In the past, with many third-party Unified Messaging solutions, voice mail was received and then stored in a single location. It was retrieved by a user who was using a telephone, or routed to the user's Inbox to be played from an Outlook or Outlook Web App client computer. Even if the Unified Messaging system was using a legacy version of Microsoft Exchange to store the voice mail data, the voice mail system and the client computer weren't closely integrated and therefore didn't provide a seamless voice mail experience for the user.

In voice mail environments such as these, when a user received a voice message, it arrived as an e-mail message with the voice mail message contained inside an attachment. Users had to open an instance of Windows Media Player or another media player installed on the client computer to play and listen to their voice mail messages. Because the Outlook or Outlook Web App client computer and the third-party Unified Messaging system weren't integrated, in addition to having to open an individual instance of a media player application, users couldn't configure their individual voice mail settings from their e-mail client software. They had to change individual voice mail settings through a different software application or by using their telephone.

When UM-enabled users use Outlook 2007 or the version of Outlook Web App that's included with Exchange 2010, they are given more voice mail options than Microsoft Exchange recipients who are using legacy versions of Outlook, Outlook Web App, or Exchange. Outlook or Outlook Web App users, or users who connect to a legacy version of Exchange, still receive their voice mail as a standard e-mail sound file attachment (*.wav or *.wma), and no voice mail configuration options are available to them.

Note:
When you use Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync on a mobile phone, you can listen to the attached *.wma file that contains the voice mail message. The advanced Unified Messaging features found in the Outlook Web App client, such as the voice mail configuration options, aren't available in the light version of Outlook Web App.

Caution:
When you use the light version of Outlook Web App and Pocket Internet Explorer on a mobile phone, you may be able to listen to the .wma attachment in a voice message. However, this is not a supported configuration.

To offer a seamless voice mail experience for the user, Outlook 2007 and the version of Outlook Web App included with Exchange 2010 offer Exchange 2010 UM-enabled users a full set of voice mail features. These features include many voice mail configuration options, and the ability to play a voice message from either the reading pane using an integrated Windows Media Player or from the message list.

Note:

Users must use a version of Windows Media Player no earlier than Windows Media Player version 7.0 to use the integrated media player and controls. If you are running Outlook 2007 on a computer that's running Windows Server 2008 64-bit Edition, you must install the most recent version of the Windows Media Audio Voice Codec and the Windows Media Encoder. To install the most recent version of the Windows Media Audio Voice Codec, see FIX: Availability of the Windows Media Audio 9 Voice codec for x64-based computers. To install the most recent version of the Windows Media Encoder, see Windows Media Encoder 9 Series x64 Edition.

The Outlook 2007 features for Exchange Unified Messaging are included with the installation of Outlook 2007.After the Outlook 2007 software is installed and the user is UM-enabled, a voice mail tab with voice mail configuration settings will be made available to the user from the Options menu.

Note:
The Outlook features for Exchange Unified Messaging are available only with Outlook 2007 and are not available with earlier versions of Outlook.

Using the Voice Mail tab, the user can configure settings such as telephone access numbers and the voice mail Play on Phone number, and can reset a voice mail access PIN.

Note:
The Outlook 2007 Voice Mail tab will only be available if the user is enabled for Unified Messaging.

With Outlook features for Exchange Unified Messaging, UM-enabled users can:

• Listen to voice messages without changing their context to another application.
  
  
• Configure individual voice mail settings.
  
  
• View all their voice mail in one location.
  
  
• Distinguish voice and fax messages from e-mail messages within their individual Inboxes using new icons. This includes unique notifications for new e-mail, voice, and fax messages.
  
  
• Determine whether a voice message has already been played.
  
  
• Add annotations to a voice mail message in a text box.
  
  
• Reply to a voice message with e-mail when the sender’s contact information is known.
  
  
• Add received phone numbers to Contacts using the shortcut menu.
  
  

Note:
The Outlook features for Exchange Unified Messaging are included when you install Outlook 2007. However, the settings for the Unified Messaging features are maintained per user and not per computer.

The topics in the following list introduce and more fully discuss the Unified Messaging features found in Outlook 2007 and in Outlook Live in Exchange 2010:

• Outlook 2007 Features for Exchange Unified Messaging: Voice Mail Form
  
  
• Outlook 2007 Features for Exchange Unified Messaging: Play on Phone
  
  
• Outlook 2007 Features for Exchange Unified Messaging: Voice Mail Options
  
  

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