XWEB: OWA Directory Listing Denied Error (189653)

SYMPTOMS

When you use Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) version 3.0 with Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.0 or 5.5, and you try to open the Exchange Server 5.0 Active Server Pages or the Exchange Server 5.5 Outlook Web Access (OWA) pages, you receive the following error messages when using Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.02:

HTTP/1.0 403 access forbidden

And the following error message when using Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0:

HTTP/1.0 invalid application name

Using IIS 4.0 with Exchange Server 5.5 and trying to open up the OWA pages may produce the following error message:

Directory Listing Denied. The virtual directory does not allow contents
to be listed.

CAUSE

These errors occurs when the Exchange Server Virtual Directory is set to be the IIS home directory.

The Exchange Active Server Components for Exchange Server 5.0 or the Outlook Web Access components for Exchange Server 5.5 are coded to use the /Exchange alias

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem:

Do not use the Exchange Virtual Directory as an IIS home directory.
The Exchange Virtual Directory can be used as a virtual server.
Create a Default.htm file in the root of the IIS server to jump directly into the Exchange Virtual Directory. See sample below.

<< Begin HTML Sample >>

   <html>

   <head>
   <meta HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="5;
   url=http://YOURSERVERNAMEHERE/exchange">
   <title>Auto forward to another page</title>
   </head>

   <body>

   <p>This page will load the /EXCHANGE page after 5 seconds.
   </p>
   </body>
   </html>

<< End HTML Sample >>

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about this issue, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

189836 : XWEB: Outlook Web Access Error: HTTP/1.0 403 Access Forbidden

For additional information about this issue in Exchange Server 5.5 SP3, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: