Access Outlook2003 from an application (Java) running on a Tomcat (started as a service)

Question

I want to exchange E-Mails from a locally installed Microsoft Outlook through a Java Application which is running on a Tomcat Server. In the past this was no Problem but since we switched the tomcat server from a "normal" starting routine to be started as a service (which is done for performance reasons) my Connection to Outlook is not working anymore.

As I was searching for a Solution to this quite for a long time (with no found solution) I decided to leave a post here.

I already know, that

The Outlook Object Model is unsuitable to run in a Windows service

which can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/237913. Due to the registry hive HKEY_CURRENT_USER which is not loaded when a service is started.

But in this case I think a simple 'No - that’s not possible' can’t be a solution and that’s why I am asking here for help.

• Is it for example possible to let the application on the tomcat start a new local application which then connects to Outlook?
• Is it possible to manually load the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive?
• or on the other hand do this by using a solution which I did not mention yet?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Answer 1

You probably need to create a plugin to outlook which submits the email to your application using web-services (or similar).

I believe this is the usual way of realising requirements like this.