IMF does not work when server names are long

I installed the new Microsoft Intelligent Message Filter (IMF) for Microsoft Exchange 2003 SP1 on two of my biggest customer's bridgehead servers. Anxiously, I added the IMF's perfmon counters so I could get an idea of how much spam was coming in and how I could best tune the IMF.

For a couple of days, all the counters remained at 0. In the middle of a number of more pressing fires burning, I dropped it for a few weeks. I was pretty disappointed because this particular customer's servers are spam magnets! I happen to mention it to some fellow MVPs and Mark Fugatt told me that this was a recently discovered issue with IMF. But only if you have server names 15 characters or longer. Yep, you got it! My customer, in ther desire for global standardization, have 15 character server names.

A hotfix has been released and it seems to be working great. I'm now trying to work out that "sweet spot" where I can comfortably Archive or Delete spam.

Thanks Mark!