Internet Mail Enhancement Patch for Microsoft Outlook 97

Note that this patch is for Microsoft Outlook only and does not apply to Microsoft Exchange (without Outlook) or Windows Messaging.

Features | Installation | Usage | Known Problems | More Information

Features

Other new features include:

In addition, the following problems from the original Internet Mail distributed with Outlook are apparently fixed:

Installation

Check these other potential installation problems first:

To install IMEP, quit all programs, making sure you log out of Outlook, then download the Internet Mail Enhancement Patch or Office 97 Service Release 1 and run the file that downloads.

After running the installation program, use Control Panel | Mail and Fax to configure the Internet E-mail service (note the name change) in your profile. Here are the main settings:

You can add multiple copies of the Internet E-mail service to your profile, one for each POP3 account you need to access.

Note that there is no setup wizard to help you add Internet E-mail to a new profile. You need to work through all the tabs, as described above. The October 1997 issue of Office Computing magazine included a step-by-step guide to setting up accounts with IMEP, leaving messages on the server and using Remote Mail.

Usage

Message Formatting

The Internet mail formatting features are found on a new Internet E-mail tab in Tools | Options.

You can choose between MIME and UUENCODE encoding for attachments and set the line length, if you want to force lines to wrap at a particular point. Here you also choose your quoting character for replies. A few pointers on quoting and line wrapping:

If you want to use quoting, you must also go to the Reading tab and clear the Mark my comments with check box. You can't use both features.

If you use WordMail, rather than the default editor, the Internet E-mail setting for quoting does not apply. There is a template with a macro to handle this for you. You can also use ExLife. The line length setting apparently does work, even for messages composed in WordMail.

Quoting works only with e-mail messages, not meeting or task requests.

If you use quoting, you cannot ignore the original message text when spell checking the reply.

When you set the When replying to messages, indent original text with option on the Reading tab, long lines in the original message are not automatically wrapped in the reply unless you have set the When sending messages, automatically wrap text at checkbox.

You can change the font of the reply header and quote character by editing a couple of special RTF files.

If you have IMEP installed in your profile and quoting turned on, it should apply to all services, not just messages sent with the Internet E-mail service.

On non-English versions of Outlook, choose Tools | Options and on the Reading tab, make sure the box for Use US English for included message headers is not checked. Messages will be sent with the normal sort of reply header (so it's in your local language), but with quoting. If you want to modify the reply header, see How do I control the way replies look?.

Check for new messages automatically

If you want Outlook to check for new messages regularly, set the time interval on Tools | Options | Internet E-mail. (Note that this is a change from the original Internet Mail service, where the interval was set on the Connection tab. Also, this setting affects Microsoft Intenet Mail -- the program that comes with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0.) After you change this setting, press F5 or use Tools | Check for New Mail once to manually check for new mail. Subsequent checks will then take place at the interval you indicated.

This feature works only if you have Outlook set for a LAN connection -- it doesn't even interrupt with a modal window -- but doesn't work at all if Outlook is set to use a particular DUN connection.There is a workaround.

If you set up Internet E-mail to use a LAN connection for an account, Microsoft Outlook will attempt to send any messages in your Outbox when you quit Outlook.

Multiple ISP accounts

To get mail from more than one account, just add another copy of the Internet E-mail service to your profile.

IMEP does not allow you to designate which mail account is used for a particular message. This is controlled by the delivery order list in Tools | Services | Delivery. The account at the top of the list is the one used to send any new messages that you create.

If you need to send from a different account, use Tools | Services | Delivery to change the delivery order before you create a new message. You do not need to restart Outlook after changing the delivery order. Another approach is to use multiple profiles with the same Personal Folders file. You can also use the Have replies sent to option on the Options tab of a new message to specify a different reply address.

Leaving messages on the server

This setting is found on the Advanced tab for each copy of the Internet E-mail service.

Logging

Both POP3 and SMTP sessions can be logged. Logging requires a change to the Windows registry, as described in the Imepread.txt file.

To save the POP and SMTP sessions to log files, you need to edit the registry. (Make a backup first!!!). Find the HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Internet Mail and News/Mail key. Change the value Log Outlook (0/1) to 00 00 00 01. Alternatively, delete this value and recreate it with the same name ("Log Outlook (0/1)") as a D_WORD type with a value of 1.

The log files are placed in the Windows folder by default. To change the location of the log file, change the value Log File (Outlook) to the directory into which the log file should be placed.

After you turn on logging, you should see a subfolder for each of your Internet E-mail services under the Windows folder (or other folder if you changed the location). Look for the files InetXP.txt, Pop3log.txt and Smtplog.txt. You can also use Start | Find to locate these. See the MSKB articles How to Enable and Interpret the Pop3.log File and How to Enable and Interpret the Smtp.log File for details on using these logs to diagnose mail problems.

Known Problems

The workaround, if you want scheduled mail connections, is to set up IMEP for a LAN connection, then set up Windows for automatic dialing of the Internet as follows:.

For Windows 95 with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, run the Internet applet in the Windows 95 Control Panel. On the Connection tab, check Connect to the Internet as needed and specify the particular DUN connection you want to use. Also check Disconnect if idle for xx minutes. To totally automate the connection, Windows 95 users need either the DUN 1.2 update, RAS+95 or DUNCE; each of these programs either pushes or bypasses the Connect button.

For Windows 95 with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or 5.0, run the Internet applet in the Windows 95 Control Panel. On the Connection tab, select Connect to the Internet using a modem, then click Settings. On the Dial-Up Settings dialog box, you can set the redial attempts, idle timeout and other settings.

For Windows NT, you will need to adjust the DUN User Preferences settings. On the Dialing tab, enable autodial for one or more locations and set the Idle seconds before hanging up time. On the Appearance tab, uncheck Preview phone numbers before dialing, Show location setting before dialing and Always prompt before auto-dialing.

Outlook automatically saves your e-mail password, whether you like it or not.

Under the original Internet Mail service, there was an option not to save the password for your e-mail account. IMEP no longer includes this option. If you remove the password from the properties for the Internet E-mail service, Outlook will prompt you for it and save it again the next time you check your mail. The only workaround is for each user to have their own Windows logon, so that the e-mail account password can be safeguarded. See the MSKB article Internet Mail Enhancement Patch Always Stores Password.

You may get the error message, "Some messages couldn't be retrieved from the server. This usually happens when the connection to the server is lost due to server or network problems. If the problem persists, contact your administrator."

This appears to be related to the combination of (a) leaving messages on the server and (b) receiving multiple copies of junk mail using the same value in the X-UIDL field. You can try to use Tools | Remote Mail to delete the duplicate items from the server. You can also just ignore it; the message should be downloaded in your next session.

Delivery receipts are not supported with the IMEP.

Read receipts are supported, but only for messages sent to a recipient enabled for rich-text format. (Imepread.txt)

Logging on to dialup server with incorrect user name or password causes unknown error.

If you have specified an incorrect user name on the Servers tab of the Account Properties dialog, an "Unknown Error" will result. If you receive this error, make sure you have entered the correct user name and password. (Imepread.txt)

Deleting Internet Mail from a copied profile corrupts original profile, and other profile problems.

If you create a second profile for your Internet E-mail Accounts by copying another profile and then later delete the Internet Mail accounts from either profile, the Internet Mail account in the remaining profile will be corrupted. To fix this, you will need to delete the profile and recreate the Internet Mail account. See OL97: Problems Copying Profiles When Using IMEP.

The new driver requires the user to specify both the SMTP and POP server name, even if they are the same. Also, a small number of users hacked their registries to support multiple ISP accounts. Those users should use Control Panel | Mail and Fax, record any ISP account names, passwords, and settings, then delete all listed Internet Mail services prior to installing the patch.

IMEP Help disappears after installing another add-on from the "Free Stuff" website.

If you install an add-in from the Outlook Free Stuff web site after installing the IMEP, you will not be able to see the IMEP Help in the Help Table of Contents. You will need to reinstall the IMEP, to see it in the Table of contents. However, installing the IMEP will not affect how other add-ins' Help appears in the Table of Contents. See OL97: Help for IMEP Disapears After Installing Other Add-ins.

If you change the setting for checking for new messages automatically, the same change applies to the separate Internet Mail program that comes with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0.

This looks like evidence of Microsoft's plan to converge Outlook 97 with Internet Mail (now Outlook Express). In this case, they are sharing a registry entry, so changing the setting in one program affects the other.

Remote Mail is not available if you choose "I use a LAN connection" on the Connection tab

IMEP assumes that, if you use a LAN connection, you want all your mail to be delivered automatically.

A new Minet.ecf file is installed in Windows\Addins, but the old Minet.ecf file is not removed from \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Addins.

If you accidentally remove Internet Mail with the Add-In Manager, be sure to add it back in using the Minet.ecf file from Windows\Addins.

Misleading message for dial-up sessions with different ISPs.

If you are dialed into the Internet with one ISP (<DUN #1>)and try to check mail on an Internet E-mail account set up for a modem connection using a different DUN connection (<DUN #2>), you may get a misleading message:

To connect to your '<name of account>' Internet E-mail Account on the '<DUN #2>'' connection, your current '<DUN #1>' connection will be closed. Do you want to continue? (Yes/No)

If the user chooses Yes, the current connection is terminated and the other DUN connection is dialed. If the user chooses No, the user probably expects that the entire attempt to connect to the Internet E-mail account will be discontinued. However, that's not what happens. Instead, Outlook tries to find the mail server on the existing connection (a nice feature, IMHO). (Imepread.txt)

Message Conversion Fails

Under certain conditions, messages are not converted after being retrieved from the POP3 server. When this happens, a message is created that contains the original Internet message as a text file attachment along with instructions for the user to forward the message to imepbugs@microsoft.com. However, this address is no longer being monitored, so don't bother. The known circumstances in which this occurs are:

The message contains an invalid Internet e-mail address. This usually manifests itself in a message sent by a list server that has a Reply-To field containing an empty set of angle brackets (e.g. Reply-To: <>).

The message was composed in a character set that is not supported by the IMEP. (Imepread.txt)

Outlook does not detect missing/incorrect Domain Name Service information.

Outlook does not detect incorrect DNS information in your dial-up networking settings. If you cannot connect to your mail server, you should check the advanced TCP/IP settings for the dial-up networking connection. See OL97: No Warning for Missing DNS Information.

More Information

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