email scanning, spam and virus protection for Exchange server 2003

This one is very nice
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/bb288484.aspx

yes but looks like MS dont want me to get my hands on Antigen anymore. the only download link i can find is for Forefont (2007)

Good old M$, always wanting you to keep spending! Do you have an MSDN account?

no unfortunatly not :-(

Heard good things about this, but never tried it:

www.xwall.net

thanks but the website is a little uninspiring!

googling is showing a supprising shortage

And I take it moving to Ex 2007 or 2010 is not an option?  

hmm, not really, i'd like to but the £0.00 2011 bugget wont allow it :-(

It seems that everybody has an opinion:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20877481/Best-anti-virus-software-for-Windows-Server-2003.html

Looks like you are going to have to make a decision! Shame about Antigen, I loved it when we ran 2003 as it had 6 different scan engines (6 different suppliers) so if one solution missed something nasty, one of the others would get it.  Have you tried this:

http://www.microsoft.com/antigen/downloads/trial-software.mspx

I just tried it and it will let me download the product;  you can also try it for 30 days and it's dead easy to uninstall (if you dislike it) too.  Remember, ensure your Exchange 2003 is patched to the latest level to esnure you have all the 'latest' Anti-Spam functionality (IMF).

OH MY GOODNESS ! i swear that link wasnt there before!

i'm downloading now. thanks for your help.

zac

Best of luck Zac.  The GUI looks fairly drab, but it's a very powerful program that we were very happy with.  Just remember, if you have an SMTP gateway, download the appropriate program to get AV and Anti Spam protection; for an Exchange Server you just get the AV (with some rule based configuration), but the IMF function that came with Exchange 2003 SP2 is the main driver for your Anti-Spam protection.

wow, this is pefect for us!

easy install, easy config - perfect! there was no mention of custer support anywhere until i came to install on the passive node. then is just prompted me to connect to the EVS and collected all the setting from the active node - easy!

thanks a lot for your advice!

{as we speak 10 spam messages have been caught, thats about 5 minutes arefter install}

It's pretty good and you'll find it very easy to configure too.  A couple of things to check though:

M$ pulled support for some of the scan engines on Forefront, make sure you are using supported engines!

Run a manual update to ensure you have the latest definition files; then ensure they automatically update themselves (they will log in Event Viewer).

If you run ALL the engines, you will reduce performance of your systems; pick the best 3.

Oh, and have a look at this:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb914047.aspx