How to change the batching timer to control the Always-up-to-date Notification feature in Exchange Server 2003

Introduction

This article describes how to change the value of the batching timer that is used by the Always-up-to-date Notification feature of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. The Always-up-to-date Notification feature is a new feature in Exchange Server 2003 for use with your Pocket PC. The feature is available only on devices that have Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 installed.

The Categorizer sink that runs in the SMTP service sets a 15-minute timer. The 15-minute timer is set for each GUID that is used for notifications and that is stored in memory. During those 15 minutes, batching removes all messages that have the same GUID that matches the one in the memory of the device.

The batching timer value is a fallback timer that determines when to send notifications to a device. When a notification is sent to a device, no other notifications are sent until either the device synchronizes with the server or the fallback timer elapses. When you have a reliable Short Message Service (SMS) network, you can increase the value of the batching time to possibly lower SMS costs by reducing the number of notifications that are sent. Alternatively, you may also want to lower the value of the batching time to zero in a test environment.
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The default value of the batching timer is 15 minutes. To change the value, you must add the following registry entry:
To add this registry entry, follow these steps.
Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange
3. If there is an OMA subkey, go to step 6.
4. To create an OMA subkey, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click Key.
5. Type OMA, and the press ENTER.
6. Locate and then click the following subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\OMA
7. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
8. Type BatchingTimer, and then press ENTER.
9. Right-click BatchingTimer, and then click Modify.
10. In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, click Decimal, and then type the value in milliseconds that you want to set for the batching timer (15 minutes equals 90,000 milliseconds).
11. On the File menu, click Exit.
12. Restart IIS. To do this, follow these steps:
    1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
    2. At the command prompt, type iisreset, and then press ENTER.
    3. Type exit, and then press ENTER.

Note The BatchingTimer registry entry follows these rules:

• If the BatchingTimer registry subkey does not exist, batching occurs every 15 minutes.
• If the value of the BatchingTimer registry subkey is less than 15 but is not equal to zero, batching occurs every 15 minutes.

Note You can decrease the value of the batching timer to 15 minutes if it was previously set higher, but you can decrease it only to either 15 minutes or 0 minutes.