hMailServer is one of, if not the most feature rich and stable open source mail servers which is developed exclusively for Microsoft Windows. For those with scripting talents it comes with a well documented COM API that enables you to provide functionality to your specific needs, however hMailServer also comes with a GUI based rules wizard which can be used to generate some very powerful mail handling functionality. In this guide we'll look at using the hMailServer rules wizard to create some basic rules to demonstrate the kind of flexibility hMailServer is able to offer.

RoundCube Webmail is an web based IMAP client that uses AJAX to provide a drag and drop interface that operates very much like a regular desktop application. RoundCube is Open Source and PHP based using a MySQL or Postgres database for data storage with a presentation layer that is fully skinnable using XHTML and CSS 2. Feature wise RoundCube includes things such as multilingual support, MIME support, personal address book, folder management, message searching and spell checking just to name a few. I've been using RoundCube for several years now to access my personal email from all corners of the globe, and I absolutely swear by it which is why I've decided to write this install guide for IIS.

There are a many email servers for Windows out there that range in price depending on functionality and the software vendor. However, it is not often you find an email server for Windows that is open source (free to use and modify via the GPL license), feature rich, stable and very well supported. There are some notable free offerings such as MailEnable Standard and Windows 2003 Server even comes with a basic POP3 email server, but it seems that they are always just crippled enough to make you want something a bit more. This is where hMailServer comes in as it offers just about everything you could want in an email server. SMTP with advanced routing abilities, POP3, IMAP4, distribution lists, powerful anti-spam tools, real time anti virus protection, PHP/COM based web administration, log file analysis, configurable server messages and rules, advanced performance options. The list goes on, and all this in a RFC compliant package with an easy to use GUI interface.