Symptom

When a user logs out of an Outlook Web Access server, any other sites open in other tabs in the same Internet Explorer 7 window might be simultaneously logged out if those sites use cookies to establish logon sessions.

This situation can impact Process Commander.  For example, if OWA is open in one tab, and Process Commander is open in a second tab, logging out of OWA appears to clear the cookies associated with Process Commander so that the user gets an authentication challenge on their next interaction.  After entering the appropriate authentication information into this challenge, the user will be logged into a NEW server requestor (since the requestor id from the previous session is lost when OWA cleared the cookies), and the server and desktop become "out of sync".

In addition, if the user is in OWA and Process Commander as described above, and logs out of Process Commander, that will also clear the cookies associated with OWA; the system will log the user out of Outlook.  If the user tries to open an item in OWA, they will be challenged.  If the user is not aware of this problem, and does not click anything in the OWA tab, Outlook’s behavior becomes unpredictable (received mail may not send a signal, etc.). 

Solution

In IE 7, Process Commander runs most efficiently when it is in its own window (not a tab).

Article originally written 11/1/2006.