Microsoft Exchange and Blackberry Server Specialists

Making the OWA Login Page the Default Page on a Web Site

On This Page

  • Introduction
  • Web Page Sample Code for Windows 2008/2008 R2 (including SBS 2011)

Introduction

If you have a specific machine for Outlook Web Access, you may want users to go to http://mail.example.com instead of http://mail.example.com/owa/ . This is a simple change to the default web site on the machine that is hosting OWA. 

It is more effective when used with Forms Based Authentication enabled, as the users get a web page immediately - and without any authentication prompts - providing a level of confirmation that they have hit the correct address.

Web Page Sample Code for Windows 2008/2008 R2 (including SBS 2011)

In Windows 2008/2008R2, you must use a default web page - the HTTP redirect option within IIS Manager can caused problems if not configured correct and will cause a loop, which will stop OWA from functioning. Save the code below as index.htm and place it in the root of the web site (wwwroot on a default installation).   

For SBS users, you could also change the URL to /remote and have the remote web workplace as you default site instead.

Redirection to HTTPS URL.

If you are allowing users to connect to the server using a non-HTTPS URL (http://host.example.com/owa) but want them to use HTTPS instead, then you can use the following code instead:

Change the host.example.com part of the URL in both places to your actual host name.