Methods, systems, and computer-readable mediums for configuring electronic messaging applications

• US 8,898,308 B2
• Filed: 03/07/2005
• Issued: 11/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Costenaro, Daniel P., Novitskey, Robert, Ashby, Erik, Starbuck, Bryan, Rook, Harvey
• Primary Examiner(s): Hussain, Imad
• Application Number:
  US11/073,955
• Publication Number:
  US 20060200524A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,550 Days
• Field of Search: 709/227, 709/206
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/37 E-mail addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/02 Protocol performance

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer-readable mediums configure electronic messaging applications to communicate with a server storing messages to and/or from an electronic messaging account of a user. A method involves receiving an electronic message address and a password of the user as inputs, deriving server connection settings based on the electronic message address, and applying the server connection settings to the electronic messaging account. Another method involves receiving an electronic message address of the user and discovering the server connection settings for the electronic messaging account on a server having a designated protocol name as a server prefix name to assist in locating the server and having the server connection settings. The method also involves retrieving the server connection settings from a file provided by the server in response to locating the server having the designated name and applying the server connection settings to the electronic messaging account.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for configuring an electronic mail message application to communicate with a server storing electronic mail messages at least one of to and from an electronic mail message account of a user, the computer-implemented method being executed when computer-readable instructions, stored on at least one memory, are executed by at least one processing unit of a computing system, the computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail message address and a password from the electronic mail message application;

attempting to retrieve server connection settings from a designated server while asynchronously deriving the server connection settings based on the electronic mail message address, wherein the server connection settings are unknown to the electronic mail message application and are necessary for establishing a connection between the electronic mail message application and the server, and wherein deriving server connection settings further comprises;

determining a domain portion of the electronic mail message address, wherein the domain portion includes a domain name and a top level domain;

prepending one or more known server prefix names to a front end of the domain portion of the electronic mail message address to yield a server domain combination;

calculating one or more permutations of the server domain combination;

evaluating the one or more permutations of the server domain combination to determine the server connection settings, the evaluating comprising;

attempting to establish a connection using the one or more permutations of the server domain combination and the password; and

detecting a connection to the server when at least one permutation of the server domain combination is successfully used with the password; and

identifying the at least one successful permutation of the server domain combination as the server connection settings; and

in response to detecting the connection to the server with the server connection settings, sending the server connection settings to the electronic mail message application.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein deriving the server connection settings further comprises:

a) in response to detecting a connection to the server, determining whether the server connection settings are more optimal than previously stored server connection settings based on at least one of a security criterion, a protocol criterion, and an authentication criterion; and

b) in response to determining that the server connection settings are more optimal, storing the more optimal server connection settings as the server connection settings; and

repeating a)-b) for each of the one or more permutations of the server domain combination for at least one of receive protocols and send protocols.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising searching for configured known server prefix names based on the domain portion of the electronic mail message address in order to narrow a number of attempts to connect to the server.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein attempting to establish a connection to the server comprises simultaneously attempting to establish a connection to the server on a secure port and a non-secure port of the server.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, further comprising:

detecting the connection to the server by receiving an affirmative response greeting on a TCP session; and

storing the secure port as one of the more optimal server connection settings when the affirmative response greeting is returned on the secure port and on the non-secure port.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the electronic mail message address comprises receiving an electronic mail message address wherein the one or more known server prefix names comprise a POP server prefix name including one of ‘

pop’

, ‘

mail’

, ‘

sslmail’

, ‘

pop3’

, ‘

securepop’ and

no server prefix name.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the electronic mail message address comprises receiving an electronic mail message address wherein the one or more known server prefix names comprise an IMAP server prefix name including one of ‘

mail’

, ‘

imap’

, and no server prefix name.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the electronic mail message address comprises receiving an electronic mail message address wherein the one or more known server prefix names comprise an SMTP server prefix name including one of ‘

smtp’

, ‘

smtpauth’

, ‘

mail’

, ‘

mailhost’

, ‘

securesmtp’

, and no server prefix name.

9. A computer-implemented method for configuring an electronic mail message application to communicate with a server storing electronic mail messages for an electronic mail message account of a user, the computer-implemented method being executed when computer-readable instructions, stored on at least one memory, are executed by at least one processing unit of a computing system, the computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail message address, wherein the electronic mail message address comprises a plurality of ordered levels of intermediate domain names preceding a top level domain, the plurality of ordered levels beginning with a lowest level and ending with a highest level;

discovering server connection settings for the electronic mail message account on a designated server having a designated server name and having the server connection settings, wherein the server connection settings are necessary for establishing a connection between the electronic mail message application and the server, and wherein discovering the server connection settings further comprises;

generating a list of one or more designated servers, wherein generating the list comprises at least prepending the designated server name as a prefix to the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names preceding the top level domain to form an initial server domain name;

attempting to establish a connection to the designated server using the initial server domain name by sending a first HTTP Post command, wherein the HTTP Post command comprises at least the electronic mail message address;

in response to failing to establish a connection to the designated server, trimming a lowest level of the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names from the initial server domain name;

attempting to establish a connection to the designated server using the trimmed initial server domain name by sending a second HTTP Post command, wherein the second HTTP Post command comprises at least the electronic mail message address;

in response to establishing a connection to the designated server, retrieving the server connection settings from a file provided by the designated server; and

sending the retrieved server connection settings to the electronic mail message application.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein discovering the server connection settings further comprises:

in response to reaching the highest level of the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names without connecting to the designated server, applying the designated server name as a server prefix name to a public domain service to form a public server domain name; and

searching for the designated server as the server prefix name by sending a request for the server connection settings over a network to the public server domain name.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein retrieving the server connection settings from the file provided by the designated server comprises retrieving the server connection settings from a markup language file.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein retrieving the server connection settings from a markup language file comprises retrieving the server connection settings from an XML file provided by the designated server.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein retrieving the server connection settings from an XML file comprises retrieving the server connection settings from an XML file built by the designated server from a dynamic directory of electronic mail message account server connection settings.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising:

simultaneously deriving the server connection settings based on the electronic mail message address wherein applying the server connection settings to the electronic mail message account comprises applying the server connection settings derived when the server connection settings cannot be discovered.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim of claim 9, wherein retrieving the server connection settings from the file provided by the designated server comprises retrieving the server connection settings both in a version for retrieval inside a firewall and in a version for retrieval outside the firewall.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the designated server name of the designated server is “

autodiscover.”

17. A computer storage medium, having computer-readable instructions stored thereon for configuring an electronic mail message application to communicate with a server storing electronic mail messages for an electronic mail message account of a user, the method comprising:

receiving an electronic mail message address, wherein the electronic mail message address comprises a plurality of ordered levels of intermediate domain names preceding a top level domain, the plurality of ordered levels beginning with a lowest level and ending with a highest level;

discovering server connection settings for the electronic mail message account on a designated server having a designated server name and having the server connection settings, wherein the server connection settings are necessary for establishing a connection between the electronic mail message application and the server, and wherein discovering the server connection settings further comprises;

generating a list of one or more designated servers, wherein generating the list comprises at least prepending the designated server name as a prefix to the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names preceding the top level domain to form an initial server domain name;

attempting to establish a connection to the designated server using the initial server domain name by sending a first HTTP Post command, wherein the HTTP Post command comprises at least the electronic mail message address;

in response to failing to establish a connection to the designated server, trimming a lowest level of the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names from the initial server domain name;

attempting to establish a connection to the designated server using the trimmed initial server domain name by sending a second HTTP Post command, wherein the second HTTP Post command comprises at least the electronic mail message address;

in response to establishing a connection to the designated server, retrieving the server connection settings from a file provided by the designated server; and

sending the retrieved server connection settings to the electronic mail message application.

18. The computer storage medium of claim 17, wherein discovering the server connection settings further comprises:

in response to reaching the highest level of the one or more ordered levels of intermediate domain names without connecting to the designated server, applying the designated server name as a server prefix name to a public domain service to form a public server domain name; and

searching for the designated server as the server prefix name by sending a request for the server connection settings over a network to the public server domain name.

19. The computer storage medium of claim 17, wherein retrieving the server connection settings from the file provided by the designated server comprises retrieving the server connection settings from a markup language file.

20. The computer storage medium of claim 17, wherein the designated server name of the designated server is “

autodiscover.”