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User properties

The following properties are structural (essential for the navigation of the address book by MAPI clients), are never read from SQL but generated at all times by the address book provider (ABP):

  • PR_EMS_AB_CONTAINERID
  • PR_EMS_AB_OBJECT_GUID
  • PR_ENTRYID
  • PR_INSTANCE_KEY
  • PR_MAPPING_SIGNATURE
  • PR_ORIGINAL_ENTRYID
  • PR_RECORD_KEY
  • PR_SEARCH_KEY

The following properties are sourced from SQL data in perhaps indirect ways and possibly transformed by the ABP:

  • PR_ACCOUNT: Not read from SQL, but copied from PR_SMTP_ADDRESS.
  • PR_ADDRTYPE: Not read, but synthesized.
  • PR_CREATION_TIME: Not read, but synthesized.
  • PR_DEPARTMENT_NAME: [Before Gromox 2.42] Not read, but copied from the groups.title column of the user's group_id. ("groups" in SQL refer to departments, a feature to create hierarchies in the address book). [Since Gromox 2.42] Departments were abandoned and reading the property via MAPI yields no value. [Since Gromox 2.44] Special treatment has ceased. MAPI clients now see the same value as it is in SQL.
  • PR_DISPLAY_TYPE: Not read, but synthesized based on PR_DISPLAY_TYPE_EX.
  • PR_DISPLAY_TYPE_EX: Indicates the mailbox type and user icon. Set to 0 (DT_MAILUSER in source code) for regular users. Set to 1 (DT_DISTLIST) for mailing lists / groups. Set to 6 (DT_REMOTE_MAILUSER) for contact objects. Set to 7 (DT_ROOM) for room resources. Set to 8 (DT_EQUIPMENT) for equipment resources. No other values are supported. The ABP synthesizes a suitable PR_DISPLAY_TYPE_EX value for MAPI clients built from this SQL row.
  • PR_EMAIL_ADDRESS: Not read, but synthesized from username.
  • PR_EMS_AB_DISPLAY_NAME_PRINTABLE: Not read, but copied from PR_DISPLAY_NAME.
  • PR_EMS_AB_HOME_MDB: Not read, but synthesized.
  • PR_EMS_AB_NETWORK_ADDRESS: Not read, but synthesized.
  • PR_EMS_AB_PROXY_ADDRESSES: Not read, but synthesized based on the aliases SQL table.
  • PR_EMS_AB_THUMBNAIL_PHOTO: Not read, but copied from the store property PR_EMS_AB_THUMBNAIL_PHOTO in the user store (exchange.sqlite3).
  • PR_OBJECT_TYPE: Not read, but synthesized based on PR_DISPLAY_TYPE_EX.
  • PR_OFFICE_LOCATION: Not read from the user object, but copied from the domain.address column of the user's domain.
  • PR_SEND_RICH_INFO: If the property is absent, the ABP will synthesize it, with value 1.
  • PR_SMTP_ADDRESS: If and only if the object is a contact object (see PR_DISPLAY_TYPE_EX), this property is used to indicate the e-mail address for this contact. Otherwise, it is synthesized from the username.
  • PR_TEMPLATEID: Not read, but synthesized based on PR_DISPLAY_TYPE_EX.
  • PR_TRANSMITTABLE_DISPLAY_NAME: Not read, but copied from PR_DISPLAY_NAME.

The following properties have their value passed verbatim to MAPI clients, but the properties do have semantics or warrants remarks from our side.

  • PR_EMS_AB_ROOM_CAPACITY: This property is only of informational value; no decisions in code paths are made based on the value.
  • PR_SCHDINFO_AUTO_ACCEPT_APPTS: [Originally, this property was used in OXOPFFB configuratino messages. Gromox repurposed the property to be set on user objects.] If set to 0, meeting requests will not be automatically accepted by the server system (but they may still be added to the calendar as tentative appointments). If set to 1, meeting requests will be accepted (subject to availability and other constraints).
  • PR_SCHDINFO_BOSS_WANTS_COPY: [Originally OXOPFFB.] (Proposed) If set to 1, any delegate operations will put the boss (the delegator, the representee) in Cc.
  • PR_SCHDINFO_DISALLOW_RECURRING_APPTS: [Originally OXOPFFB.] If set to 1, any meeting requests involving a recurrence are declined.
  • PR_SCHDINFO_DISALLOW_OVERLAPPING_APPTS: [Originally OXOPFFB.] If set to 1, any meeting requests involving a scheduling conflict are declined.

All other property values have no extra meaning and are passed through.

The SQL user_properties table has a propval_bin and a propval_str column; if propval_bin is non-NULL, that value is used, otherwise propval_str is. Conceptually, both propval_bin and propval_str are stored in a std::string in memory. Now, depending on the proptag, decoding of that std::string's content is performed according to the following actions, which also sets a standard for the data format in those columns:

  • PT_SHORT/PT_LONG/PT_I8: The input form must be an integer. The strtoul function is used (which works for signed and unsigned numbers).
  • PT_SYSTIME: The input form must be a mapitime integer (hectonanoseconds since the Windows epoch); same handling as PT_I8. The earlier option of using yyyy-mm-dd in the propval_str column is no longer supported.

Display Type value correlation

Section titled “Display Type value correlation”

The following table lists the different Exchange objects that can be created, and what values the GAB objects exhibit in PR_DISPLAY_TYPE, PR_DISPLAY_TYPE_EX, PR_OBJECT_TYPE and the EMSAB_ENTRYID::type fields.

Thing DT DTX OT etype ===================== ======= ========== == ===== GAL container 0x20000 - 4 -"All Address Lists" 0x30000 - 4 -"Outlook Addres Book" 0x50000 - 4 -Normal user 0 0x40000000 6 0 Shared mailbox 0 0 6 0 User without EX mbox 0 unset 6 6 Distribution group 1 1 8 1 Dynamic dist.group 3 3 6 3 Security group 1 0x40000009 8 1 Room 0 7 6 0 Equipment 0 8 6 0 Mail user 0 6 6 6 Mail contact 6 6 6 6 Personal DistList 5 - 8 -===================== ======= ========== == =====

PR_OBJECT_TYPE tells whether to use IID_IMailUser` orIID_IDistListwith e.g.IMAPIContainer::OpenEntry``.

(AB objects of type 5 (DT_PRIVATE_DISTLIST) do not have EMSAB_ENTRYID::etype, because they use CONTAB_ENTRYID instead.)