Hi guys,

I'm having a bit of an issue with an SMTP mail server application called Postcast Server. Client PCs forward SMTP email messages to one of my Windows 2000 Servers on which I've installed Postcast Server. The software then connects directly outside onto the Internet, finds a DNS server and sends the mail to 'the outside world' itself, thus bypassing the security restrictions on my Exchange Server / with my ISP.

By the way, yes it is MY Exchange Server that I'm bypassing - I'm not breaching my company network security or anything!

It's a brilliant bit of software (and was recommended to me by BigT so he might have the answer to my problem, if he's around this weekend). My problem is that you have to be logged into the server in order for the program to start up and process messages. There's no service that gets installed with Postcast Server and I really need it to run all the time with the server being logged off.

I've searched the author's web site (www.PostcastServer.com) but there's nothing that I can find about it using a service. Anyone got any suggestions?

I need to get this running in my office within the next week or so but, more urgently than that, I'm going out on a free troubleshooting day with one of my clients on Monday. I'm going to recommend that they resolve their mail problems using Postcast Server but, as they're a London Borough Council, I know security will be tight and this issue will be a major stumbling block in my plan.

Just found a product called FireDaemon (http://www.firedaemon.com), which claims to be able to set up virually any Win32 application as a service in Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003 or Longhorn. Only £16 to buy it and there's a free trial download. It specifically lists Postcast Server as one of the supported applications. Going to stick it on and see what happens