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A New Client

A client turned up our first full-time Mail.app Mac user with Snow Leopard today. I was called in because of attachment sending problems. It seems that files around 7MB would attach and send, but anything larger was failing. The entrenched support reported watching logs, etc. IIS was returning a 401 then a 500 for the sessions that failed, and there was no clear reason.

Troubleshooting

After a little inspection, I thought it might be the request size / http post size. After a quick verification, i determined that the registry limit was not interfering. I next examined the web.config, located at C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ClientAccess\exchweb\EWS on the server in question. Sure enough, at the bottom:

    </customErrors>
    < httpRuntime maxRequestLength="819200" />
  </system.web>
</configuration>

I increased the limit, and restarted IIS for good measure. The attachments which the server balked at now sent easily and quickly. Yay!.

Errata

During these fateful events, while working and trying to send a 150MB iso to another mail box, Mail.app went nuts and began eating RAM. In less then one minute, it had consumed 1.2GB and swap began on my poor Mac. Quick fingers and a killall Mail in a ubiquitous terminal window solved the problem.

For certainty, I wiped my Mail directory from my Library (I don't use Mail.app for this reason). Problem Solved.

Question

Why is this setting so obscure in Exchange?