Use Database Mail Instead of SQL Mail

This rule checks the sys.configurations catalog view to determine whether the SQL Mail XPs server-wide configuration option is set to ON.

Best Practices Recommendations

SQL Mail will be removed in a future version of SQL Server. Avoid using this feature in new development work, and plan to modify applications that currently use this feature. To send mail from SQL Server 2005, use Database Mail.

SQL Mail runs in-process to SQL Server service. If SQL Mail goes down, so does the server. Database Mail runs outside SQL Server in a separate process, is scalable, and does not require Extended MAPI client components to be installed on the production server.

For More Information

Database Mail