2000 is installed on the server:

  DSUseCAT              : [IS]    (DWORD)    0xffffffff={-1}
  DSFlags               : [IS]    (DWORD)    0xf={15}
  DSPort                : [S]     (DWORD)    0x0={0}
  DSType                : [IS]    (STRING)   "LDAP"
  Account               : [IS]    (STRING)   "Administrator"
  DSDomain              : [IS]    (STRING)   "TROLL"
  KeyType               : [IS]    (STRING)   "IIsSmtpRoutingSource"
  BindType              : [S]     (STRING)   "Simple"
  SchemaType            : [S]     (STRING)   "NT5Exchange"