Getting an Error in Exchange when adding an Umlaut in a username/email.

Question

Hi I have a user in Europe whom has an umlaut in their last name. I tried adding it via a test account - First name = Testing / Last name = Häfner - and Exchange rejects it.

The error states "The address is invalid. The domain name can't contain spaces and it has to have a prefix and a suffix."

The error does not really reflect the issue as the setup and our domain is the same as it always has been. The only thing different is me using the umlaut.

Our version of exchange says it support this. We are already at CU`8.

Please help!! Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Hi

I think there are always going to be issues with adding special characters to people's useranems or email addresses.

Despite the fact that your Exchange version may claim to support it, you are running the risk of other mail systems not accepting the mail because they won't support special characters.

Also note that is you ever decide to move to O365, special characters such as umlauts are not supported in UserPrincipalNames in a DirSync scenario.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/prepare-for-directory-synchronization?view=o365-worldwide#2-directory-object-and-attribute-preparation

I would advise that your best course of action would be to leave the special characters out of the user's email address or username, but include them in the Name/Full Name fields.

Hope this helps,

Thanks

Michael Durkan

• If the reply was helpful please upvote and/or accept as answer as this helps others in the community with similar questions. Thanks!