Exchange Messaging Outlook
Volume 5, Number 14

• Office 2000 Service Pack 2
• Security in Outlook 10
• Getting the Parent folder of an unsaved item
• Training schedules for Outlook and Exchange

• New utilities
• Updated utilities
• Other new resources

Office 2000 Service Pack 2

Last week, Microsoft released Service Pack 2 (SP-2) for Office 2000. This is one of those updates where you really want to read the fine print before you download and install it. For complete coverage -- including a list of the fixes for Outlook -- see our page at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2000sp2.htm.

Key points:

• DO NOT install SP-2 unless you understand the implications of the Outlook E-mail Security Update. SP-2 incorporates the features of the security update, including blocking of risky attachments and the "object model guard" that affects how most Outlook add-ins operate. The security features are not optional or customizable. See http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/esecup.htm for complete details on the security features.

• SP-2 requires that you first install Office 2000 Service Release 1/1a. See http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2000sr1.htm for more details on this earlier update.

• After you install SP-2, the Help | About screens in various Office programs will still say SR-1. If you want to know for certain whether a particular Office program was updated to SP-2, you can check the list of version numbers at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q278/2/69.ASP.

• SP-2 cannot be uninstalled. If you install it and decide you don't want it, you must remove and reinstall Office 2000.

• SP-2 contains no new features. Most (but not all) of the fixes it contains have been available from Microsoft Product Support Services as separate hotfixes or interim patches. (This, by the way, is one reason why it's called a service pack, not a service release.)

• DO NOT install SP-2 if you use both Outlook 2000 and Outlook for Macintosh to access an Exchange Server mailbox. There apparently is a problem with SP-2 that makes it impossible to update Inbox rules with Outlook/Mac once you work with rules with Outlook 2000 SP-2.

Security in Outlook 10

Office 2000 SP-2 is the first version to incorporate the features of the Outlook E-mail Security Update, but it won't be the last. Microsoft announced at the Microsoft Exchange Conference in October that the next version of Outlook will include the security update features, but possibly -- just possibly -- with some customization for end users.

Now, Office product manager Lisa Gurry tells us that end-user customization will definitely be in the final product! Here's how it will work: Instead of having .exe, .mdb and other "dangerous" attachments totally blocked by Outlook, users will be able to downgrade security for specific file types. Those files will no longer be blocked, but users will have to save them to a system folder before they can run them. This is the same level of security as in Office 2000 SR-1 and the separate Attachment Security Update, and I think this is a good compromise between safety and utility -- users won't be able to open .exe file attachments directly from Outlook, but will be able to save them to a system folder and run them from there.

More good news: Popular synchronization tools are being updated so that they will no longer pop-up a dialog that the user needs to click in order for sync to proceed.

That's the end of the user customization features, though. Other customization will still rest with the administrative tools available for Exchange Server and HP OpenMail environments. The administrative control will be enhanced in several ways:

• Administrators will be able to use distribution lists on Outlook security control items, rather than having to enter every individual user affected. That alone should make it much easier to manage Outlook security for an enterprise.

• Administrators will be able to specify certain COM add-ins as "safe," thus exempting them from the pop-up messages of the object model guard.

• Administrators will be able to extend the Outlook security control settings to Personal Folders .pst files and deploy different security settings for different versions of Outlook.

Getting the Parent folder of an unsaved item

Independent consultant Tom Beerly posted a great tip on the Outlook developers discussion list (http://www.egroups.com/group/outlook-dev) this week on how to find out what folder an unsaved item will be posted to. When you look at a post item, for example, the destination folder appears in the field labeled In Folder. The actual property is Parent.Name, where Parent is the item's Parent folder.

I'd always thought that it was impossible to get the parent folder, because Outlook always returns the default folder for an unsaved item. Tom's discovery is that if you access the EntryID property of the item (which will always be empty because the item has not been saved), the next time you access the Parent object property, you will get the correct folder, except for MailItem (message) items. With this method, you can put this code in an Outlook form to return the folder where the item will be saved:

strEntryID = Item.EntryID ' empty when unsaved

strInFolder = Item.Parent.Name

The one exception is MailItem (message) items. Before accessing EntryID, they return the Inbox as their parent folder. After accessing EntryID, they return the Outbox as the parent.

The Outlook developers discussion list, by the way, has about 750 members and carries about 10-20 messages a day on practical programming issues with Outlook. You can subscribe by sending a message to mailto:outlook-dev-subscribe@egroups.com.

Training schedules for Outlook and Exchange

Microsoft has made it easier to find a training center that offers the Outlook or Exchange class you need (including the seldom-taught MOC 1593: Building Collaborative Solutions By Using Microsoft Outlook 2000). We have updated our training page at http://www.slipstick.com/training.htm to include links to the schedule for each Microsoft Official Curriculum class. Just click the course number for any of the Microsoft Official Curriculum courses to find out when and where it will be offered. Our thanks to Corbin Mitchell -- another member of the Outlook developers discussion list -- for alerting us to the improvements that Microsoft has made on their training pages.

New Utilities

ORGMAIL
Adds Outlook mail integration to the orgAnice 2.1 correspondence manager. In German, for Outlook 2000 only.
http://www.organice.de/organice/ss/dl/orgmail.htm

Updated Utilities

CYBERSECRETARY FOR MICROSOFT OUTLOOK 2000
Version 1.1 of this productivity tool adds completed appointments to the Journal automatically when you open them, fixes a couple of bugs, and improves performance and Help.
http://www.ivitar.com/cybersecretary/index.htm

MICROSOFT OUTLOOK 2000 SERVICE PACK 2
Major interim update that includes security patches, previous hotfixes and other fixes, but no new features.
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2000sp2.htm

Profile Maker
Version 5.0 of this application-configuration tool adds the ability to configure NetMeeting and Exchange Conferencing Server settings.
http://www.desktopstandard.com/Profile Maker.html

Other new resources

EXCHANGE 2000 SERVER HOW TO GUIDE
Top knowledgebase articles for most common tasks
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/exchange/howtogde.asp

OUTLOOK CUSTOM CATEGORIES FORM
Sample form that uses a hidden CDO message to hold the categories for a folder; very handy technique for any type of folder-specific list.
http://www.cdolive.com/customcategories.htm

TROUBLESHOOTING MESSAGE STORES WITH THE MDB VIEWER UTILITY
How to use Mdbvu32.exe from the Exchange Server CD to explore and troubleshoot an Exchange 4.0 or 5.x message store.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/exchange/technote/mdbview.asp

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Updated Dec 14 2009

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