Do I need an actual mailbox for SQLServerAgent (2000)

I'm following a book and trying to set up MSSQL to email me upon failures
and successful backups. MSSQL and SQLAgent are installed and running under
a network service user account I call "SqlServerService" which is infact a
network user.
In Ent Mgr, I'm going to Management >> Operators and I'm trying to add a new
operator. I add the email (me) account to be emailed and click Test to send
a test message. It returns an error of "error 22022: SqlServerAgent Error:
The SQLServerAgent mail session is not running; check the mail profile
and/or the SqlServerAgent service start up account..."
The SqlServerAgent is indeed running and the Agent Properties is running
under this network account I created.
Any ideas? The account "SqlServerService" doesn't have an actual Exchange
Server mailbox. I just thought it would be possible (as shown in the book)
to send FROM this account. Do I actually need to create the mailbox account
too?Short answer: Yes.
Long answer and how: [How to configure SQL Mail]
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;263556
HTH, Jens Suessmeyer.