Exchange Messaging Outlook
Volume 4, Number 11

• Office 2000 Service Release 1 
• Offline user fixes in SR-1 
• Exchange 2000 RC1 -- correction

• Thanks to our sponsors
• New Slipstick site features
• New utilities
• Updated utilities

Microsoft released Office 2000 Service Release 1 this week. For immediate gratification, you can download the 26-40mb update. North American users can order a free update CD. If you have a full version of Office (just the Outlook 2000 from the Exchange Server 5.5 SP3 CD set doesn't count), you can order a full, updated SR-1 version of Office 2000. This is the version that will start appearing on retail shelves in May.

Do you need this update? That's always the question, isn't it? There are literally dozens of Outlook fixes, too many to list here. See our page at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2000sr1.htm for the complete list and links to the download and order pages (including instructions for administrators). Among the most important fixes -- resolution of the problem with losing attachments when using WordMail as the editor, a number of fixes for offline folders and address book, and updates appropriate for Windows 2000 users.

The only new Outlook features are security enhancements to take advantage of S/MIME v3 and bring Outlook up to U.S. Defense Messaging System standards. Check the white paper at http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/download/Out2000SR-1.doc for full details.

Administrators should note carefully the instructions for updating the network shared installation point. Microsoft has put a lot of effort into providing more detail than ever on how to handle different types of upgrades. Even if your users install from CD, not a network share, you can download the update files and set up an SR-1 update point on the network, so the users won't have to go through the web download.

I have been a big advocate of upgrading offline Exchange Server users to Outlook 2000, because the sync groups and other offline features are a big improvement over previous versions. SR-1 fixes some of the significant offline problems in Outlook 2000. This list is by no means complete:

• Incremental downloads of the offline address book work properly, rather than downloading the entire OAB.
• Outlook performs an integrity check on the OAB and tells the user (through an entry in the OAB) if it's corrupted and needs to by downloaded again.
• If synchronization encounters a bad message in an offline folder, Outlook moves it to a Corrupted Items folder and makes no further attempts to synchronize it.

One correction to the last issue of EMO: Exchange 2000 Server requires Windows 2000 Server, not Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Microsoft is including Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server in the Exchange 2000 RC1 kit, however, to give organizations the "richest evaluation experience."