Greetings! Welcome to issue #10 of Exchange Messaging Outlook (formerly Exchange Center Update), an occasional newsletter about Microsoft Exchange, Windows Messaging and Microsoft Outlook, both for users of Windows 95 and NT 4.0 and for organizations using Exchange Server.
Today's highlights:
Regular features:
Microsoft Outlook updates coming
David Goodhand, Microsoft Outlook group product planning manager, has had an active newsgroup presence during the rollout, and promised some very good things to come.
One is an update for the Internet Mail service. Since Outlook and Internet Mail & News are now under the same development group, we hope this means a convergence of the best features of the IM&N mailer with Internet Mail. Work in this area has been rapid, so you can expect to see something downloadable in the next few weeks.
There's already a fix for that nasty old time zone bug that has bothered so many non-U.S. users. The Exchange Server 5.0 RC1 package includes a Microsoft Outlook disk, and there you'll find an updated Minet32.dll that, so far, seems to fix the problem. I would expect to see this fix in the update set mentioned above.
Another comment from David is that Microsoft missed the mark when it tied sharing of Contacts and Calendar in Outlook solely to Microsoft Exchange Server, which is beyond the resources of many small organizations. He's indicated that a solution is planned for the non-Exchange Server crowd. In the meantime, those of you using Schedule+ and not planning to migrate to Microsoft Exchange Server need to stick with Schedule+.
The Microsoft Exchange User's Handbook
At long last, The Microsoft Exchange User's Handbook is on its way back from the printer. I've posted an extensive preview. [BEGIN PLUG] I don't charge for this newsletter, but I do expect you all to buy my book and tell your friends about it. <g> [END PLUG]
I'm planning an online celebration to mark the book's release. Watch your Inbox for an invitation in the next few days.
OK, most of you didn't care, and those few who did were divided, so it's official: The name of this newsletter has been changed to Exchange Messaging Outlook. I'll leave Exchange Center Update in the Subject line for at least a few issues, so all of you with filtering rules can adjust.
More Microsoft Outlook resources
Judging by the newsgroup traffic at msnews.microsoft.com, Microsoft Outlook has brought new attention to e-mail issues that many of us have been dealing with since the release of Windows 95. I've grouped links to all my Microsoft Outlook resources on one page. So far we have FAQs, how-tos, utilities and sample forms, troubleshooting tips and an article on how to share Contacts and Calendar when you share a PC with a spouse or colleague. But don't forget that my Exchange Client FAQ applies to Outlook, too.
A fascinating source for Microsoft Outlook code samples is the Outlook Code Example Site. See how to use an Outlook contact to start a letter from a Word template or to convert all your contacts to a new form.
We've given Import to Personal Address Book its own page and slipped in a couple of little goodies, thanks to Graham Smith's efforts. One is a macro to toggle RTF for all the entries in your PAB. You'll want to use this with ImpPAB. The second item is a new macro to import a Netscape address book into a PAB via Word 7.0. If you're moving to Office 97, get this macro and run it before you convert, since it does not work with Word 97.
We've started adding Microsoft Outlook utilities, such as Chilton Preview to add a preview pane and Outlook Company Updater to keep company information in sync for a group of contacts. Watch for more in the coming days at http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/gallery.htm.
The What's New page has been working overtime to keep up with new and updated utilities. I've changed the Update Bot on the main Exchange Center page so that now you can subscribe to get notifications of changes to any of the main pages -- including What's New. There's really too much to list here -- go see for yourself!
I don't usually focus on Microsoft Exchange Server add-ons, because there are so many of them and I'd rather stick to client issues. However, I'm going to make exceptions for things people have asked about. Check out Profile Maker (http://users.southeast.net/~voskuil), a replacement for Profgen.exe to ease the pain of creating client profiles.
Workaround: scheduled Microsoft Fax transmissions
Users of the Windows Messaging update and later versions of Microsoft Exchange may have noticed that you can't schedule a Microsoft Fax transmission. If you attempt to send a fax at a specific time, the fax fails with an Undeliverable message sent to your Inbox. Here's a workaround for this problem: Instead of scheduling the fax for a specific time, set it to go during the reduced rate period, then adjust the times for reduced rates to correspond to when you want the fax to go.
And, no, there still is no decent workaround for the General Error problem with Microsoft Fax running under Windows Messaging or later versions of Microsoft Exchange. Microsoft really needs to fix this one.
From a posting by Greg Deckler (one of the real Exchange gurus) to the msexchange list, we've learned that if you change the name of the Deleted Items folder, you also break the synchronization of offline folders with your mailbox on a Microsoft Exchange Server. Changing the name of the folder back to Deleted Items fixes the problem.
I'm not sure, though, whether this covers the sporadic problems reported with synchronization after installing Microsoft Outlook. Ideas, anyone?
An add-on for Microsoft Exchange Server that allows an automated alarm to a mailing list if an incoming mail was not read by the recipient within a predefined amount of time. Any ideas?
Wishes for Microsoft Outlook are among those pouring in during the past few weeks:
Internet-style quoting for Outlook: Ideally, the users would be able to highlight part of an incoming message and have just that part added to the reply with > marks in front of every line.
Actually, Internet-style everything is the main wish for Outlook. I think you're going to like what comes out of Redmond in the next few weeks as an update for the Internet Mail service.
Keep those wishes coming!
Get the answers from the Microsoft Exchange, Windows Messaging and Microsoft Outlook FAQs at http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/faqs.htm. I'm adding to the Outlook FAQ several times a week.
Other FAQs of note:
ISSN 1523-7990
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